The most frequently asked question that this blog’s contact form gets isn’t “Are you really sure Neo isn’t single?”. No – that distinction goes to “How much money should I save up before returning to India” ?

(While on the topic of being single, here’s a good rule for married men to follow in pubs: When asked by a girl if you’re married, the first word out of your mouth should be some emphatic synonym of “Yes”. As Neo’s friend learned last Sunday during the IPL finals, “Well, .. (silly grin)” is not a synonym of “Yes”. Maybe a really assertive “Well!” could sort of approach a “Yes”, but it’s rather hard to make that case while simultaneously dodging several expertly aimed glasses of cold water from your wife.)

Now that we’ve closed that bracket, back to the question of “how much money..”, here’s the answer: you’re asking the wrong question!

Here’s why:

1. If you’re moving to India, it should be to make money, and to learn

Thinking of India as a quiet place to retire after working abroad is as silly (and obsolete) as the 100-pound TV in Neo’s parents’ house (you know, the kind that sucks so much power, the lights dim momentarily when you turn it on).

Just because everyone is saying it doesn’t make it false. India is becoming the young and upwardly mobile country that you’ve always wanted. So if your “move to India” plan does not have a jargon-free section titled “My personal plan to grow intellectually, professionally and financially by taking advantage of India’s growth” in at least Helvetica (and not Arial) 14 font size, you don’t have a plan! Go back and write a plan!

Your plan will give you comfort when you read it in candle-light at 3am when there is no power, and (like the Pakistani government) you’ve conceded large ‘swat’hes of your body to the invading mosquitoes.

(Actually mosquitoes are not an issue, since everyone has a UPS and “Good Knight” – but still, if Neo can scare away a few potential returnees, he has done his patriotic bit in controlling inflation in India, speaking of which, …)

2. Yes, The Rupee could get even stronger

The fact that the Reserve Bank of India keeps the rupee artificially low (to promote exports) is probably the worst kept secret in India. But in the long run, 1) we are all dead and 2) more importantly a stronger rupee is as inevitable (though not as imminent) as Deepak Chopra’s next meaningless Twit.

If the rupee appreciates, the money you have earned in India (see point 1) will be worth much more in absolute terms, and in terms of purchasing power. (It’s not like you’ve failed to notice Tim Geithner’s unsubtle tossing around (two) dollar bills at banks faster than a desi guy at his last strip dance before getting married).

But there are things in life more important than money, and so ..

3. What’s your time worth ?

For Neo, moving to India was like cleaning his keyboard for the first time: he was amazed at the sheer volume of gunk that was cleaned out from his life. Neo’s household saves 40 hours a week due to all the cooking, cleaning and driving that’s now been outsourced. Also saved are the 911 calls, most famously because Mrs. Neo once decided to oven-heat a pizza in the original cardboard box (in her defense, she was on the phone with Sneha).

This time is worthless if all you’ll do with it is argue even more with your spouse or watch the Big Bang Theory (highly recommended btw). But if you can use it to start a part-time business, teach your kids, or even just to exercise regularly, this time is worth real money. Surely that deserves to be a column in your Excel spreadsheet (but seriously, you should support open source and move to OpenOffice).

4. Finally, the real question is, how much money do you need to move to Ethiopia ?

Neo is all for keeping his kids on their toes by exposing them to new environments – but moving them to India just when they’ve finally figured out how to answer “do you speak Indian at home?”, or “do you speak Hindu?” seems a tad unfair.

So do consider the fact that by the time your slow-train to “enough money” gets to its destination, your kids might have as difficult a time adjusting to India as you would have in adjusting to rural Ethiopia. By then, your net worth in Indian Rupees is as meaningless as that in Ethiopian Birrs, since you’re not going to move to either of those places!

Conclusion

If you are still reading, perhaps you don’t have enough to live the life of a sheikh in India (of course, even sheikhs are suffering and need to be bailed out with your tax dollars).

So if you are still thinking of moving to India and, like a true Internet citizen, you’ve already forgotten what you read 10 sentences ago, here’s the plan in summary:

1. Think of your current savings only as an initial safety net
2. Figure out how to make money in India before you move
3. Invest it according to the experts on CNBC wisely keeping an eye on the long-term dollar-rupee rate
4. Start thinking in terms of purchasing power rather than dollar amounts, and
5. Work towards converting your extra time in India into money and meaning.

And do get a move on. As Neo loves to say, “if you can’t decide, decide quickly”.

Neo is popular with the ladies (well, at least for a few minutes in every party before reality Mrs. Neo intervenes), but there is a notable exception. One of Mrs. Neo’s friends, “Sneha”, hates Neo almost as much as she hated her boyfriend at the time.

The hatred erupted after an especially long whining session discussion revolving around Sneha’s relationship. Neo finally broke his silence despite Mrs. Neo’s “please-don’t-say-anything” look and suggested that Sneha approach her relationship using that most basic of economic principles – sunken costs.

Neo suggested that Sneha should ignore her past efforts to improve their relationship, such as feigning vegetarianism and a love for Carnatic classical music. She should also ignore the fact that in return for her culinary and auditory sacrifices, said hapless boyfriend had barely scratched the surface of Sneha’s desires (e.g. a normal romantic dinner without aggressively reiterating (in English of course) Tamil’s supremacy as the world’s oldest, finest and most mellifluous language).

Instead, Neo suggested that the only thing that Sneha should consider is the expected return on her future investments in the relationship. And that with all due respect to a certain Mr. Obama, hope was not a strategy.

At that point, Sneha decided to channel her inner Heisenberg, and behave as if her issues would not exist if Neo hadn’t point them out – ergo, hatred for Neo. Sneha wanted to believe that the relationship would reward Sneha for all the hard work she had put into it.

Sneha had fallen prey to the gambler’s fallacy – the hope that sustaining large losses in the recent past somehow, all by itself, increases the probability of profits in the immediate future.

So – the excellent 10 years, or the bad 2 years (or both) you’ve had in the US thus far should not be material in deciding whether you should stay on in the US. The more important question is – given all that you know about the US and the other countries that compete for your residency, would you choose the US again today ?

Furthermore, if you did decide to move to India, hated it and decided to move back – the only real cost to consider would be the opportunity cost of not living in the US for the period you were in India. (Young, attractive women like Sneha run huge opportunity costs by sticking with loser boyfriends).

Of course, not all decisions in life need to be approached with sound economic theory. Sneha could have (but notably didn’t) shut Neo up by invoking that terrible clause that has kept great women in terrible relationships since the time of (and including) Sita:  “I don’t care what he does, I still love him, and I’m staying”.

Instead Sneha realized that her relationship was very much an investment that she wanted good (emotional) returns on. And, like Bohr’s horseshoe, economic theory works even if you don’t believe in it.

Soon after, Sneha dumped her boyfriend. Mrs. Neo reports that any of the three men who are now courting (a much fitter-looking) Sneha would be better than the loser she was with earlier.

(Neo still remains hated.)

Feminists had it wrong all along – the Hindu moral policemen are not waging a war on women, they’re actually waging a war for women – as in literally to get women to marry them.

(Neo finds it bizarrely tragic that we even need to have a label like “feminist” – how come we don’t we need a special label for “non-racists” or “non-murderers” or “non-rapists” ?)

But do indulge Neo for a minute and imagine that you are a Hindu moral policeman – and this is your story.

You developed your sense of entitlement early – at home, the boys showed up like kings at mealtimes – and the girls served them. Your mother deferred to your father even when she was right. She was loyal and cooked for him even after she found out about his mistress. It is good to be a man – everything is designed with you in mind.

But college changed everything. You never really figured out why the girls despised you so much. You were nearly kicked out of college for slapping a woman – but she called you a chauvinistic pig! Why couldn’t all women be as nice to you as your mother and sisters were ?

The more you saw modern India, the more disgusted you grew with the sex, drugs and partying that went on. That’s when you started attending the meetings your friends organized every week. Just look at the little sluts. AIDS is God’s way of punishing them.

Yes, you and your friends would change society – the vigilante way. A Hindu moral policeman was born. You were a real man.

Nowadays, there is the occasional but powerful cognitive dissonance. It does niggle your mind sometimes that the world’s most powerful, developed and peaceful countries are correlated with women’s freedom. The most backward, violent and weak countries of the world are characterized with the sort of women’s clothing your group prefers women to wear. So what, India is different. We have morals. Our women need to be dressed differently.

You hate muslims with a passion. But somehow you get this odd feeling of deja-vu when you read about the Taliban. Yes, why would a non-slutty woman need to show her ankles, or dress in jeans ? The Taliban do have a point.

You thought, that after their initial protests, women would welcome you as liberators from the oppressive western regime that was being forced upon them due to peer pressure.

But for some strange reason that you couldn’t figure out, women don’t like you. Which was fine by you, since the feeling is mostly mutual.

The only woman you truly liked was Savita, your pretty neighbor – oh why did she hate you after you slapped her ? Her skirt was too short! You just didn’t want other men to think that she was a slut!

But Savita or not, you do need to get married and have good, cultured kids eventually. Where will the next generation of moral police come from ? Who will reform the women after you are gone ?

That skinny, nerdy classmate of yours, the guy you used to bully, now has a job in a multi-national oil company, travels the world, and has a girlfriend. She proposed to him – on Valentines day. She looks so hot – but you don’t want her because she’s immoral. Except, you really want her. No, she must be a slut.

But the truth is slowly dawning on you – as women get more freedom, the men who respect women seem to get more women! This game is rigged against you.

That is why you hate freedom for women – because there is no way in the world a free woman with an education would ever marry you. Maybe the Taliban have another valid point – stop women’s education – uneducated women are far more likely to marry you because their fathers (and yes, mothers too) will force them to.

Yes – destroy their false, modern confidence. Take away their fleeting financial freedom – so that they will rely on their fathers and uncles to arrange their marriages. Yes, men must have control over marriages, otherwise your society will collapse. Women cannot be allowed to choose.

That is why you are obsessed with women (and not as much with promoting democracy, vegetarianism, Sanskrit, Kathakali or Indian classical music).

That is why you hate Valentines day, and dating – because each woman who dates is a woman who has voted with her exposed legs and walked out of your world.

In a very real sense, your world is collapsing. A world without women is a dead world – its only a matter of time.

Now you realize – yours is not a war on women, its a war for women.

PS: You’re losing.

“Why aren’t you in a more interesting business ?” is not the sort of existential question Neo expects to answer, especially coming from someone interviewing at his company for an entry-level position. But after spending two years in India interviewing people, he has learned to be prepared for anything.

Neo always goes in well-prepared for taking interviews – people at work might be laughing openly at his “flash card” rapid-fire question session, but it really works.

Unfortunately, in India, it seems often that the interviewee is less prepared for the interview than the interviewer!

So, if you are interviewing for a position in Neo’s company, here’s a few things you should avoid saying:

1. “I have 20 years of Java experience” – Very impressive, especially considering the fact that the first version of Java was released only 14 years ago.

2. “I’ll have a Mojito!” – A non-alcoholic drink would perhaps have been a better choice during your lunch-time interview ? But maybe after your Mojito you can tell us exactly how it is that you have only “6 years experience in verbal communication” ?

3. “What’s your flexible hours policy?” Quick question: your résumé states that you want a “party-time” job ? Perhaps you meant “part-time” ?

4. “My email address is hardbanger94@hotmail.com” – Thanks, but we sort of prefer it if your email address is based on your name, instead of your music (or sexual?!) preferences. Also, it’s fascinating that you use hotmail.

5. “Will I get to work on-site?” – On which site ? Maybe you have us confused with a construction company ?

6. “What is the exact title of the job?” – Just for that, we think we’re going to make yours “Junior Assistant Trainee”.

7. “I was born in 1973, in a small town called …” – Here’s a tip: It’s probably safe to skip over your childhood memories (and broken romances) when we ask you to “tell us a little bit about yourself”.

8. “Do you provide lunch ?” – When we ask “Do you have any questions for us?”, we sort of expect questions revolving around the company or the industry we’re in. But no, we don’t provide lunch. And since we haven’t had any malnutrition-related deaths here, we tend to believe our employees are doing just fine.

9. “Sir could you come and meet my mother who’s waiting downstairs ? She’s heard so much about you!” – We’ve just had one phone conversation and now this 20-minute interview. Perhaps we should take our relationship one step at a time ?

10. “Did you know a Venkat in your college batch?” – Doesn’t everyone ? Now can we get back to the coding problem on the whiteboard ? That graph isn’t going to traverse itself while we play six degrees of separation!

11. “What exactly does your background check include?” – If you need to ask, we doubt whether we’ll need to check your background.

12. “Your HR lady is pretty!” – Yes, she sort of got your point: when she asked you about your chief weaknesses, you answered “pretty women” – and winked at her. BTW, she’s not an “HR lady”, she’s the CEO of our India office.

Yes, interviewing is stressful and everyone goofs up. But a little bit of common sense (such as “don’t wink at the CEO”) will go a long way in helping you land your dream job at Neo’s company.

(*Many details have been changed to avoid embarrassing people who really deserve to be embarrassed.)

The last thing Neo wanted to do after a harrowing day at work was to read about sex with animals, or about superintendents of jails having sex with their inmates. But there really was no escape.

It all started with Neo’s reputation for being an “Internet expert” in his family – his grandmother thinks Neo invented Twitter – neither Neo nor the 50+ people she has bragged to has had the heart to correct her.

Unfortunately, this time, Neo’s Internet expertise failed him. Much to the disappointment of Neo’s uncle, he couldn’t find a suitable bride for his  unmarriageable choosy cousin online.

Most single women ignored Neo’s solicitations on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Actually, two women did respond, but that was because they thought the bride was for Neo – Mrs. Neo was outwardly outraged but privately proud (yes, Mrs. Neo is so poetic even her emotions are alliterative).

Undeterred, Neo decided to check out shaadi.com, but then quickly got distracted by shaadi.com’s “women seeking women” section – which was odd since it doesn’t exist.

Could it be that there were no gay people in India ? As it turns out, they are all either in jail, or fugitives – the erotically titled “unnatural sex offences” part of Section 377 of the Indian penal code makes gay sex (along with rape and sex with animals) punishable at worst by life imprisonment. (Neo’s close, mostly single, gay friends don’t realize the tragicomic irony when they tease Neo’s marriage as being “life imprisonment”.)

Neo is no lawyer, but it does seem that rather than trying to criminalize normal, private, consensual activity between two adults, the government could be more helpful by banning actual deviant behavior like making sex noises while working out in the gym! (Now you know why Neo’s in-ear noise-cancelling earphones cost him more than his ipod.)

Anyhow, one of Neo’s gay friends pointed out that he doubted  the prison cell allocation algorithm was smart enough to make sure that two gay people are not imprisoned in the same jail cell, which might sort of defeat the purpose of their incarceration in the first place (and before the gay convicts get any ideas, there is a special clause (376C) for the “superintendent of jail having sex with the inmates – yes, porn movies plagiarize too!).

Neo’s evening studying India’s “unnatural sex” laws ended on a positive note – the Indian Penal Code is more tolerant (in a “wink wink” sort of way) towards lesbians. It defines “sex” in terms of intercourse – so an Indian lesbian woman on trial can always claim, rather self-evidently – “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!”