RHETORIC OR REALITY: FOCUS ON PER CAPITA

There was a time, I feel sure, when India had nobody who played cricket.

- DILIP D'SOUZA

That was before England brought cricket to India and sparked the craze for the game we now see here. But in those early days when nobody played cricket in India, there were already plenty of people who played it in England. But at some point, after Indians got hooked to the game, certainly our count of cricket players equalled and then overtook England's.

Did we celebrate that moment? Don't worry, it's a rhetorical question.

You and I own companies that both make handmade shoes. Yours is several years older than mine. So when mine started operations, naturally yours was producing far more shoes than mine. But my company is much larger it has recruited 10 times the number of shoemakers that you employ. Inexorably, then, my company catches up to and overtakes the output of yours.

Is either company surprised when that happens? Rhetorical question again.

One final situation for your contemplation. The Agarwal family has mother, father, and two kids, all with large appetites and no interest in exercise. Thus, all four cut rather portly figures. Collectively, they weigh 400 kg (bear with me, this is a thought experiment). Their neighbours, the Manchandas, are far more health conscious-they eat wisely, play football regularly and are all slim and athletic people. They are a larger family than the Agarwals: mother, father and six kids (bear with me again).

In each case, a better comparison might be with "per capita" numbers.

Divide the families' respective weight totals by their count. You find that individually, the Agarwals comfortably outweigh the Manchandas, 100kg to 50kg. So much for a milestone. I don't know how many cricketers England and India, respectively, have-except that India must have many more. But even if India has nearly 20 times as many people, I suspect India's per capita cricketer count is about the same as England's; certainly not 20 times greater.