I would like to respond to two letters by Jay E Dyson, 'Sentimental nonsense' (GDN, April 10) and 'Nano nonsense' (GDN, April 16).

Jay, your latter article reeks of American style arrogance and ignorance and your former article gives me a clear understanding of why you have such bitterness, arrogance, jealousy and insecurity. Just like the millions of Americans who are caught in a storm of pornography, teenage pregnancies, divorce, alcoholism, drug addiction, gun violence, child abuse and neglect, junk-food binging.

Americans (not all, but most) tend to lay emphasis on physical attraction, material wealth and getting 'high' over psychological and emotional values.

I am not a bit surprised about the state of the American economy - scores of borrowers, thirsting for ownership of gadgets and fancies that they didn't really need but wanted to show them off to their peers, fell prey to the unscrupulous money lenders.

The undisputedly predominant principle of America is based on instant gratification and siege of power and wealth, as we can see from the illegal wars in Iraq and elsewhere. Who cares if America invented the catalytic converter?

Didn't India invent arithmetic, number system (base 10, decimal, place value), calculus and trigonometry before the Greeks 'borrowed' these concepts via Arab traders and spread them to the rest of Europe?

Read about the great Indian mathematicians like Aryabhatta, Bhaskara, and Brahmaputra (inventor of 'zero').

India also gave Europe 'Sanksrit', which most European scholars admit is the mother of all Indo-European (Aryan) languages.

Why is it that anytime a non-Western country invents or innovates something, you guys have to pull the supremacy flag?

Haven't Indians, Bangladeshis and others contribute so much towards 'western' technology? Amar Bose, Arun Netravali, Vinod Dham, Vinod Khosla, Jawed Karim, Sabeer Bhatia, Subrahmanyam Chandrashekar, Praveen Vishakantaiah, Satyendra Nath Bose, Jagadish Chandra Bose and countless others? I don't really care about Mercedes as my Lexus car and Infiniti SUV (Japanese) look way cooler than any western vehicle, not to mention much more superior in technology and reliability. Majority of Detroit's new models seem to be replicas of Japanese (particularly, Infiniti's) designs of yesteryear. One example: Buick Enclave appears to be a cross of 2001 Lexus RX and 2003 Infiniti FX. Of course, I should note that many of the new designers for Ford and GM responsible for upgrading the styling and technology happen to be of non-European origin. America didn't even invent the automobile, they copied it from Germany. So using the ancient technique of grouping the West as a whole to assert your hegemony (which I am afraid some of my Indian counterparts tend to do as well) will not work in today's global economy. We have a short lifespan on this planet, so rise above your situation and make your own life better instead of whining about everything and belittling others who are different from you. Hint: watch Slumdog Millionaire! A R Rahman's and Resul Pookutty's own rags-to-riches stories should inspire you to change. Samuel Thomas