Few years ago I was invited to a 1 yr old kid’s b’day party. On a side note, now I get invited on account of my daughter. Ha! I hadn’t wised-up back then so showed up on time for a desi party. Yup. I was at least an hour earlier than everybody. The hosts were scrambling to get everything set up and since I was the dumb moron who showed up “early”, I had to help them carry the chairs to the basement. Anywayz…an hour or so went by and guests finally started arriving. Since I had been there for a while I almost started feeling like I am the host. As I snap out of that I get introduced to a bunch of folks whose name registered in my head as a dictated grocery list from my wife does. It was going to be an evening full of pronouns, I figured.
We stand around while we are served 7 up or fanta or whatever else that was there. Appetizers were also ready so guests reluctantly line up after much persuasion by the host. But you can tell that all they are thinking about are the appetizers. We grab some appetizers and go back to our huddle position with nothing to talk about. One guy mentions something about weather but that topic shows promise like that of a snowflake in the Arizona desert. Apart from being a boring topic couple of them mangled the words climate and weather so it was rather confusing to everyone after the first couple sentences. The huddle is now getting rather uncomfortable and I personally cannot wait to get the hell out of there. I am unable to take it anymore and bring up the topic of cricket in a rather dumb way. “Hey are you guys following the India-Aus series?” Most of them didn’t care for my question and the couple who did said they don’t follow cricket anymore because the Indian team is a “waste” and their importance is “too much”. And that they should bring “youngsters” to the team. At this point, the last muscle in my body has resigned from the party. Now what? It is getting way too awkward now with plenty of silence in between some kid coming up to his/her dad and the dad saying “No, xyz, No. Go to mummy”. It was almost invariably the same answer irrespective of what the kid’s request was.
Like a ray of light in a cold deserted cave (never been in a cold deserted cave to know this but sounds cool doesn’t it?), guy brings up a topic which lights up everyone’s face in that huddle. All he said was this, “did you guys check the September bulletin?” It was like everybody got a booster shot like the Universal Soldier gets. Back then I didn’t know what the September bulletin was and its significance. Of course I could not ask them to I pretended to be excited as well. They started talking about it and I realize that it was Green Card. Ah ha!! The group that I am talking about loves this topic! After much chatter about the irregularities in the system and how some friend’s friend’s friend got his GC in 6 months, they move on to much personalized conversation. It looked like each person is rated by their PD (priority date) and the amount of reports he has from forums. The guy who had eaten most crap out of the forums was the loudest one. So I am rather quiet in this conversation because for one I didn’t apply for GC then and two I had not read a single forum on GC then. The loudest guy turns to me and goes “So what’s your priority date ahh?” Almost shamefully I go “I haven’t applied yet”. If you could see those faces as I spoke those words you would think I committed a cardinal sin and have no moksha for eternity. I give some explanation about why but they have already written me off. In a few minutes I excused myself from the huddle and tried to find my wife…
The next couple hours went by with cake-cutting, buffer dinner and games-for-kids. As they start playing the games, we excuse ourselves under the pretense of a visiting friend at home and take off. What an evening! If only I had a priority date I would have been included in the cool conversations that followed...To PD, the foundation for desi american dreams!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Thursday, October 08, 2009
A Dream named "$175000/yr and Rs.5000/day"
This might very well turn into a rather personal blog. I do not know yet. I might find myself riding my emotions as I go on with this or I might exercise some self-restrain both to preserve some thoughts deep within me and to save the couple of people who read this blog from spectacular boredom.
I am on the 7:17am train and my hurried walk from home to the train station was completely unnecessary as the train was 5 minutes late. As I sit on the train my mind jumps to an image I have from the past. It is more of a memory than an image. I am riding the train with my dad en route to the holy Sabarimala. We are accompanied by my father’s friend whose two sons are in the USA. Both computer engineers I recall. My dad is in conversation with his friend and I am mostly tuned out of the rather boring conversation. My dad’s friend probably realizes that I am bored and in the attempt to throw a bone my way looks and me and goes “So Rohit, what are you going to do in the future?” I wasn’t too good at impromptu questions with people I don’t know. I still am not. I look at my dad and see that he is anxious to know as well. Without further thought I say I want to be either a doctor or an engineer. He is thrilled and my dad is proud. “Very Good”, he says in a typical oldies style. “My two sons are computer engineers in the US and they are doing very well”. Oh wow, must be nice, I thought to myself. He turns to my dad and says his son makes $175,000 a year and asked his mom to spend Rs.5000 each day. No, I am not kidding!! Anyway, I get the usual follow-up with regards to marks, rank, entrance and whatnot where I notice that my responses aren’t exactly getting the ceremonious “Very Good” from before. Anyway, the trip went by and I came back home. I still had this number in my head, $175,000! I found the rupees equivalent and converted it to Rs. I should state that this was the very first time I converted something from $ to Rupees and got a glimpse of the “American Dream”. Incredible! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Someone can actually make so much money?? I was sold. I was fully sold on the path I was going to take for the next several years.
Wow…I actually spend maybe 15 seconds on this memory in my head but it took me few minutes to write it down and that is a pretty decent size paragraph. Hmm.
I do not think my dad’s friend and his son’s lofty salary made me pick the career that I did. But here I am. Taking the 7:17am train and riding to work. My salary is not $175000. I have not asked my mom to spend Rs.5000 a day. I wonder how she would react to it. Knowing my mom she will ask me to save it for my future. Was this the future I had pictured in my mind when I proudly claimed that I want to be a doctor or an engineer? My career objectives were clearly set by my material pipe dream? Do I regret the career I picked? No, not really. Am I good at what I do? Well, I think I do alright. I wonder how I would have been in another career. Is it too late to pursue something else? Probably, considering that I do not what the “other” career is and besides I am not the adventurous type anyway. I wonder how I would have been if I had stayed back in India and pursued a career there. Certainly sounds promising when I think about it now but at that time every inch of my body wanted to be here and do exactly what I am doing today. In a way, I am living my dream. Was it my dream? Was it even a dream? I do not know anymore. I have thought of only two line of work in my entire life – the military and this. Military wasn’t very well received by the family and I suppose my passion for that wasn’t strong enough to oppose them and still go for it.
The recession had made me question what I am doing in the US anyway. I am thinking it is because that lofty salary American Dream started fading away. The thought of moving back to India is a topic for another day…
Why am I having these thoughts on the train today? I have some theories –
* I did not bring the next DVD of Sopranos so I have nothing to do on the train besides blog mindlessly.
* I am going through a middle age crisis. Shewwwt! I am not even middle-aged yet!!
* As a kid, a teenager, this is probably as far as I dreamed about. I am likely at a point in my life where I am going “Now what?” Maybe I was too immature when I made career choices and dreamed of my future life. I should have shooting for the stars?
In an attempt to sound intelligent I am going to go with the 3rd theory. Am I still chasing that $175000 (figuratively speaking)? I hear MBA from a top business school is my way out or way up rather. I don’t even know if I will find what I want with that MBA. Which makes me wonder if I even know what I want? I am 31 years old and still can’t see it clearly? Should I still resort to the popular belief and pursue something? Or is it just me being lazy?
Well, obviously I have more questions than answers. But that is how life is supposed to be…Or is it?
I am on the 7:17am train and my hurried walk from home to the train station was completely unnecessary as the train was 5 minutes late. As I sit on the train my mind jumps to an image I have from the past. It is more of a memory than an image. I am riding the train with my dad en route to the holy Sabarimala. We are accompanied by my father’s friend whose two sons are in the USA. Both computer engineers I recall. My dad is in conversation with his friend and I am mostly tuned out of the rather boring conversation. My dad’s friend probably realizes that I am bored and in the attempt to throw a bone my way looks and me and goes “So Rohit, what are you going to do in the future?” I wasn’t too good at impromptu questions with people I don’t know. I still am not. I look at my dad and see that he is anxious to know as well. Without further thought I say I want to be either a doctor or an engineer. He is thrilled and my dad is proud. “Very Good”, he says in a typical oldies style. “My two sons are computer engineers in the US and they are doing very well”. Oh wow, must be nice, I thought to myself. He turns to my dad and says his son makes $175,000 a year and asked his mom to spend Rs.5000 each day. No, I am not kidding!! Anyway, I get the usual follow-up with regards to marks, rank, entrance and whatnot where I notice that my responses aren’t exactly getting the ceremonious “Very Good” from before. Anyway, the trip went by and I came back home. I still had this number in my head, $175,000! I found the rupees equivalent and converted it to Rs. I should state that this was the very first time I converted something from $ to Rupees and got a glimpse of the “American Dream”. Incredible! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Someone can actually make so much money?? I was sold. I was fully sold on the path I was going to take for the next several years.
Wow…I actually spend maybe 15 seconds on this memory in my head but it took me few minutes to write it down and that is a pretty decent size paragraph. Hmm.
I do not think my dad’s friend and his son’s lofty salary made me pick the career that I did. But here I am. Taking the 7:17am train and riding to work. My salary is not $175000. I have not asked my mom to spend Rs.5000 a day. I wonder how she would react to it. Knowing my mom she will ask me to save it for my future. Was this the future I had pictured in my mind when I proudly claimed that I want to be a doctor or an engineer? My career objectives were clearly set by my material pipe dream? Do I regret the career I picked? No, not really. Am I good at what I do? Well, I think I do alright. I wonder how I would have been in another career. Is it too late to pursue something else? Probably, considering that I do not what the “other” career is and besides I am not the adventurous type anyway. I wonder how I would have been if I had stayed back in India and pursued a career there. Certainly sounds promising when I think about it now but at that time every inch of my body wanted to be here and do exactly what I am doing today. In a way, I am living my dream. Was it my dream? Was it even a dream? I do not know anymore. I have thought of only two line of work in my entire life – the military and this. Military wasn’t very well received by the family and I suppose my passion for that wasn’t strong enough to oppose them and still go for it.
The recession had made me question what I am doing in the US anyway. I am thinking it is because that lofty salary American Dream started fading away. The thought of moving back to India is a topic for another day…
Why am I having these thoughts on the train today? I have some theories –
* I did not bring the next DVD of Sopranos so I have nothing to do on the train besides blog mindlessly.
* I am going through a middle age crisis. Shewwwt! I am not even middle-aged yet!!
* As a kid, a teenager, this is probably as far as I dreamed about. I am likely at a point in my life where I am going “Now what?” Maybe I was too immature when I made career choices and dreamed of my future life. I should have shooting for the stars?
In an attempt to sound intelligent I am going to go with the 3rd theory. Am I still chasing that $175000 (figuratively speaking)? I hear MBA from a top business school is my way out or way up rather. I don’t even know if I will find what I want with that MBA. Which makes me wonder if I even know what I want? I am 31 years old and still can’t see it clearly? Should I still resort to the popular belief and pursue something? Or is it just me being lazy?
Well, obviously I have more questions than answers. But that is how life is supposed to be…Or is it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
