India Scorecard
Money is just flowing in. A Billion from Intel, a Billion from Cisco, $1.7 Billion from Microsoft, an ICICI public issue or $1.5 Billion to support the Indian credit bonanza …
For a long, long time, Indians, especially middle class Indians looked at America as salvation. Somehow, they would manage to move to the US, get a job, and life would be hunky dory.
Times have changed, and today, middle class Indians in the midst of this enormous economic boom in India, especially in high-tech, often have better quality of life and easier access to employment than their counterparts in the US, who are living under the threat of outsourcing and offshoring.
With this as the back-drop, recently, my childhood friend Nilanjana, who is now a doctor in the UK, went to launch a mentoring program for the students of our high school in Calcutta. She was surprized by the questions from the kids … as if, nothing has changed, and they still think that America offers that cherished milk and honey, and somehow, somehow, if they can manage to go to America, and settle down, then all will be well.
I don’t read Indian newspapers on a regular basis. This has made me wonder, however, what ideas today’s Indian teenagers are growing up with! Does the Media not report on what is happening? Do their parents / teachers not interpret and explain the world they are about to step into? Or worse yet, do the parents / teachers not understand the implications of the global power shift and economic load balancing in the works?
I know I have readers in India. I would love to hear from you on this topic. Please write.
I don’t believe people come to US from India mainly because of professional or educational career. Certainly India needs to have more and more professionally managed educational institutes.
However:
It is cool to say that I went to US and you know the life is awesome!! Things are so open and upfront. The rules are well laid out.
Usually ‘they – the people at my level’ are “rich” so I will also be rich. I saw my father suffering doing so much hard work to just earn enough to feed the family and live a life of a very humble person without much of ‘recreation’. OR I saw my father had so much money but he could never enjoy that! You don’t get those cool gadgets here in India, you know.
SO I told my father that I will stay in US and ‘enjoy life’. What is the fun in staying in India and facing problems every day in all walks of life OR just staying away from the society and create a shell around myself and never try to relate myself with the person on the road? Ah! I certainly LOVE India so I will visit my country and see various place on a vacation trip for sure.
Rather I will go to US and immediately the problems I saw since my childhood are gone! See I am ‘happy’.
I don’t have problem doing anything there for a living. All jobs are respected. Rather people are respected not by the job they do. Awesome!
America sells a dream! A dream of a liberated human being. Because of that dream it is not only India, from all over the world people come here and make the culture versatile. May be very very few people come out of India because they are facing problems in their professional career or educational career nowadays.
When you don’t have a 3000+ years old history, the rules are made more on logic and not on the history. Lots of things are more acceptable.
They come out because of the dream which is sold over different media and by the people who have visited America year after year after year.
Now what do I lose by coming out of India? Well not the discussion topic here. May be later on some other forum.
Well..I guess, the issue is more to do with the cultural aspect than with the economic point. When movies are the basic learning ground for anything now-a-days, and when more and more bollywood films are shot in western countries(never mind they arent America), the impression is still that of the US.
When most of the films are increasingly, foreign based, where the hero/heroine is mostly foriegn educated, its hard to believe that young students would think that India offers such life style.
Here, the Indian films are still rooted in the Socialistic tradition- the villian is usually the Rich(be it farmer- landlord, or the city urban rich), it is hard to think of India as a destination to be!.
While there is still a simmering animosity towards the other rich, everyone in the lower strata wants to be there, n they feel that till they are here, the rich wouldnt let them to arrive!..n they look forward to the US.
There are more than 1 page3 in most newspapers today. I feel many times, there is only page3 in some newspapers. If I am to read such newspapers day in and day out and see similar scenes happening in the foreign location(not in India) in films, my natural tendency would be to think that, I want to be there!
peer-pressure.
When I turned down an opportunity to stay back in Europe and went back home, it was like - “what happened?? did you get thrown out? how could you come back”.
From friends and family alike.
I think I’m enjoying my work, my city, the food …and the women aint half-bad!!
But seriously, the quality of work is so amazing, that apart from a serious enthusiasm in living abroad, I dont see the point.
The other side of the fence is always green.
Indias have been fed with a continous drip of Hollywood, COKE, Cars, high rises, Whites are right…all these create a desire to settle in US of A. The desire grows stronger by the day among the India kids to be in US and settle there.
But once here, the goal reached and life starts on a degradation curve. The desire to go back to motherland and do something productive, charity, entrepreneurial increases every passing year and with increasing fortunes ammassed here, the intangibles like group friends, lesure lifestyle, family networks takeover and surpasses the tangible wealth.
Afterall, the land of opportunities has a reverse pyramid of aging population at its base and younger generation at the top and huge baby boomers set to retire by 2009 when the final show down happens.
Could it be that it was merely Nilanjana’s UK connection that caused the kids to ask these kinds of questions ?
~sumedh
Agreed, Billions of dollars is flowing in into the country. If we think deeply where is this money reaching, it is only making the rich richer, making the urban areas more chaotic leaving the semi-urban and rural areas in almost same economical and underdeveloped state.
Better quality of life, I can’t agree more. (Using your language?)Infrastructure is crumbling in all the metros. High levels of Pollution. High cost for leading even a very basic life. Inflation is tremendous. Commute is taking only longer everyday. The list is endless. Yes, few section of the society has tremendously benefitted. How about the mass ?
I believe, barring few, the section of the society that has benefitted due to outsourcing and current economic growth never had aspiration for America/Western world. Future generation of the benefitted society also will aspire for Western world along with others citing the above issues.
IMHO, what we are experiencing (feel good) may turn out be a small aberration unless WE fix the basic problems.
Well, I cannot speak about the masses, because the school in question is not one where the masses get educated. It is definitely the class that DOES get impacted by outsourcing in positive ways, MNC jobs being concrete stepping stones. So these kids are much more likely to find jobs in India, not abroad.
On the other hand, infrastructure, pollution, commute, traffic - I doubt that kids of this age are driven by issues such as these.
Media, however, is a BIG factor. Bollywood and Hollywood reign supreme as influencers of culture and aspirations. I agree that the message that Capitalism is the only viable solution to the world’s problems - needs to be driven home, and Bollywood does not do so. Neither, for that matter, does Hollywood.
May be, it is time to bring back some Ayn Rand style philosophies and weave them into contemporary stories.
Talking of Ayn Rand it reminds me the best quote (as I believe) in Fountainhead where Howard Roark says to Dominique: “I can die for you, but I will not live for you.” If ‘we the people’ start thinking in those terms, things would certainly be different very soon. However, I doubt how much passion and logic 99% of the people use in their daily lives and careers.
Here’s another Ayn Rand quote from Atlas Shrugged:
“Do you ask what moral obligation I owe to my fellow men? None, except the obligation I owe to myself, to material objects and to all of existence: rationality.
I deal with men as my nature and their demands: by means of reason. I seek or desire nothing from them except such relations as they care to enter of their own voluntary choice. It is only with their mind that I can deal and only for my own self-interest, when they see that my interests coincides with theirs. When they dont, I enter no relationship; I let dissenters go their way and I do not swerve from mine.
I win by means of nothing but logic and I surrender to nothing but logic. I do not surrender my reason or deal with men who surrender theirs. I have nothing to gain from fools or cowards; I have no benefits to seek from human vices: from stupidity , dishonesty or fear. The only value men can offer me is the work of their mind. When I disagreee with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.”