The importance of being Nobel: Why Indians need to!

I have been quite involved lately in the frenzy surrounding the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama. Before I have readers wondering which side I am on, I want to clarify that even I think that the prize was quite premature. However, not getting further into a topic that has been much debated and much written about, I want to appreciate the symbolism that a Nobel Prize carries and why Indians should think more of getting some.I remember that when I was a kid, I wanted to be a physicist, I wanted to discover how the world works, how nature or nurture plays its part and how the mind of God works. I did a lot of digging into the general stuff about physics, read lots of books by some famous authors who wrote for the general audience but could never get myself past a 12th standard physics textbook forget about quantum mechanics and astrophysics. Soon I realised that it was not for me and chucked all of that to think in an old-fashioned way about making money like most of my predecessors have done. I think I fit in that mould and I am comfortable.
However, there is one little quirk that I still have despite my dissociation from all scientific thought and that is my eagerness to know the names of the Nobel Prize winners every year. I do this partly out of curiosity and partly due to my hopes that someday another Indian will win the Nobel Prize. Thankfully I didn't have to wait for long and this year an Indian won a Chemistry Nobel. I was extremely delighted but I was also sad that the winner did not work in an Indian laboratory, he was working in one of the Ivory Towers of Cambridge where he had access to everything and the freedom to do what he wanted.
I still don't understand why Indians have not woken up to the idea of original thought. That is precisely what the Nobel Prize stands for. It is a celebration and appreciation of original thought! Why is it that after 62 years of independence we still think that original thought and scientific pursuits are a ticket to full-fledged madness???? Why is it that Indians survive and do well not because of the system but despite the system????This world is changing and it is changing fast enough to make all that irrelevant which cannot keep pace with it. We risk becoming irrelevant too if we don't start thinking with a mind of our own and start endorsing sincerely the idea of free thought, entrepreneurial spirit and scientific pursuits. If nothing else, a Nobel Prize can atleast act as motivation for future generations of Indian students to go out, into the wild, and do something original!