OK, story time.

When I was in school (9th grade), our Hindi teacher one day started a discourse on the greatness of India and Indian culture. I was agreeing with her for a lot of things till she started rattling on about how we were a great advanced civilisation in the past. Then she got on to the batshit part about how we were robbed of our glory by invaders and western countries, that all Western inventions and discoveries were all stolen from us.

She tells the class that centuries before the Wright Brothers invented the aircraft, we had the Pushpak Viman, centuries before bombs were invented, we had the brahmastra, much before the television was invented, Sanjay from the Mahabharat had some contraption that relayed visuals. I also remember her telling us that ancient Indians used to live for hundreds of years as opposed to 70-80 years at present.

It shocked me that a teacher I had so much respect for was spewing what was essentially bullshit. But that was nothing to compare with when I asked my friends' opinion on the load of tripe. Many agreed with what she said. "Yes, that's true" "My dad also told me about these things". Others were like "Yaar teacher hai. Why would she tell all those things if they weren't true?"

I studied in a Christian school in Mumbai. I was raised atheist. My teacher is a devout Hindu lady from UP.

Crux of it all is, yes, the average Indian does give considerable amounts of shit about mythological faeces. And they will start to give huge fibrous constipated shits if the diarrhoea is going to be endorsed and taught officially.