Going Abroad Vs. Staying in India!

In the seventies and eighties, going abroad was a
very attractive option for IITians. The reasons were
evident-it was very easy to get aid; there were good
prospects for employment and, most importantly,
there was job satisfaction. Indian industry was
conservative, salaries were low and jobs were few.
What has happened in the nineties? The US has been
hit by recession. People who finish their M.S. face
unemployment and are forced to choose between a
programmer's job and doing a Ph.D, a five-year
commitment at the end of which you can't even be
sure of a teaching job (A typical Ad. for Asst.
Professor's job attracts 350 applicants from Ph.D.
holders).

So ask yourselves: ' What do you want to be in
life?... Five years hence..., Ten years hence,....
and in your mid forties.... If you have romantic
ideas of becoming a researcher, I have this to point
out, In thirty years of 'manpower export' to the US,
I am yet to hear of a single IITian stud in any
field of engineering. WHY? Every IITian who goes to
the US discovers , sooner or later , that one cannot
progress in an organisation beyond a stage without
an MBA . One discovers that there is more money in
Wall Street than in Silicon Valley.

And so, the tragic ending to the story is that many
a brilliant brain has been lost to lure of the
lucre. If money is what ultimately matters you can
get it by going to the IIMs (multinationals pay
salaries in lakhs) or to software jobs (dumb thing
to do but, at least, you make a lot of money and
escape gheraos and sweat and toil in the factories
for a pittance of a salary). Exceptions exist for a
few branches of specialization. Consult your friends
in the US for more information on these. For a
majority of specializations, what has been said is
the bitter truth.

Finally the question that comes to the mind is-' Who
should go abroad?' If you are seriously committed to
hi-funda research then, depending on your field, you
may still have opportunities. A warning: Do not fall
for these fields, which, dole out aids by the dozen.
It is quite possible that you are being lured
because the Native American is too smart to step
into a potential career doom.

Another question that needs to be answered is: ‘What
has changed in India?' Economic liberalization,
competitive business, growing awareness of the need
to be competitive at a global level, growing
importance of manufacturing management (many
consulting firms are picking up Engineer-MBA's for
such jobs) and higher salaries for jobs are just a
few facets in which India is changing. A typical
21-year-old IITian simply cannot visualise life in
the mid forties. I hear that people want to return
to India, particularly if they have teenaged
daughters - that is when the difference in culture
and values hits you. You will not understand unless
you actually talk to people in this age group.

So think..., think beyond the immediate goals of
affluence, hi-tech life, spicy surroundings, instant
telephone connections, multi channel televisions...
think beyond affluent universities, hi-funda
facilities, dream world libraries and hi-tech
research. At 45, you cannot, or rather, should not
feel empty even after you get all this. Nobody tells
you that there is a glass ceiling beyond which you
cannot rise in your profession. Nobody tells you
that the choice is often between second-class
citizenship, first class standard of living in the
USA and first class citizenship, second-class
standard of living in India. Nobody tells you that
it feels awfully lonely out there or that many of
them feel within months of reaching here that the
massive investment of time and money on 'apping' was
perhaps not worth it.

Do you know that much of teaching in the US
universities is done by graduate teaching assistants
and by Ph.D. students and not by the Profs.? Do you
know that a few research supervisors may even stoop
to the extent of publishing your research work in
their name with your name deleted? Remember, you
need a certain level of maturity to think of your
priorities-not in today's context but in the context
of two decades hence.

Remember your mom and dad are desperate to send you
abroad because they belong to a society which thinks
that anything from the land of the white man must be
superior. Remember you do not have to go abroad
simply because your friends did so, your cousins did
so or because your parents want you to do so.
Go, if the dirt and squalor of India repels you,
Go, if you want to do nothing about it,
Go, if the corruption and politics make you puke,
And if you do not want to become another T.N.Seshan,
Go, if you think your future is doomed because of
the reservation policy in the country, turning a
blind eye to the fact that no upper middle class kid
is doing menial labour.


TAIL PIECE: Go to the US if you are despo. Xerox
this article, seal it in a cover and take it with
you and send us your feedback.
ALL THE BEST !!