Kalyan everything is relative. When author says that India was Bird of Gold a few centuries ago then it is not just an simple exaggeration. You know when Industrial Revolution was in its prime in late eighteenth century, India and China with out any of the fruits of Industrial Revolution together had a share of more than 50% in world trade with India herself cornering around 28% of that alone. Today this position is not even held by US of A. So you can easily imagine India's economic status in those days. If we talk about Per Capita Income then a country's mega cities is the best parameter to judge that. You will find innumerable accounts by first of the westerners when they arrived in India about how Calcutta was better than Paris or London of that time. Understood that income spread was not uniform but when you compare it with other Western nations of that time, India's situation was lot better than theirs. Just to end with a statement and this is no exaggeration (supported by BBC only), there was a time when rich is England were identified as ones who used to have tea in bone-china wares and used to wear good quality cotton.
