The Grass on the Other Side

A recent BBC study indicated that 81% of Indian youth want to leave the country for greener pastures abroad.
Now that is an alarming statistic, or so it appears if presented outside of the Indian context. One would be lead to believe that there is a serious trouble brewing in India or a serious problem like a famine or an epidemic that people are trying to escape from.
In fact I was surprised to find from the same study that only 50% of Iraqi youth want to emigrate despite the hellish conditions there at the height of insurgency and ethnic conflict.
So what is it that is making the Indian youth look outside when India is purportedly making enormous progress and people are getting richer in absolute terms, not just the “purchasing power parity” dissimulation? As usual there are no simple answers for questions like these. I am sure sociologists, economists, political analysts, technocrats and others would have their own take on this. I have the luxury of being none of the above so I can postulate outside of any framework. I have been fortunate to have come in contact with Indians living all over the world - US, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia and other lesser known places but I am still to meet an Indian expatriate who does not want to go back, with the possible exception of the “off-shoot” Indians living in Trinidad, Fiji, Mauritius and West Africa of which I know a few who still have ties back home.

I routinely take BART train from Fremont to San Francisco. If you board the train from Fremont or when the train gets near Fremont station on the way back and if you look around you will find that most of the passengers are Indians. In fact Fremont station in the morning hours looks no different from Delhi’s many metro stations, as far as ethnicity goes. What is different though is the fact that people do not talk to each other much. If you find people talking then more often than not they will either be talking on their cell phones or it would be a group of “consultants” fresh from India.
Hard as it was, I was still able to break the ice with a fellow commuter who kept similar times like mine, frequent eye contact led to smiling nods which led to occasional “hello” and brief chit chat. His name was Vivek and he came from Lucknow.
On one such commutes I broke into a conversation with him.

“When did you come to US?”

“Almost 5 years ago” – Vivek replied

“And do you intend to go back?”

“Oh absolutely! No question about that. In fact when we came to US we had not planned to stay on for this long”

“Why?” – I asked

“I am on H1B visa here, on temporary basis, me and my wife’s extended family is all in India. We have no ties to this country except this job that I have. Besides things are changing in India very fast and now there is hardly any difference in saving potential here and back home. It is just a matter of time for us”

“Haven’t you applied for the green card?” – I asked

“Yes we have but that process is a long drawn out, even if we get the green card we may still go back. We belong there.”

“What attracted you to US in the first place?” – Even though I knew what motivations the work visa holders have, I still asked him.

“Oh you know of course, easy money, I mean comparatively. I was earning a decent salary in India, but the money here really flows and if you save enough you will have more than you could ever imagine getting back home”

“Is it still the money that keeps you here?”

He considered for sometime before replying.

“Well, when we first came to states we did not like much here. Everything was different, even the damn light switches were upside down. [chuckled]. But then as time passed we began to like the setting, it kind of grows on to you. Life is so easy here....and then there is respect and freedom, you could go to the post office and be assured that you will not have to wrestle in a line like in India, only to be treated badly by the clerk. Freedom to walk up to the police patrol car in the middle of the night if you are lost on the road and not fear being hassled like in India, even mugged! Buy milk for my kids and not worry about urea in it. It is these countless little things that we know we will miss in India. No it is not just about the money anymore

“But will you still go back?”

“Yes, sure, sometime in not too distant future” – He smiled.


My job has taken me to many places on the globe, last year I had to make several trips all over Europe. On one of those business trips I added a couple weeks of vacation in remaining of the Western Europe. I was not at all surprised to see a lot of Indians in Europe, despite a little more conspicuous racial discrimination, Europe remains the third most attractive destination after Gulf and the US.

US was the first foreign country in which I ever lived outside of India and so my mental image of “foreign” Indians was that of mostly white collared techies driving their Civics, Accords and Camries with occasional Beamers. My first “cultural” shock was the blue collared Indians in Scandinavia, it may have been just a co-incidence but all the janitors I came across in Sweden were from India. A similar pattern is evident in almost all European countries with UK at the forefront.

One thing that Indians like me do whenever they are 50 miles out of their homes is to look for an Indian restaurant. In fact we carried printouts of directions to Indian restaurants in all the cities we visited.
One night we went dining to an Indian restaurant in Amsterdam. It was perhaps a family owned and managed restaurant as the girl that came over to our table to take the order resembled the gentleman at the cash counter. We were still looking at the menu when she approached us

“Wat kan ik u krijgen?”

“I am sorry we do not speak Dutch.” – I said, hoping her to switch to English or Hindi. She smiled and said – “Wait” and went back into the kitchen. Few minutes later another girl, a little older, came to our table who spoke accented English.

It was getting a little late and most of their guests had either left or were on their way out. The man who manned the cash counter walked over to us and pulled a chair from the adjacent table.

“How is the food?”

“Excellent, in fact we were not expecting to find such a nice place here in Amsterdam. Since when do you have this restaurant?”

“For about 20 years now. My father had a restaurant in Punjab and I sort of carried on the tradition here in Holland”.

“And that is when you came to Netherlands?”

“Yes, I first went to UK from India but soon thereafter moved to Holland”

We talked for a long time about his life here in Netherlands and how he is settled in his adopted country, how running an Indian restaurant is a challenge in Netherlands as his groceries come all the way from UK.

“Do you ever plan to go back to India?” – I asked.
I probably touched a chord in him as his expression changed; a strange mix of emotions swept his face.

“Initially I wanted to go back for a long time. In fact I still hope to go back. We could perhaps open an exotic European dining place in Delhi” – He was imagining as he was talking, his face lit up for a second.
“But it will be very difficult transition for us, particularly for my family. My son and one of my daughters were born in Holland, they speak Dutch and there is hardly anything Indian about them, plus we are used to the comforts and lifestyle of this place. I could settle there, but for my family even an occasional visit to India once in 2-3 years is tough. Slowly we are losing touch with India.” – He grimaced.

“What prompted you to emigrate in the first place?”

“In those days life was very difficult in India, there were no jobs. I am an arts graduate but I used to work with my uncle on his farm as I could not get a job. Even people whom I know who had jobs could hardly eke out a living.”

“And now even when things have changed in India, you cannot extricate yourself from your life here, even when you want to?” – I asked.

“Yes, at first we thought of going back when we had enough money to open a nice restaurant in Delhi, then we thought we would go back in 5 years, then it became 10 years and before I knew it I became a non-Indian.... Oh! How much I miss India” – He let out a deep sigh and evaded looking at me perhaps concealing his moist eyes.