Jan 2005
There is this group in India, who are sometimes jokingly called "The abandoned parents brigade". More and more of our young ones have found a life away from home in this land of opportunity called America. Left behind are parents growing old, reaching the years of vulnerability and longing greatly to have their children and grandchildren around them, in their sunset years. Their children urge them, "Come to America. Come and live with us. Come at least for six months." Reluctant to leave all that is familiar behind them, nervous about leaving their home untended, but joyful at the thought of a reunion they long for, you decide to make the journey.
The journey begins, in fact, in the crowded hall of a cold and somewhat hostile American consulate, or embassy. Queuing from the early hours of the morning, tired and apprehensive, the first taste of America is usually the Indian at the counter, who can be rude and abrasive and acts as if he is protecting his own "homeland" from all unwelcome invaders. Once past that hurdle, the next leg of the odyssey begins, strapped into a airplane seat, with little room to maneuver, for sixteen long hours. At last you are at your final destination and you Queue wearily once again, to clear immigration. Forewarned, you forget to mention on the customs declaration form, the pickles and papads and home made goodies you are carrying for your loved ones. Almost like a magnet, the customs officials seem to single out Indians for special attention, because they know only too well that Indians carry food to this land of plenty. "How long are you coming for? Why are you coming?", the questions are fired at you, as penetrating eyes switch from your face to passport and back again. "Well" you say chattily, "My daughter is having a baby". "Oh you Indian mothers", he exclaims "thats all you seem to do, come here for babies. What do American girls do?" What indeed?
And there at last, as you wheel your trolley out of those doors, is your family, smiling, waving, so happy that you are here at last and they no longer need to have a guilt complex about lonely parents back home. Their home is two hours away and you dutifully admire your sons foreign Japanese car; unaccustomedly strap yourself in with a safety belt and then go into complete shock as he heads down the freeway in the "wrong side" of the road, at some unheard of speed. "Only two hours away, not far" you are told. You stop en-route for "gas", not "petrol" and the big American fast food experience, before entering American suburbia.
There it is finally, the house you have seen before in so many photographs and proudly displayed to all your friends and relatives, to see and admire. It is fall and the leaves are turning all shades of Orange and Gold, and it is really quite beautiful. You are so proud, your son is only thirty five years old and he has his own home and two cars and modern conveniences, you can only dream about in India. Clinging to the walls are the familiar aromas of good Indian cooking and the artifacts and cushion covers you have sent from time to time, adorn the home and bring a touch of India to the home. Friends, all Indian, drop in all weekend to welcome you, till you find yourself more and more weary, as you give in to Jetlag and total exhaustion.
It is a week later and you have kind of got used to seeing your daughter-in-law get into her European clothes to go to work; the grand children with their strange American accents, calling you granddad and grandmom and wanting to know if there are really Tigers in India. It is also so funny the way your children switch accents. You know immediately when they are talking to an American, or to an Indian, on the phone. For a week you sit in front of the large Telly, watching strange programmes, as the house stills and grows quiet when your family leaves, five days a week, from eight in the morning till five in the evening, unrelentingly. You slowly learn how to operate the many machines in the house and learn how to shut off the fire alarm, which seems to respond noisily to Indian cooking. You learn to reorient the way you cook, and you begin to cook in right earnest. The family is so appreciative and in any case what else is there to do? You see the solitary old Indian gentleman, sitting out on the kerbstone everyday, staring vacantly into nowhere, thinking of India no doubt. "Where are the people"? he says. "Everyone is so friendly, they all say, Hi how -are ya .. ?" But are gone even before I can respond. No one has time here", he reflects sadly.
Two months later and you miss home, though in your heart you tell yourself again and again, home should be where your loved ones are. But really it is not. You miss the sights and sounds and smells of India, like an ache inside yourself. There is no news of India on the Telly, or the newspapers, except a disaster report now and again. Forget about that cricket tourney in Sharjah. India does not exist for America, or barely so. On Sundays, as if to compensate, there is an hour long program and thousands of Indians all over America, treat it like the holy hour, soaking in snippets of old news and song and dance sequences, like people starved and hungry for their homeland.
Weekends are for living. The time to travel; to do the Niagara thing; (averting eyes from all the other fellow Indians you see there), to go to the cineplexes; the malls, to gaze in wonderment at the shopping extravangza, the like of which you have never seen before. Choices are difficult, just because there is so much choice. Like going to the supermarket and looking at forty brands of cereal and wondering what makes one different from another. You save newspapers and those beautiful tins a bottles, out of sheer habit, till your daughter in law, to your total dismay, puts the lot, unceremoniously, into the garbage can. You miss the Indian markets, the bargaining, the seasonal vegetables and fruits; The easy choices and the familiarity of everything you buy and everything you do. The cheery "have a good day", sounds nice, but do they mean it? You are unsettled by strangers talking to your children and not to you, as if your Indian clothes signaled that you could not speak their language. Your children have a life here, but are you really a part of it? Like them, you are caught between worlds, but they are young enough to make the transition into this world, while missing the one they grew up in. You are too old and too set in your ways, to bridge the gap.
American suburbia is a lonely place. Cut off from people, from big city life, it revels in its isolation. To get out of it, you must be able to drive, or you are trapped. It is not as if you can catch a bus or train, or hail a cab to go anywhere. You have become totally dependant on your children for your sustenance, for your entertainment, for companionship and in fact, for everything you need. This is what defeats you in the end. After three months, with a heavy heart and a certain amount of guilt, you decide to return home. You will come again every two years or so, but maybe for two months, not more. The next time will be easier, because you understand this culture better and your children's place in it. But though you make the small adjustments, like wearing sneakers, even with your saree and saying "Have a good day", to the lady at the supermarket, you know and your children know, that in America, YOU ARE HOME ALONE, and home for you will always be in India.
- Mrs. Nomita Chandy
Written while in Philadelphia, USA
Monday, December 17, 2007
NRIOL.COM - NRI Experiences
1999
My America - By RK Narayan
At the American Consulates the visa issuing section is kept busy nowadays as more and more young men seek the Green Card or profess to go on a student visa and many try to extend their stay once they get in. The official handles a difficult task while filtering out the "permanents" and letting in only the "transients". The average American himself is liberal-minded and doesn't bother that more Indian engineers and doctors are swamping the opportunities available in the country possibly to the disadvantage of the American candidate himself.
I discussed the subject with Prof. Ainslee Embree of Columbia University who has had a long association with Indian affairs and culture. His reply was noteworthy. "Why not Indians as well? In course of time they will be Americans. The American citizen of today was once an expatriate, a foreigner who had come out of a European or African country. Why not from India too? We certainly love to have Indians in our country."
There are however, two views on this subject. The elderly parents of Indians settled in America pay a visit to them, from time to time (on excursion round ticket), and feel pleased at the prosperity of their sons or daughters in America. After a Greyhound tour of the country and a visit to Niagara, they are ready to return home when the suburban existence begins to bore them whether at New Jersey, or The Queens or the Silicon Valley neighborhood of California. But they always say on their return, "After all our boys are happy there. Why should they come back to this country, where they get no encouragement?"
Exasperation
Our young man who goes out to the States for higher studies or training, declares when leaving home, "I will come back as soon as I complete my course, may be two years or a little more, but I will definitely come back and work for our country, and also help our family....." Excellent intentions, but it will not work that way. Later when he returns home full of dreams, projects, and plans, he only finds hurdles at every turn when he tries for a job or to start an enterprise of his own. Form-filling, bureaucracy, caste and other restrictions, and a generally feudal style of functioning, exasperate the young man and waste his time. He frets and fumes as days pass with nothing achieved, while he has been running around presenting or collecting papers at various places.
He is not used to this sort of treatment in America, where, he claims, he could walk into the office of the top man anywhere, address him by his first name and explain his purpose; when he attempts to visit a man of similar rank in India to discuss his ideas, he realizes that he has no access to him, but can only talk to subordinate officials in a hierarchy. Some years ago a biochemist returning home and bursting with proposals, was curtly told off by the big man when he innocently pushed the door and stepped in. "You should not come to me directly, send your papers through proper channels." Thereafter the young biochemist left India once for all. having kept his retreat open with the help of a sympathetic professor at the American end. In this respect American democratic habits have rather spoilt our young men. They have no patience with our official style or tempo, whereas an Indian at home would accept the hurdles as inevitable Karma.
The America-returned Indian expects special treatment, forgetting the fact that over here chancellors of universities will see only the other chancellors, and top executives will see only other top executives and none less under any circumstance. Our administrative machinery is slow, tedious, and feudal in its operation, probably still based on what they called the Tottenham Manual, creation of a British administrator five decades ago.
Lack of Openings
One other reason for a young man's final retreat from India could also be attributed to the lack of openings for his particular qualification. A young engineer trained in robotics had to spend all his hours explaining what it means, to his prospective sponsors, until he realized that there could be no place for robots in an over-crowded country.
The Indian in America is a rather lonely being, having lost his roots in one place and not grown them in the other. Few Indians in America make any attempt to integrate in American cultural or social life. So few visit an American home or a theater or an opera, or try to understand the American psyche. An Indian's contact with the American is confined to his colleagues working along with him and to an official or seminar luncheon. He may also mutter a "Hi!" across the fence to an American neighbor while lawn-mowing. At other times one never sees the other except by appointment, each family being boxed up in their homes securely behind locked doors.
After he has equipped his new home with the latest dish-washer, video, etc., with two cars in the garage and acquired all that the others have, he sits back with his family counting his blessings. Outwardly happy, but secretly gnawed by some vague discontent and aware of some inner turbulence or vacuum, he cannot define which. All the comfort is physically satisfying, he has immense "job satisfaction" and that is about all.
Ennui
On a week-end he drives his family fifty miles or more towards another Indian family to eat an Indian dinner, discuss Indian politics, or tax problems (for doctors particularly this is a constant topic of conversation, being in the highest income bracket). There is monotony in this pattern of life. so mechanical and standardized.
In this individual, India has lost an intellectual or an expert; but it must not be forgotten that the expert has lost India too, which is a more serious loss in the final reckoning.
The quality of life in India is different. In spite of all its deficiencies, irritations, lack of material comforts and amenities, and general confusion, Indian life builds up an inner strength. It is through subtle inexplicable influences (through religion, family ties, and human relationships in general). Let us call them psychological "inputs" to use a modern terminology, which cumulatively sustain and lend variety and richness to existence. Building imposing Indian temples in America, installing our gods therein and importing Indian priests to perform the puja and festivals, are only imitative of Indian existence and could have only a limited value. Social and religious assemblies at the temples (in America) might mitigate boredom but only temporarily. I have lived as a guest for extended periods in many Indian homes in America and have noticed the ennui that descends on a family when they are stuck at home.
Children growing up in America present a special problem. They have to develop themselves on a shallow foundation without a cultural basis, either Indian or American. Such children are ignorant of India and without the gentleness and courtesy and respect for parents, which forms the basic training for a child in an Indian home, unlike the American upbringing whereby a child is left alone to discover for himself the right code of conduct. Aware of his child's ignorance of Indian life, the Indian parent tries to cram into the child's little head all possible information during an 'Excursion Fare' trip to the mother country.
Differing Emphasis
In the final analysis America and India differ basically, though it would be wonderful if they could complement each other's values. Indian philosophy lays stress on austerity and unencumbered, uncomplicated day-to-day living. On the other hand, America's emphasis is on material acquisitions and a limitless pursuit of prosperity. >From childhood an Indian is brought up on the notion that austerity and a contended life is good. and also a certain other- worldliness is inculcated through the tales a grandmother narrates, the discourses at the temple hall, and through moral books. The American temperament, on the contrary, is pragmatic.
Indifference to Eternity
The American has a robust indifference to eternity. "Visit the church on a Sunday and listen to the sermon if you like but don't bother about the future," he seems to say. Also, "dead yesterday and unborn tomorrow, why fret about them if today be sweet?" - he seems to echo Omar Khayyam's philosophy. He works hard and earnestly, and acquires wealth, and enjoys life. He has no time to worry about the after-life; he only takes the precaution to draw up a proper will and trusts the Funeral Home around the corner to take care of the rest. The Indian who is not able to live on this basis wholeheartedly, finds himself in a half-way house; he is unable to overcome the inherited complexes while physically flourishing on the American soil. One may hope that the next generation of Indians (American-grown) will do better by accepting the American climate spontaneously or in the alternative return to India to live a different life.
- RK Narayan
My America - By RK Narayan
At the American Consulates the visa issuing section is kept busy nowadays as more and more young men seek the Green Card or profess to go on a student visa and many try to extend their stay once they get in. The official handles a difficult task while filtering out the "permanents" and letting in only the "transients". The average American himself is liberal-minded and doesn't bother that more Indian engineers and doctors are swamping the opportunities available in the country possibly to the disadvantage of the American candidate himself.
I discussed the subject with Prof. Ainslee Embree of Columbia University who has had a long association with Indian affairs and culture. His reply was noteworthy. "Why not Indians as well? In course of time they will be Americans. The American citizen of today was once an expatriate, a foreigner who had come out of a European or African country. Why not from India too? We certainly love to have Indians in our country."
There are however, two views on this subject. The elderly parents of Indians settled in America pay a visit to them, from time to time (on excursion round ticket), and feel pleased at the prosperity of their sons or daughters in America. After a Greyhound tour of the country and a visit to Niagara, they are ready to return home when the suburban existence begins to bore them whether at New Jersey, or The Queens or the Silicon Valley neighborhood of California. But they always say on their return, "After all our boys are happy there. Why should they come back to this country, where they get no encouragement?"
Exasperation
Our young man who goes out to the States for higher studies or training, declares when leaving home, "I will come back as soon as I complete my course, may be two years or a little more, but I will definitely come back and work for our country, and also help our family....." Excellent intentions, but it will not work that way. Later when he returns home full of dreams, projects, and plans, he only finds hurdles at every turn when he tries for a job or to start an enterprise of his own. Form-filling, bureaucracy, caste and other restrictions, and a generally feudal style of functioning, exasperate the young man and waste his time. He frets and fumes as days pass with nothing achieved, while he has been running around presenting or collecting papers at various places.
He is not used to this sort of treatment in America, where, he claims, he could walk into the office of the top man anywhere, address him by his first name and explain his purpose; when he attempts to visit a man of similar rank in India to discuss his ideas, he realizes that he has no access to him, but can only talk to subordinate officials in a hierarchy. Some years ago a biochemist returning home and bursting with proposals, was curtly told off by the big man when he innocently pushed the door and stepped in. "You should not come to me directly, send your papers through proper channels." Thereafter the young biochemist left India once for all. having kept his retreat open with the help of a sympathetic professor at the American end. In this respect American democratic habits have rather spoilt our young men. They have no patience with our official style or tempo, whereas an Indian at home would accept the hurdles as inevitable Karma.
The America-returned Indian expects special treatment, forgetting the fact that over here chancellors of universities will see only the other chancellors, and top executives will see only other top executives and none less under any circumstance. Our administrative machinery is slow, tedious, and feudal in its operation, probably still based on what they called the Tottenham Manual, creation of a British administrator five decades ago.
Lack of Openings
One other reason for a young man's final retreat from India could also be attributed to the lack of openings for his particular qualification. A young engineer trained in robotics had to spend all his hours explaining what it means, to his prospective sponsors, until he realized that there could be no place for robots in an over-crowded country.
The Indian in America is a rather lonely being, having lost his roots in one place and not grown them in the other. Few Indians in America make any attempt to integrate in American cultural or social life. So few visit an American home or a theater or an opera, or try to understand the American psyche. An Indian's contact with the American is confined to his colleagues working along with him and to an official or seminar luncheon. He may also mutter a "Hi!" across the fence to an American neighbor while lawn-mowing. At other times one never sees the other except by appointment, each family being boxed up in their homes securely behind locked doors.
After he has equipped his new home with the latest dish-washer, video, etc., with two cars in the garage and acquired all that the others have, he sits back with his family counting his blessings. Outwardly happy, but secretly gnawed by some vague discontent and aware of some inner turbulence or vacuum, he cannot define which. All the comfort is physically satisfying, he has immense "job satisfaction" and that is about all.
Ennui
On a week-end he drives his family fifty miles or more towards another Indian family to eat an Indian dinner, discuss Indian politics, or tax problems (for doctors particularly this is a constant topic of conversation, being in the highest income bracket). There is monotony in this pattern of life. so mechanical and standardized.
In this individual, India has lost an intellectual or an expert; but it must not be forgotten that the expert has lost India too, which is a more serious loss in the final reckoning.
The quality of life in India is different. In spite of all its deficiencies, irritations, lack of material comforts and amenities, and general confusion, Indian life builds up an inner strength. It is through subtle inexplicable influences (through religion, family ties, and human relationships in general). Let us call them psychological "inputs" to use a modern terminology, which cumulatively sustain and lend variety and richness to existence. Building imposing Indian temples in America, installing our gods therein and importing Indian priests to perform the puja and festivals, are only imitative of Indian existence and could have only a limited value. Social and religious assemblies at the temples (in America) might mitigate boredom but only temporarily. I have lived as a guest for extended periods in many Indian homes in America and have noticed the ennui that descends on a family when they are stuck at home.
Children growing up in America present a special problem. They have to develop themselves on a shallow foundation without a cultural basis, either Indian or American. Such children are ignorant of India and without the gentleness and courtesy and respect for parents, which forms the basic training for a child in an Indian home, unlike the American upbringing whereby a child is left alone to discover for himself the right code of conduct. Aware of his child's ignorance of Indian life, the Indian parent tries to cram into the child's little head all possible information during an 'Excursion Fare' trip to the mother country.
Differing Emphasis
In the final analysis America and India differ basically, though it would be wonderful if they could complement each other's values. Indian philosophy lays stress on austerity and unencumbered, uncomplicated day-to-day living. On the other hand, America's emphasis is on material acquisitions and a limitless pursuit of prosperity. >From childhood an Indian is brought up on the notion that austerity and a contended life is good. and also a certain other- worldliness is inculcated through the tales a grandmother narrates, the discourses at the temple hall, and through moral books. The American temperament, on the contrary, is pragmatic.
Indifference to Eternity
The American has a robust indifference to eternity. "Visit the church on a Sunday and listen to the sermon if you like but don't bother about the future," he seems to say. Also, "dead yesterday and unborn tomorrow, why fret about them if today be sweet?" - he seems to echo Omar Khayyam's philosophy. He works hard and earnestly, and acquires wealth, and enjoys life. He has no time to worry about the after-life; he only takes the precaution to draw up a proper will and trusts the Funeral Home around the corner to take care of the rest. The Indian who is not able to live on this basis wholeheartedly, finds himself in a half-way house; he is unable to overcome the inherited complexes while physically flourishing on the American soil. One may hope that the next generation of Indians (American-grown) will do better by accepting the American climate spontaneously or in the alternative return to India to live a different life.
- RK Narayan
NRI Experiences - Reverse Brain-drain
1999
It's by no means a flood; but it could become one as more and more Indian professionals from California's Silicon Valley wind their way back and relocate themselves here as entrepreneurs.
"You have two cars and a large house. What more could you want?" is the existential question that Rajiv Modi, then 31, grappled with. He was with the California-based VLSI Technology, developing back-end software tools for placement and routing, for which he now holds a US patent. Modi left for the Big Apple in 1981 to get a masters degree in computer science. Even before he completed his doctorate, he got hired off the campus by AMD, a maker of microprocessor chips. His next stop was at Seattle Silicon, also a chip manufacturer, and finally at VLSI Technology. Then it happened: the isolated living and the feeling of being in a vacuum snowballed into a crying need to return to the land of origin and create something which he could be proud of in his old age.
Modi is not an exception. For, apparently India lives, somewhere, someplace in the collective hearts of all those engineering graduates who left its shores in the 1970s and the 1980s in search of higher education and prosperity in the US. In some, the yearning is pure romance; in others, it has less rosy hues and is tinged with realism. Either way, many of them secretly long to return home. Says Modi, who is now the executive director of Silicon Automation Systems (SAS), based in Bangalore, "A few don't want to come but a majority want to come back. It's a complex situation. The heart is here." Yet, opiated by the wide range of opportunities and comforts, they postpone making a choice till family ties and children's affinity to the adopted land make it near impossible to return for good. Then India fades to a distant memory, where dreams, frozen in time, turn into guilt even taking the form of India-bashing, in some extreme cases.
This is why people like Rajiv Modi, Arya Bhattacharjee, Joseph Vidyathil, Harish Chopra, Prakash Chandra, Pradeep Singh, Rakesh Mahajan and Krishna Chivkula are exceptions. For they decided to take the plunge and realise their dreams early on in life instead of having regrets later. True, none of them did anything dramatic like taking the next flight out to India. On the contrary, while some made trips here to explore possibilities, others probed safer options such as working out of India for companies in the US. Like Prakash Chandra, who came back after a ten-year stint in the US to take charge as country manager for Bay Networks Inc.
For Chandra, who had been planning his return for years, this was just the opportunity he was looking for. "It was ideal," he says. "Since I had to develop a market, it was like a start-up company but without the accompanying risks. Besides, I have never worked in India, so it was a good way to get work experience here." It's no surprise then, that six years ago, he co-founded the Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association to provide a forum for businessmen and professionals to share their successes so that others could be motivated. Though he is enjoying this stint as a professional, the thought of turning to entrepreneurship is live and ticking somewhere in the back of his mind. "I wanted to take one thing at a time and go slowly," he explains, "instead of trying to do everything and being disappointed and going back after two or three years."
Modi also tried the Chandra route. He checked out the $5.4 billion Microsoft to see if there was a possibility of working for the software giant out of India. When that didn't work out, he approached his previous company Seattle Silicon with the offer of setting up a development centre in India. It was thumbs down there too. The reluctance of US it companies to come to India might seem surprising today, given that just about every US company worth its weight in hardware or software has a presence here. "Well you see," says Modi, "this was in 1987, the pre-liberalisation days. India was not exactly on top of the agenda for US software companies. That happened only in the early 1990s."
Nevertheless, Modi landed here and set up SAS 1989 in Bangalore as a 100 per cent export oriented outfit. "Things were in a flux during 1989-90," he explains. "There was no liberalisation then and I had do everything myself. I was also travelling to and fro. It was only in 1991 that I settled down." Needless to say, Modi did see some rough days, but that is all history now. SAS, poised to become a Rs10-crore company this year end, is into developing end-to-end product in the area of computer telephony for Nortel, a Canadian telecommunications company. "We are venturing into computer telephony in a big way and are talking to original equipment manufacturers about supplying to them. And they are interested," he says.
Like Modi, Bolli Satyanarayana and Arya Bhattacharjee also wended their way home in the pre-liberalisation days. The 37-year-old Satyanarayana who has worked in the US and Scandinavia, was a partner in the $10 million Business Management Data, South California, when he decided to up and leave. He came to Hyderabad in 1990 and set up Sriveni Computer Solutions (SCS) with the "view that the Indian company can serve as a major research and development centre".
Ditto for Bhattacharjee, chairman and managing director of Arcus Technology Ltd. Like Modi, when he had reached that magical age of 31, he felt that he had got his fill of working with Intel, the world's largest microprocessor maker, and Cypress Semiconductor, a start-up company which, in four years, became a $300 million company. So, one fine day, literally, he quit his job with Cypress Semiconductors, where he was a manager for sub-micron process development, and came to India with a grand mission: design and manufacture integrated chips for world markets. Only to find two years later, in 1990, that his efforts were in vain. "The first experience with India was bad. I wasted two years," he recalls. Eventually in 1988 he got into an agreement with Indian Telephone Industries to build a Rs140 crore ($70 million) state-of-the-art silicon wafer manufacturing company in Bangalore. Arcus was to implement and run the facility and VLSI Technology, brought in by Arcus, provided the technology.
The project went into a tailspin and sunk without a trace, taking Rs8 crore ($4 million) with it. When it had finally sunk in that nothing would happen, Bhattacharjee went back, only to return, selling everything and with family in tow. This time, however, he came as an entrepreneur and with an altered business goal: that of setting up a semiconductor company designing application specific integrated circuit chips and manufacturing the same under his brand name in wafer fabrication plants in Taiwan, Korea and the US. Thus was born Arcus Technologies in Bangalore in 1990.
Bhattacharjee has several patents on integrated chip design and development of very large scale integrated chips. In 1988, when he broached the topic with the Indian government and the Indian Telephone Industries, he was bringing the then latest 1 micron manufacturing technology to India. "Taiwan was nowhere in the technology scene then," he says. "They were still struggling. Today Taiwan has $5 billion to $6 billion worth of the same technology." Arcus, which has invested nearly Rs12 crore ($4 million) in this design centre, is today the only chip company in India to design up to 0.5 micron and sell them under the Arcus brand to companies such as Bell Northern Research, Siemens, Tel Labs and so on. Yet, he finds it difficult to convince Indian customers. "When I say I am an American company I get attention," he laments. "It is sad. Foreign customers take me more seriously than Indian customers."
The push factors
It's not been easy going for these US-returned professionals. For instance, Bhattacharjee can't export chips designed by his company from India as they are manufactured abroad. And bringing them back into the country to re-export involves paying custom duties. "Lots of things need to be changed to do this kind of business in India," he admits. So what is the real push factor which prompted these undoubtedly talented people to return and try their luck back home -- and stay on despite the hurdles? The reasons proffered are varied: Krishna Chivkula sounds quite mushy when he says, "It's a combination of son-of-the-soil syndrome and a subterraneous love for the country. If it was purely business, I could have spent time more profitably in the US and Europe. What I can accomplish in one month in the US takes six months here. If you are not mentally prepared to face the obstacles and bureaucracy, it is horrible."
Thus moved, Chivkula, who left India 25 years ago, resigned as president and CEO of Hoffman, an engineering company manufacturing centrifugal compressors, and set up Shiva Technologies in Bangalore. The company, which operates in the areas of testing and certifying materials used in the hi-tech industry, is mainly into projects that are related to speciality materials such as supra alloys used to manufacture aircraft bodies. As his children, now grown up, and his wife, a neonatologist, have no intention of coming back to India, Chivkula shuttles between India and the US. Such inconveniences apart, it is a place he doesn't wish to trade for anything else. "The rest of India is great," he says. "Our culture is great. You don't feel different on the streets. You belong."
This sense of belonging coupled with his wanting his young children to know the country of their origin, is what brought Joseph Vidyathil back. Also a semiconductor man, Vidyathil had spent nearly two decades in the US, working for companies such as National Semiconductors, Synergy Semiconductors and Philips Semiconductors. The frequent trips to India weren't a good enough substitute. As his wife Rosemary says, "We wanted them to see India as it is, both the good and bad side." So in the face of stiff resistance from their eldest daughter, then ten years old, the Vidyathils, minus Joseph, moved to India two years ago. "We wanted to see if the children could cope. We gave ourselves one year to find out," he says.
Vidyathil, in the meanwhile, looked for opportunities in India. And when T. Thomas, ex-chairman of Hindustan Lever, offered him the managing director's job at Indus Technology Transfer India in Bangalore last year, he grabbed it. However, eight months later, the entrepreneurial spirit won over and with funds from his Harvard classmates he set up Bay Soft Technologies in Bangalore. Less than six months old, Bay Soft is a 30-man company operation developing application software and front-end software for automatic testing of microprocessors.
One cannot deny the role played by the new climate prevailing in India. Liberalisation and the opening up of the telecom sector, which is crucial to conduct software business, have certainly contributed their bit. And it was clearly the new environment which brought Pradeep Singh from Microsoft, where he was among the three development managers working on Windows 95, the recently launched desktop operating system. As product development manager in charge of a 60-person development group at Microsoft, he saw a business opportunity in providing trouble shooting and monitoring services to the programming community working with sophisticated development tools from the Microsoft stable. He figured that with Microsoft becoming a de facto standard in the programming market, there was a very remote possibility of him going wrong with providing this service. Netquest India, which responds to queries from programmers on the Internet, was formed early this year. Clearly, the availability of high band width dedicated communication links have made it possible for Singh to operate from India.
Also, there has been a dramatic change in the US perception of India in the 1990s. Today, the US appreciates the benefit of having development centres in India as against in the US, where the cost of hiring and retaining talented software engineers far outweighs the advantages. This has prompted Indians such as Rakesh Mahajan and Harish Chopra to open up development centres in India.
Mahajan, the first robotics student to pass out of Cornell University in 1983, is the ceo of Deneb Robotics Inc, a company he formed in the mid-1980s in Michigan, to develop leading edge simulation software and off-line programming technology for use in automated industries and manufacturing environments. He formed Deneb India two years ago in Bangalore. And now, 80 per cent of his development takes place here. Its flagship product, igrip, an interactive, 3-D graphic simulation tool for design, evaluation and analysis, is used by virtually every known auto maker in the world. A permanent move to Bangalore was aborted as a result of his asthmatic condition.
Like Mahajan, so also for Harish Chopra, chairman of Data Tree Corporation, Santiago, a trip to India, and in particular Hyderabad, last year was all it took to convince him that it would be better to move his production facility to Hyderabad rather than Mexico. Chopra returns after 16 years in the US, and after having worked in senior management positions in organisations like nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Digital Equipment Corporation. Operating out of Hyderabad's Software Technology Park, Data Tree India specialises in the field of data base management, which includes document-imaging and retrieval. It has increased its turnover from Rs6.5 lakh in the first six months to Rs1.5 crore in the first year of operation. For Chopra, India is just the place to be in. "The scope is immense," he says. Further, the fact that in India operation costs are five times less than what they are in the US and the quality of technical manpower (at the lower end) is superior as well, are advantages that Chopra would not like to miss out on.
At another level there is also an inherent desire to transfer a knowledge base to India. And people like Modi want to build infrastructure and retain people in the country. "I want to develop a product and make the `Made in India' tag proud," he says.
Pulling back
At the end of the day, though they have all identified niche areas for themselves instead of merely carrying out coding for US and European companies, the ultimate goal is to develop a product. Deneb, for instance, is engaged in developing an ergonomics software that enables car manufacturers to study the working efficiency of workmen on the shop floor. SAS is working on electronic design automation tools, which address the needs of front-end tools for simulation synthesis for computer telephony. It is also working on a video and audio decoder subscribing to Motion Picture Expert Group standards which will help read data and play them on the pc. Netquest too has a couple of products on the anvil that will be launched in a year's time in world markets. Similarly, Sriveni Computer Solutions' research in India led to the development of an object-oriented tool kit (QSET Power Technology), which provides a framework to develop applications that can be easily used on various platforms and databases.
Despite the apparent advantages, however, techies are not coming to India in droves. For some of them are still rather apprehensive. Like Modi explains, "Most Indians have a narrow view. Their view of India is frozen in time and they bring up issues such as low salaries and so on. The attitude problem definitely exists. Also, they only think in terms of low cost factor. They don't evaluate in terms of the value they get." Exploring another angle, Bhattacharjee opines, "It is not just the money for which they go to the US. It is a combination of work and money. If you provide both here they will come back." Adds Chivkula, "If you come here thinking it is a great place without looking at the other side, it is not going to work. You have to have the attitude of `I will keep at it till I succeed. Most don't have that." However, with the opening up of companies working on leading edge technologies in India, professionals from overseas are making their way back here. "Every other week," corroborates Chandra of Bay Networks, "I have software engineers coming back from Saudi Arabia, Dubai, etc."
Now with the coming of Internet, a global network that is a repository of information, to India, it is likely to lead to more opportunities opening up. Yet, it is only the techies who have chosen to return. And with good reason. Says Chandra, "In the field of computer technology, there isn't much of a gap between India and the US." Besides, advancing technology has made it possible to work from remote locations, thus making it possible for enterprising techies to come back and work from their home base.
They have not only brought with them hopes of putting India firmly on the technology map, but also some of the best management practices. Almost all of them take hiring very seriously. Says Singh, "I don't look at people as a replaceable commodity." Similarly, all of them subscribe to the culture of sharing the spoils. Says Bhattacharjee, "Every employee owns a share in the company. The goal is to ensure that the best talents come back and make money too. Our mission is to provide competitive high-end solutions." Hopefully, what is now a trickle will soon become a flood.
- Source: Business India
It's by no means a flood; but it could become one as more and more Indian professionals from California's Silicon Valley wind their way back and relocate themselves here as entrepreneurs.
"You have two cars and a large house. What more could you want?" is the existential question that Rajiv Modi, then 31, grappled with. He was with the California-based VLSI Technology, developing back-end software tools for placement and routing, for which he now holds a US patent. Modi left for the Big Apple in 1981 to get a masters degree in computer science. Even before he completed his doctorate, he got hired off the campus by AMD, a maker of microprocessor chips. His next stop was at Seattle Silicon, also a chip manufacturer, and finally at VLSI Technology. Then it happened: the isolated living and the feeling of being in a vacuum snowballed into a crying need to return to the land of origin and create something which he could be proud of in his old age.
Modi is not an exception. For, apparently India lives, somewhere, someplace in the collective hearts of all those engineering graduates who left its shores in the 1970s and the 1980s in search of higher education and prosperity in the US. In some, the yearning is pure romance; in others, it has less rosy hues and is tinged with realism. Either way, many of them secretly long to return home. Says Modi, who is now the executive director of Silicon Automation Systems (SAS), based in Bangalore, "A few don't want to come but a majority want to come back. It's a complex situation. The heart is here." Yet, opiated by the wide range of opportunities and comforts, they postpone making a choice till family ties and children's affinity to the adopted land make it near impossible to return for good. Then India fades to a distant memory, where dreams, frozen in time, turn into guilt even taking the form of India-bashing, in some extreme cases.
This is why people like Rajiv Modi, Arya Bhattacharjee, Joseph Vidyathil, Harish Chopra, Prakash Chandra, Pradeep Singh, Rakesh Mahajan and Krishna Chivkula are exceptions. For they decided to take the plunge and realise their dreams early on in life instead of having regrets later. True, none of them did anything dramatic like taking the next flight out to India. On the contrary, while some made trips here to explore possibilities, others probed safer options such as working out of India for companies in the US. Like Prakash Chandra, who came back after a ten-year stint in the US to take charge as country manager for Bay Networks Inc.
For Chandra, who had been planning his return for years, this was just the opportunity he was looking for. "It was ideal," he says. "Since I had to develop a market, it was like a start-up company but without the accompanying risks. Besides, I have never worked in India, so it was a good way to get work experience here." It's no surprise then, that six years ago, he co-founded the Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association to provide a forum for businessmen and professionals to share their successes so that others could be motivated. Though he is enjoying this stint as a professional, the thought of turning to entrepreneurship is live and ticking somewhere in the back of his mind. "I wanted to take one thing at a time and go slowly," he explains, "instead of trying to do everything and being disappointed and going back after two or three years."
Modi also tried the Chandra route. He checked out the $5.4 billion Microsoft to see if there was a possibility of working for the software giant out of India. When that didn't work out, he approached his previous company Seattle Silicon with the offer of setting up a development centre in India. It was thumbs down there too. The reluctance of US it companies to come to India might seem surprising today, given that just about every US company worth its weight in hardware or software has a presence here. "Well you see," says Modi, "this was in 1987, the pre-liberalisation days. India was not exactly on top of the agenda for US software companies. That happened only in the early 1990s."
Nevertheless, Modi landed here and set up SAS 1989 in Bangalore as a 100 per cent export oriented outfit. "Things were in a flux during 1989-90," he explains. "There was no liberalisation then and I had do everything myself. I was also travelling to and fro. It was only in 1991 that I settled down." Needless to say, Modi did see some rough days, but that is all history now. SAS, poised to become a Rs10-crore company this year end, is into developing end-to-end product in the area of computer telephony for Nortel, a Canadian telecommunications company. "We are venturing into computer telephony in a big way and are talking to original equipment manufacturers about supplying to them. And they are interested," he says.
Like Modi, Bolli Satyanarayana and Arya Bhattacharjee also wended their way home in the pre-liberalisation days. The 37-year-old Satyanarayana who has worked in the US and Scandinavia, was a partner in the $10 million Business Management Data, South California, when he decided to up and leave. He came to Hyderabad in 1990 and set up Sriveni Computer Solutions (SCS) with the "view that the Indian company can serve as a major research and development centre".
Ditto for Bhattacharjee, chairman and managing director of Arcus Technology Ltd. Like Modi, when he had reached that magical age of 31, he felt that he had got his fill of working with Intel, the world's largest microprocessor maker, and Cypress Semiconductor, a start-up company which, in four years, became a $300 million company. So, one fine day, literally, he quit his job with Cypress Semiconductors, where he was a manager for sub-micron process development, and came to India with a grand mission: design and manufacture integrated chips for world markets. Only to find two years later, in 1990, that his efforts were in vain. "The first experience with India was bad. I wasted two years," he recalls. Eventually in 1988 he got into an agreement with Indian Telephone Industries to build a Rs140 crore ($70 million) state-of-the-art silicon wafer manufacturing company in Bangalore. Arcus was to implement and run the facility and VLSI Technology, brought in by Arcus, provided the technology.
The project went into a tailspin and sunk without a trace, taking Rs8 crore ($4 million) with it. When it had finally sunk in that nothing would happen, Bhattacharjee went back, only to return, selling everything and with family in tow. This time, however, he came as an entrepreneur and with an altered business goal: that of setting up a semiconductor company designing application specific integrated circuit chips and manufacturing the same under his brand name in wafer fabrication plants in Taiwan, Korea and the US. Thus was born Arcus Technologies in Bangalore in 1990.
Bhattacharjee has several patents on integrated chip design and development of very large scale integrated chips. In 1988, when he broached the topic with the Indian government and the Indian Telephone Industries, he was bringing the then latest 1 micron manufacturing technology to India. "Taiwan was nowhere in the technology scene then," he says. "They were still struggling. Today Taiwan has $5 billion to $6 billion worth of the same technology." Arcus, which has invested nearly Rs12 crore ($4 million) in this design centre, is today the only chip company in India to design up to 0.5 micron and sell them under the Arcus brand to companies such as Bell Northern Research, Siemens, Tel Labs and so on. Yet, he finds it difficult to convince Indian customers. "When I say I am an American company I get attention," he laments. "It is sad. Foreign customers take me more seriously than Indian customers."
The push factors
It's not been easy going for these US-returned professionals. For instance, Bhattacharjee can't export chips designed by his company from India as they are manufactured abroad. And bringing them back into the country to re-export involves paying custom duties. "Lots of things need to be changed to do this kind of business in India," he admits. So what is the real push factor which prompted these undoubtedly talented people to return and try their luck back home -- and stay on despite the hurdles? The reasons proffered are varied: Krishna Chivkula sounds quite mushy when he says, "It's a combination of son-of-the-soil syndrome and a subterraneous love for the country. If it was purely business, I could have spent time more profitably in the US and Europe. What I can accomplish in one month in the US takes six months here. If you are not mentally prepared to face the obstacles and bureaucracy, it is horrible."
Thus moved, Chivkula, who left India 25 years ago, resigned as president and CEO of Hoffman, an engineering company manufacturing centrifugal compressors, and set up Shiva Technologies in Bangalore. The company, which operates in the areas of testing and certifying materials used in the hi-tech industry, is mainly into projects that are related to speciality materials such as supra alloys used to manufacture aircraft bodies. As his children, now grown up, and his wife, a neonatologist, have no intention of coming back to India, Chivkula shuttles between India and the US. Such inconveniences apart, it is a place he doesn't wish to trade for anything else. "The rest of India is great," he says. "Our culture is great. You don't feel different on the streets. You belong."
This sense of belonging coupled with his wanting his young children to know the country of their origin, is what brought Joseph Vidyathil back. Also a semiconductor man, Vidyathil had spent nearly two decades in the US, working for companies such as National Semiconductors, Synergy Semiconductors and Philips Semiconductors. The frequent trips to India weren't a good enough substitute. As his wife Rosemary says, "We wanted them to see India as it is, both the good and bad side." So in the face of stiff resistance from their eldest daughter, then ten years old, the Vidyathils, minus Joseph, moved to India two years ago. "We wanted to see if the children could cope. We gave ourselves one year to find out," he says.
Vidyathil, in the meanwhile, looked for opportunities in India. And when T. Thomas, ex-chairman of Hindustan Lever, offered him the managing director's job at Indus Technology Transfer India in Bangalore last year, he grabbed it. However, eight months later, the entrepreneurial spirit won over and with funds from his Harvard classmates he set up Bay Soft Technologies in Bangalore. Less than six months old, Bay Soft is a 30-man company operation developing application software and front-end software for automatic testing of microprocessors.
One cannot deny the role played by the new climate prevailing in India. Liberalisation and the opening up of the telecom sector, which is crucial to conduct software business, have certainly contributed their bit. And it was clearly the new environment which brought Pradeep Singh from Microsoft, where he was among the three development managers working on Windows 95, the recently launched desktop operating system. As product development manager in charge of a 60-person development group at Microsoft, he saw a business opportunity in providing trouble shooting and monitoring services to the programming community working with sophisticated development tools from the Microsoft stable. He figured that with Microsoft becoming a de facto standard in the programming market, there was a very remote possibility of him going wrong with providing this service. Netquest India, which responds to queries from programmers on the Internet, was formed early this year. Clearly, the availability of high band width dedicated communication links have made it possible for Singh to operate from India.
Also, there has been a dramatic change in the US perception of India in the 1990s. Today, the US appreciates the benefit of having development centres in India as against in the US, where the cost of hiring and retaining talented software engineers far outweighs the advantages. This has prompted Indians such as Rakesh Mahajan and Harish Chopra to open up development centres in India.
Mahajan, the first robotics student to pass out of Cornell University in 1983, is the ceo of Deneb Robotics Inc, a company he formed in the mid-1980s in Michigan, to develop leading edge simulation software and off-line programming technology for use in automated industries and manufacturing environments. He formed Deneb India two years ago in Bangalore. And now, 80 per cent of his development takes place here. Its flagship product, igrip, an interactive, 3-D graphic simulation tool for design, evaluation and analysis, is used by virtually every known auto maker in the world. A permanent move to Bangalore was aborted as a result of his asthmatic condition.
Like Mahajan, so also for Harish Chopra, chairman of Data Tree Corporation, Santiago, a trip to India, and in particular Hyderabad, last year was all it took to convince him that it would be better to move his production facility to Hyderabad rather than Mexico. Chopra returns after 16 years in the US, and after having worked in senior management positions in organisations like nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Digital Equipment Corporation. Operating out of Hyderabad's Software Technology Park, Data Tree India specialises in the field of data base management, which includes document-imaging and retrieval. It has increased its turnover from Rs6.5 lakh in the first six months to Rs1.5 crore in the first year of operation. For Chopra, India is just the place to be in. "The scope is immense," he says. Further, the fact that in India operation costs are five times less than what they are in the US and the quality of technical manpower (at the lower end) is superior as well, are advantages that Chopra would not like to miss out on.
At another level there is also an inherent desire to transfer a knowledge base to India. And people like Modi want to build infrastructure and retain people in the country. "I want to develop a product and make the `Made in India' tag proud," he says.
Pulling back
At the end of the day, though they have all identified niche areas for themselves instead of merely carrying out coding for US and European companies, the ultimate goal is to develop a product. Deneb, for instance, is engaged in developing an ergonomics software that enables car manufacturers to study the working efficiency of workmen on the shop floor. SAS is working on electronic design automation tools, which address the needs of front-end tools for simulation synthesis for computer telephony. It is also working on a video and audio decoder subscribing to Motion Picture Expert Group standards which will help read data and play them on the pc. Netquest too has a couple of products on the anvil that will be launched in a year's time in world markets. Similarly, Sriveni Computer Solutions' research in India led to the development of an object-oriented tool kit (QSET Power Technology), which provides a framework to develop applications that can be easily used on various platforms and databases.
Despite the apparent advantages, however, techies are not coming to India in droves. For some of them are still rather apprehensive. Like Modi explains, "Most Indians have a narrow view. Their view of India is frozen in time and they bring up issues such as low salaries and so on. The attitude problem definitely exists. Also, they only think in terms of low cost factor. They don't evaluate in terms of the value they get." Exploring another angle, Bhattacharjee opines, "It is not just the money for which they go to the US. It is a combination of work and money. If you provide both here they will come back." Adds Chivkula, "If you come here thinking it is a great place without looking at the other side, it is not going to work. You have to have the attitude of `I will keep at it till I succeed. Most don't have that." However, with the opening up of companies working on leading edge technologies in India, professionals from overseas are making their way back here. "Every other week," corroborates Chandra of Bay Networks, "I have software engineers coming back from Saudi Arabia, Dubai, etc."
Now with the coming of Internet, a global network that is a repository of information, to India, it is likely to lead to more opportunities opening up. Yet, it is only the techies who have chosen to return. And with good reason. Says Chandra, "In the field of computer technology, there isn't much of a gap between India and the US." Besides, advancing technology has made it possible to work from remote locations, thus making it possible for enterprising techies to come back and work from their home base.
They have not only brought with them hopes of putting India firmly on the technology map, but also some of the best management practices. Almost all of them take hiring very seriously. Says Singh, "I don't look at people as a replaceable commodity." Similarly, all of them subscribe to the culture of sharing the spoils. Says Bhattacharjee, "Every employee owns a share in the company. The goal is to ensure that the best talents come back and make money too. Our mission is to provide competitive high-end solutions." Hopefully, what is now a trickle will soon become a flood.
- Source: Business India
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