What is it that makes many Indians do so well overseas? I give a lot of credit to the middle-class values we grow up with, the familiarity with inequity and disparities in income we see all around us and the sheer commitment to hard work…
Sitting in a three-level town house in Seattle watching sailboats on the Puget Sound on a Sunday afternoon, it seemed almost incongruous that the menu for lunch was exquisite stew, aapams (rice hoppers) and kadlai curry (chickpeas for the uninitiated) washed down with masala tea. But this is not unusual in many part of the US where Indians have moved, done well for themselves and their families and are now thoroughly enjoying the best of both worlds— Indian culture and cuisine, coupled with the American way of life!
The young woman whose home I was spending a weekend in on this early spring Saturday morning in the US grew up in Kerala, did her engineering in the South and worked for a couple of years as a tester at one of India’s well-known brand IT firms before doing Management at the Indian School of Business and joining my former company Zensar. At Zensar, in the true spirit of flexibility that the organisation’s 5F culture provided, her career moved from Human Resources to Consulting to Sales, from India to Cape Town to San Jose to Seattle where she met and married a bright American in Seattle and today has an infant son and the support of her family from India and her husband’s family in the US. The delicious lunch was of course the creation of her mother!
Ganesh with Smita in San FranciscoDuring my extensive travels for work and pleasure around the world, I have seen many cases of people who grew up in little towns and even villages in India and are now building substantial success stories competing and collaborating with the best in the world! The hallowed halls of the tech companies including the famous FANG quartet of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google have bright Indians at all levels of the hierarchy (Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella), across academia (Nitin Nohria and Raghuram Rajan), business (Indra Nooyi and Rajat Gupta) and entrepreneurship (Kanwal Rekhi, Rajesh Sinha, Shankar Bharadwaj). There is no field that Indians have not attempted and excelled. My friend MR Rangaswami who founded and leads a great connecting group called Indiaspora brings together an eclectic mix of the Indian diaspora and the stories of many who are now pursuing second careers in politics and the social sector are heartwarming not only in terms of their achievements but also their commitment to giving back to society! What is it that makes many Indians do so well overseas? I give a lot of credit to the middle-class values we grow up with, the familiarity with inequity and disparities in income we see all around us and the sheer commitment to hard work in a school and college system that has been much maligned for its tendency to “learn by rote” but which has given many of us the basic foundations on which we have built global qualifications and excelled in our careers. I recall an interesting chat with the legendary Professor CK Prahalad on a transatlantic flight a few months before his unfortunate demise when he surprisingly turned out to be a strong advocate of the Gurukul system of yore, where young folks were taken into the schools under a patriarchal Guru before they entered their teens and stuffed with knowledge that would be of long-term use throughout their lives! Something to think about particularly in the cities where some of our young parents chose to keep their progeny away from the traditional school system and put them in new school systems!
For the hardworking professional, there are no dearth of opportunities in our own country. It’s all a matter of personal choice
The opportunity to live and work in America and Europe has been one that many young professionals from India have grasped and enjoyed to the hilt and it is somewhat disconcerting to many that the harsh winds of protectionism and immigration barriers may be coming in the way of this opportunity in many parts of the world including the USA. However, Indian ingenuity will still flourish and shine on many countries worldwide in future.
It is not the purpose of this writer to extoll the virtues of the American way of life as a comparison to the fate of those who choose to live and work in their own country. I am one of many millions who have lived and travelled outside India for decades but have chosen to remain rooted to the country, moving from Kolkata to Ranchi to Nashik to Mumbai to Delhi to Mumbai and for the last 17 years in Pune. No regrets whatsoever because most of you reading this column will agree that for the hardworking professional, there are no dearth of opportunities in our own country as well! It’s all a matter of personal choice. Writing this on Alaska Airlines aircraft 40,000 feet in the air between Seattle and San Jose, I end this column with a wish—let us look forward to reaching a 10 per cent growth-level in our own country and sustaining that for two decades or more so that many of our brethren can live an Indian dream! Till then, long may global opportunities for our adventurous youth continue.
By Ganesh Natarajan
