Shock laga kya ?
by neo
Neo’s relatives in India were shocked when he moved to India (“oh but he is so Americanized!”, “he will move back within six months, just watch!”, “Don’t let Sonali be influenced by him, she will also become atheist and then who will marry her?”).
The poor relatives were even more hopelessly surprised when they found that Neo passionately advocates people moving to the U.S., especially for the right sort of educational or career opportunity!
Is this a contradiction ? Absolutely not! The reason that Neo moved to the US 15 years ago is almost the same reason he moved to India – for the challenge, the once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunity and the sheer rut-busting, conventional-wisdom-challenging excitement of the move!
Indeed, the Neo family considered all the Brazil was eliminated because Mrs. Neo thought Neo has an unhealthy appreciation for the beauty of Brazilian women. Russia was eliminated because Mrs. Neo thought Neo has an unhealthy appreciation for Vodka and China eliminated because Neo really wanted to be able to write this blog without the Great Wall of China filtering it.
The point is – moving to India is not going to cure your unhappiness, it probably won’t make you richer, and it certainly won’t feel like home either! And while Neo swears by his awesome maids, many question Neo’s claim that even the maids will really save you 40 hours per week.
(And sadly for those moving to India for religious reasons, the closest Neo has ever come to Nirvana has not been in India, it’s been in the US, when he took a few yoga classes in the Bay Area with apparently the entire Spartan cheerleading team.)
But if you are looking for a way to pull yourself out of your comfort zone, (re)connect with India’s burgeoning, globalized next generation, watch the birth of a new digital revolution, and boost your brain’s creativity – the University of India might be the place for you!
So, shock laga kya ?
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Nice Ad. I am sure it is going to be a whole lot of shock and learning that we need to do to room ourselves when we R2I. We are leaving for a month’s trip tomorrow to catch up with some of that shock. Will see how that goes.
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Hi Charu,
All the best. Just remember it gets better with time. Take the first month easy, and have some fun amidst all the chaos.
-Neo
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ok, which yoga center in bay area?
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This was actually at SJSU. Like on the campus. They had this summer thing.
And it’s a testament to my poor flexibility that I cannot do the lotus pose even to stay in the class with 20 cheerleaders.
I can run. I can lift weights. I cannot convince my body it’s a Möbius strip.
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Ok, I only have one question. Until, how long are you going to have the title as Confessions of a ‘newly’ returned Indian. How many more days until you make call it let’s say ‘Confessions of a ‘newly’ returned Indian, who is not ‘newly’ returned anymore’
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@Dinesh – Or I could just change the title to “Confessions of an Indian”, which would not be a very interesting blog to read now, would it ?
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Well even The Unknown Indian got enough readers, didn’t he? Or do you have something against Nirad Chaudhary?
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@Shefaly @Dinesh
Well “newly returned Indian” was supposed to be a play on “NRI”, like I’m no longer an NRI, but I’m still an “NRI”. Like some Schroedinger’s cat thing. It seemed really witty at 2am.
Oh darn. I think I need a new tagline. There goes the next month.
-Neo
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Aditya and I will probably be moving to India in the next ten years, but not in the next five, for exactly the reasons you mention. Right now the US is by far the best places for our careers – it’s more common in our fields for young people to be able to rise quickly in the US, for instance. Once we’re a bit more settled, India might be the best place for a challenge (altho who knows what things will look like in five to ten years).
This post sort of reminds me of Sharell’s recent post on how moving to India has helped keep her challenged.
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Hi Gori Girl,
Yes, and it’s awesome that you’ve thought of this already. There’s probably this window between 10 and 15 years of “work experience” (I hate that term) where many people tend to take their foot off the accelerator and start “cruising” on their past laurels. That can be deadly to a career. Although you don’t have to necessarily switch countries to rejuvenate your career. Have you lived in the Midwest ? That might be more of a shock than moving to India ?
And yes, in 10 years, who knows ? I’m actually very optimistic on India in that time frame. But it might not be a bad idea to learn Mandarin as a backup plan.
-Neo
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I went to college in the grand state of Indiana, which was recently (accurately) described in a quote in the Economist as being “the middle finger of the South thrust into the North.” But the Hoosiers consider themselves Midwestern, so I guess you could say I’ve done my time in the Midwest.
I think Aditya would divorce me if I wanted us to move back to that area of the country, unless we were living in a university town like Bloomington, Indiana, or Chicago. And even then he’d bitch about the weather and the whiteness non-stop. I’m not sure I should have ever let him get a taste of Silicon Valley living – it raised his expectations too much for the rest of the US.
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Good post and thanks for sharing the shock laga video. Some of the Indian commercials are hillarious. I watch them on youtube all the time. Speaking of which, here is my personal favorite ( although couple of years old, but really witty)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHByZLDbPiw
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Why look at ads when you can look at real life? (Squeamish ones, please do NOT look.)
http://bit.ly/18Gjb9
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I think I earned my PHD from the university of India and I am all set to move back after 2 wonderful years here in India.
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@yad
Wow has it already been 2 years ? When are you moving ?
-Neo
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I am moving first week of august.
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Hi yad,
Let me know how it goes! Good luck!
-Neo
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//But if you are looking for a way to pull yourself out of your comfort zone [...] and boost your brain’s creativity – the University of India might be the place for you!//
Which one? The Chhatrapati Shivaji University, The Chhatrapati Shivaji University or The Chhatrapati Shivaji University? Oh and there’s The Chhatrapati Shivaji University too!
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and how can you forget Chhatrapati Shivaji University ?
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Neo,
Sort of off topic..what is the best way to send SMS messages to India? Folks are with BSNL.
Thanks!
-Mallika
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Hi Mallika,
Sorry, no clue. Doesn’t Yahoo messenger have a free SMS thingy ?
-Neo
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You claim to be “Global Citizens”. What does that imply? Are you trying to say the people like me who live in India are backward,ignorant fools?
Well I feel despite having been born and raised in India these eighteen years, I have a much broader mind and am more of a “Global Indian” than the author and the others who post condescending remarks about India here all the time.
According to me, the biggest trait of a “Global Indian” is:
Acceptance of the fact that every society has drawbacks. You talk about bad roads, dirt,poverty,etc. Are you saying America is Paradise?
Wherever you’ve lived, you’ve been cloistered in affluent neighbourhoods. So you can never understand poverty, nor can you connect with the masses anywhere.
You can never understand the hardships faced by the inner-city woman struggling to get foodstamps for her children, you can never understand the hassles an average Brooklyner has to tolerate everyday, you can never understand the plight of the victims of America’s (sometimes)atrocious criminal justice system.(www.wardandfontenot.com) Have you ever bothered to do something about the skyrocketing number of homeless in DC?You are aloof,closed in your Indian communities there.
I’d been to America when I was 14, and I loved it. There is respect for talent and the people are hardworking(You claim to know them, but I doubt you’d ever meet them. They are the taxi-drivers,restaurant waiters,students working in ice-cream parlours parttime. You won’t find such people in your gated communities. Even if you do,I guess you’d consider it below your dignity to interact with them.)
India is home to millions of such people. Struggling against odds to live a better life. Right from the child selling bananas on the road to the urban houswife starting a tree-plantation programme in her society(different from gated communities.People know each other here. And worse, they are INDIANS,filthy Indians.)
You claim to have had the “best of both worlds”. I think you have only inherited the worst in both cultures. From here, you have inherited a superiority complex, having origins dating back to the Vedic period, when the caste-system was introduced. As for America , all you seem to know about her is Starbucks,lavish parties,six-figure-salaries,and a cossetted existence.
I met a lot of wonderful people in America. Really nice people. I made many friends. I have friends in Pennsylvania,Georgia,Ohio, and Boston. I’m grateful to them for having enlightened me on the finer aspects of America and I suppose they are grateful to me since I told them many interesting things about India, good and bad. Compare this camaraderie of a normal American or a Jamaican to the disgusting stare of an Indian-American Telugu fellow who refused to talk to me because “We hate Tamils”(No, I’m serious.) Or just as you admitted,an American of Indian origin asking me “sheevaaji choke kidhaar haaay” thinking I’m a “slumdog” who can only understand Hindi.
So judging by these experiences, I can say I’m much more of an American than you guys are.
I’m also a lot more Indian.
I can interact more freely with an average Joe in DC than you, I can interact with American students to mutually solve our problems. At the same time, I can return to live here in India, argue with the rickshawallahs, get jostled in Mumbai locals and maybe try to do something about the pollution and traffic jams rather than moaning about it on some stupid blog.
Well all I can say in conclusion is people don’t care about “NRIs” anymore. All I have noticed is a general indifference and sometimes even annoyance. It is very irritating when you complain about bad roads yet don’t do anything about it, or when you complain about racism in the US without making an effort to talk to an American.(trying not to ask how many doctorates he has)
It is now cool to be Indian. I eat pizza, listen to eminem, love McDonald’s,wear the latest branded clothes.
Yet I’ve attended a middle-class “pathetic Indian school” and live in a housing colony with fellow filthy Indians whom you abhor. I am going to attend a typical “pathetic Indian” college and all I can say is,
India is cool \m/* and if you’re so bloody unhappy here, go back. People like you and the Mitra Kalita types are probably not needed here at all.
*\m/(It’s the hippie symbol for world peace, I think. I find it cool. You must have come across it in the States.)
Peace.
PS: It is funny you people make such a noise about schools and colleges when you yourself studied in such institutions. Well I can understand if you don’t want your kids to become CCLDs(Confused Condescending Lethargic Desis) like you
.
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Hi Akshay,
Just wanted to thank you for addressing all of “us” NRIs in the same comment – after all, “people like us” are all the same – all 30 million of us.
-Neo
PS: We tried all living in the same gated community but we couldn’t agree on the correct shade of beige for the walls.
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Ha, good one, sir. I love sarcasm,even it is directed at me
That’s why you saw so much of it ^,maybe
So what exactly did you find offensive?
I apologize if I sounded “stereotypical”. But I guess you know which section of the diaspora I’m referring to. Obviously I’m not talking about the Indian taxi-drivers,labourers,cooks, nurses. I’m not describing the labourers and menials living(?) in the middle-east.
I know there are many “NRIs” trying to make things better in India, and I don’t say coming back to live here is a must. I personally don’t see anything wrong in living abroad for a good career.
What I don’t like is this refugee attitude among many of these people, and I find some of them here. The way they speak suggests that they’ve just escaped a war-zone. The things they complain about are understandable if they are from an African or a Serbian. But when I see Indians whining like that, I take umbrage. Simply because they are also a part of the problem.(Mujhe aisa lagta hai, period. You are elder but I don’t see why I should rationalize or justify that to anyone. Even my own parents argue with me on this many times.)
Please don’t forget that it is India where you got such an opportunity to live in America.This is where the educational-institutes thing really galls me .And I think I’ve described well enough why you should not talk about things like poverty when you have never experienced it yourselves.
Thanks, and again I apologize if I it sounded offensive to anyone. Maybe I’m not old enough to talk about these things. If you think so, just dismiss this as the ravings of a bored Indian schoolboy with an irrational(?) sense of patriotism. I guess many of you would have done that already.
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Hi Akshay,
I’m impressed! At 18, I barely knew how to use a pencil-sharpener. You already understand sarcasm! I’d say the next generation is in great shape (one of the reasons I returned to India).
Of course there are NRIs who stereotype India – it’s not like you’re imagining things. However (and I only say this because you asked), it’s perhaps more educational to study their stereotypes from a sociological perspective rather than an emotional one, because of the following rule:
Neo’s rule of stereotyping: “Often stereotypes reveal more about the stereotyper (stereotypist?) than the stereotypee.”
I’ve had a draft post forever on stereotyping, but I didn’t post it because I thought I was stereotyping the stereotypers, which of course (by applying the rule above) would reveal more about me than about the stereotypers.
-Neo
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Hah. I will not speak on how long it took to write my stereotype post, but it was a painful writing process.
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Very nice write-up even though I didn’t understand many parts of it
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Thanks for the link, by the way. Enjoyed reading it.
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[...] Live in India to see how you like it [...]
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