Skip to main content

Indian Child Is The Father of American Man

     My Facebook timeline these days is currently full of these things:
1. Hilarious animal videos/memes of fake Godmen getting ripped apart
2. People my age getting engaged/married
3. ___ *aeroplane emoticon* is travelling to ____, United States from Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Terminal T2 - Mumbai. - feeling excited *happy face emoticon*
    The third type of posts is usually accompanied by pictures of their family and friends coming to see them off, as they go off across the oceans, to live the American Dream. But 4-5 months later these very people land up on my timeline frolicking at a local pub in Khar or Andheri. 4-5 months away from home? It does not seem too different from when I was studying engineering in Pune. 
     I'm not going to argue how bright Indian minds should stay in the country and utilise the opportunities here, or how the very 'dream countries' they are dying to go to will soon start vomiting them all out due to an overburden on them. Much has been talked about it earlier, yet every year we see a surge in the number of Indian graduates going abroad for higher studies to absolutely any university or course they get. Why the compromise? Why not live in your motherland, flourish here, help the economy here grow and make it a dream nation for people other than terrorists?
     I've probably drawn a lot of flak for this comment, from both - Indians studying abroad, and terrorists, and probably even more for using the two in the same sentence, but that is how it is. Globalization has hit us with its positive effects and negative effects alike. Positively, the job opportunities we have in India today are hardly any different from the ones abroad. Indian companies and the MNCs operating in India are focusing on going global, and it is almost like working abroad, while still being in India. Why work the same amount, for the same job profile in a different country? For a higher pay, you might argue. But isn't the cost of living abroad higher too? Plus, God knows how long the danger of you being deported or losing your Visa status looms over your head, which is already burdened with work pressure. Like it or not, India is the only country which will never ask you, "How long do you intend to live in this country?"
     I certainly do not seek to bring the Indians settled abroad back to India, nor do I mean to discourage those preparing for their GREs, GMATs, TOEFLs, IELTSs and what not from studying. Living in India may not present itself as a very rosy picture, and that is where the negative effects of globalization begin to show in our younger generation.
     What this generation wants is to be well fed and cared for until the end of their days, but they also want the freedom that their American counterparts enjoy. Seldom do they notice that this perceived freedom is because most American children move out of their house at an age no later than 18 years. Whether it is to become a scientist or a punk rockstar, their 'freedom' is actually their 'independence'. To enjoy the free will that they do, our children should be prepared to bid adieu to the care and safety net that awaits them at home after they get back from their parties.
     I am not saying our whole generation is corrupted with this bug, but it forms a major chunk of the high potential, well educated population that can make or break the country's future. One of the nation's most beloved Presidents, or the most beloved I daresay - Dr APJ Abdul Kalam always maintained that he was very happy that he completed his entire course of education in India. Imagine, the very nation you are so keen to leave, made the legend whose birthday - May 26, is celebrated as National Science Day in Switzerland.
     No leader, no matter how dynamic and strong he is, can lead a country to progress if its very population doesn't want to progress. If half of our population is decadent and the other half is waiting to cross that yellow line at emigration, we might as well start calling ourselves the Red Indians, after all, all roads seem to be leading us to the same fate.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Three Wise Men and the Unrelenting Power of Communication

A few weeks ago I was at a restaurant with my parents. Like every other modern family, we buried our faces in our smartphones after the waiter was done taking our order. Having read that constant phone face-burial can cause neck problems, I habitually raised my head to stretch my neck, before going back into aforementioned phone face-burial. But before that, I glanced at three men sitting at the table next to ours. At the first sight, it was any three middle-aged friends reuniting over beer and chicken. It was then that I noticed something strange about them. They were not using words, instead their hands and faces to talk to each other. Noticing the number of empty beer mugs on their table, I figured this could be a novel drinking game they were playing - no words, only dumb charades. But the sight intrigued me so much I could not take my eyes away from them. Thanks to the humdrum service of the restaurant, I still had about half an hour before my food could take my eyes and ears
Post a Comment
Read more

Own Your Vice, and then Overcome It!

It is a little too early in the year to talk about Christmas, but for this topic I believe I can take the liberty to at least quote a line, albeit prematurely. One of my favourite stories while growing up was Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’. For those of you who do not know the story, it is about a greedy hardhearted miser Ebenezer Scrooge who has an eerie yet impactful experience on Christmas Eve. He wakes up to meet three ghosts, and each of these meetings leads him to becoming a changed man. I will not delve deep into the story, but one of the lines from the story that made an ever-lasting impact on me was said by the first ghost who visits Scrooge: "I wear the chain I forged in life," the Ghost says. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it." Habits are a chain we forge in life - a chain that can pull us down, or lift us up. It is very important to know that we ourselves are
Post a Comment
Read more

Tanuj Nabar and the Deathly Phoenix Fire of the Half-Blood Prisoner's Stone Chamber

                       None of my friends actually understood my obsession with Harry Potter-the world's favourite bespectacled boy wizard. There's a small but significant reason behind why I like the series so much, despite having read every book just once front to back (albeit I've watched every movie at least 50 times). The story goes 9 years in my past, to the year 2001, even before the first Harry Potter movie was released. I'd just been "blessed" with a pair of ugly, dark brown eyeglasses, similar to the ones worn by Harry. I never really got a chance to wear them in school...most of the time they would be an object of playing catch-catch by a few tall bullies in my class. My untidy, fast growing hair earned me many black remarks in my school diary, and I wasn't very happy with the domination I faced because of my small size.                       And then came Harry Potter, smashing the Indian movie screens on 12th April, 2002, and slowly
Post a Comment
Read more