Why Indians are US's best immigrants

1. Education. The Census Bureau says that 63.9% of Indians over 25 hold at least a bachelor's degree, compared with the national average of 24.4%. Media reports routinely profile graduates from one Indian college -- the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

This is a great school, but most successful Indians I know aren't IIT graduates. Neither are the doctors, journalists, motel owners, or the majority of technology executives. Their education comes from a broad range of colleges in India and the U.S. They believe that education is the best way to rise above poverty and hardship.

2. Upbringing. For my generation, what was most socially acceptable was to become a doctor, engineer, or businessperson. Therefore, the emphasis was on either learning science or math or becoming an entrepreneur.

3. Hard work. With India's competitive and rote-based education system, children are forced to spend the majority of their time on their schooling. For better or for worse, it's work, work, and more work for anyone with access to education.

4. Determination to overcome obstacles. In a land of over a billion people with a corrupt government, weak infrastructure, and limited opportunities, it takes a lot to simply survive, let alone get ahead.

Indians learn to be resilient, battle endless obstacles, and make the most of what they have. In India, you're on your own and learn to work around the problems that the state and society create for you.

5. Entrepreneurial spirit. As corporate strategist C K Prahalad notes in his interview with BusinessWeek's Pete Engardio, amidst the poverty, hustle, and bustle of overcrowded India is a "beehive of entrepreneurialism and creativity." After observing street markets, Prahalad says that "every individual is engaged in a business of some kind -- whether it is selling single cloves of garlic, squeezing sugar cane juice for pennies a glass, or hauling TVs." This entrepreneurial sprit is something that most Indians grow up with.

6. Recognizing diversity. Indians hold many ethnic, racial, gender, and caste biases. But to succeed, they learn to overlook or adapt these biases when necessary. There are six major religions in India, and the Indian constitution recognizes 22 regional languages. Every region in the country has its own customs and character.

7. Humility. Talk to almost any immigrant, regardless of origin, and he will share stories about leaving social status behind in his home country and working his way up from the bottom of the ladder in his adopted land. It's a humbling process, but humility is an asset in entrepreneurship. You learn many valuable lessons when you start from scratch and work your way to success.

8. Family support/values. In the absence of a social safety net, the family takes on a very important role in Indian culture. Family members provide all kinds of support and guidance to those in need.

9. Financial management. Indians generally pride themselves on being fiscally conservative. Their businesses usually watch every penny and spend within their means.

10. Forming and leveraging networks. Indians immigrants found that one of the secrets to success was to learn from those who had paved the trails.

Some examples: Successful Indian technologists in Silicon Valley formed an organization called The Indus Entrepreneurs to mentor other entrepreneurs and provide a forum for networking. TiE is reputed to have helped launch hundreds of startups, some of which achieved billions in market capitalization. This was a group I turned to when I needed help.

Top Indian journalists and academics created the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) to provide networking and assistance to newcomers. SAJA runs journalism conferences and workshops, and provides scholarships to aspiring South-Asian student journalists.

In the entertainment industry, fledgling filmmakers formed the South Asian American Films and Arts Association (SAAFA). Their mission is the promotion of South Asian cinematic and artistic endeavors, and mentoring newcomers.

11. Giving back. The most successful entrepreneurs I know believe in giving back to the community and society that has given them so much opportunity. TiE founders invested great effort to ensure that their organization was open, inclusive, and integrated with mainstream American society. Their No. 1 rule was that their charter members would give without taking. SAJA officers work for top publications and universities, yet they volunteer their evenings and weekends to run an organization to assist newcomers.

12. Integration and acceptance. The Pew Global Attitudes Project, which conducts worldwide public opinion surveys, has shown that Indians predominantly hold favorable opinions of the U.S. When Indians immigrate to the U.S, they usually come to share the American dream and work hard to integrate.

Indians have achieved more overall business success in less time in the U.S. than any other recent immigrant group. They have shown what can be achieved by integrating themselves into U.S. society and taking advantage of all the opportunities the country offers.

Disclaimer: This article is taken from Rediff.com dated Sept 20, 2006.

Mixed bag

Last week passed by real quick. The courses have got the pace now, i am loaded with work. Our Software Engg project looks intersting..designing a plant sale software for our Horticulture club. It involved a lot of real-life expereinces like meeting the client to collect requirements, validating them. This looks even good when our clients are 2 blondes - u know what i mean!
Algorithms as usual seems scary..lot of maths and proofs which i dont seem to be in touch for a long time. Then I watched FlightPlan on Friday night and Lage raho Munnabhai today. Decent films both of them..Friends season 2 is about to finish (on my DVD)..with Feebies "smelly cat"...had a hearty laugh there!
Kary called up and informed me abt Reliance India call website being hacked..the phone has been ringing since then. Tomorrow will be spent working on assignments and some thesis stuff to do. 100 days to India trip!

The ball is rolling

Its the end of first week of classes at VT. Hmm..enough excitement has been built up and the initial inertia is gone. Party season is back in town; we had a CS department freshers party, this time its a huge Indian student population all worried abt survival without funding, but hopefuly situation will ease out in the coming months. Then we had the ISA Freshers party today; all rocking Indians dancing to the tunes of Himesh Reshmaiyya's muzic. Relished food at India Garden. Coinicidentally, today is the start of Ganesh festival here at VT. Similar to last year, we have a enthu public with ex-students driving from DC to be a part of pooja. The next ten days are gonna be enjoyable with aarti every evening and some "prasad"; wow i miss the modak; i wish i cud be home just for some time to eat modaks dipped in shuddh desi ghee; my mouth waters, cant describe it any more.
Days will soon start rolling as semester progresses and there is lots of work to be done..

What a day!

It was supposed to be the first day at Fall semester classes for 26000 VT students here in Blacksburg. But the day marked history. A suspect fled from police custody, was armed and dangerous. He was believed to be hiding near VT campus. It began with an email in the morning advising employees at CRC to stay away from work; the spot where he was spotted. Rumor then spread to campus and our student center was evacuated. Armed police officers were all around campus searching for him. It didnt look different than a war situation; with SWAT forces, sharp shooters on top of univ buildings. The entire university was evacuated and classes cancelled for the day due to the tense and potentially hostile nature. As the day progressed, i sat at home glued to latest television updates. Soon the news was on national media including CNN ; this was indeed big for a small and otherwise safe town. At around 4pm, the guy was arrested in the bushes near the Rugby stadium of VT. That eased out a lot of pressure and classes will begin from tomorrow.

Not a very good thing to happen at the start of the semester; except that we got an extra holiday; but who wants it anyways now after enjoying 3 months to the fullest!

The great divide

Its been almost a week after coming back to my old little town Blacksburg, located in the Appalachian mountain range in Virginia. And now after seeing a lot of places in US, I can better judge the regional divide here - how people in the East differ from those on the West coast. Life on the West seems like the fast and the furious - its a much more happening place, partially bcoz I stayed in the city as against the town here. People there are generally the working class - mid aged who spend weekends partying and slog during the weekdays. They also tend to take a lot of risks and seem to be engaged in outdoor activities. Converse to that, life on the East is slow-paced, everything takes its own sweet time. People generally stick in their homes especially due to the colder temperatures. Its a retirees paradise here with living costs much more affordable than on the West. Gas prices too differ by almost a dollar. But i must mention that such an atmosphere is good for academics and research - no doubt Virginia Tech has such great research work (pun intended - there's not much one can do here!) a breeding ground for PhD's.

Feels nice to get back to school next week, with 2 courses to go and the atmosphere all charged up - Go Hokies!!

Time to look back

First of all, let me congratulate myself on successfully completing a year in US and more importantly, away from homeland amchi Pune. Might seem a small leap in this world, but believe me, its not. Its different to stay in a different city in India, and coming here across the globe - u really feel the distance; especially when you call home and get a response after a time lag. Its a good time to look back at what I have achieved and what still needs to be done. I came here with some ambitions - to gain decent knowledge. On that front, truly worth it - hats off to Virginia Tech professors for giving me all that and yes, friends at the university who always helped, especially my seniors. Getting an assistantship (thru some exhaustive search...cud publish a book on this!) right from the 1st semester is a gr8 achievement i feel. I kept repeating each night that I deserved it, and yes, self affirmations helped..after all didnt have any shoulder to cry on!

The first semester mid-sem exam was a bummer - i was totally lost and didnt know what to do. I remember talking to Kary and Gud and they had similar experience. Then felt a little better and we decided to do well in the finals. Although, the damage cud not be completely undone, I got a decent grade to keep me in good standing. And how can i forget the wonderful new year vacation in Florida and then our unique get-together with Viv in Texas..ah these moments will be cherished for life.

Start of sem 2, now i am better prepared, and luckily have lesser courses. And this time, it went really smooth. My thesis is also taking shape slowly. Come february and i celebrated my 1st birthday away from home. friends made it special with a cake ceremony at 12 midnight. Then i start looking out for internships - with high hopes. Soon i find that all's not going well. i got a few emails exchanged but nothing fruitful. As time passes, i become desperate, sometimes missing sleep with nightmares of having to be in Blacksburg for the summer. But then God is merciful and I suddenly have 2 offers, which is even bad because now i have to "choose". Some advice from knowledgable ppl solves my dilemma.

Oh, how can i forget the day i got my US drivers licence - thanks to Seth. I can now rent a car and roam independently, it was one of my happiest moments in US. And here I am, right in the heart of southern California, working as a Linux kernel developer cum hacker for Broadcom...relaxing on the couch in Lake forest, writing this blog after exactly 1 year.

Definitely gained a lot of experience, knowledge. I have a broader perspective towards things, have become independent, can manage the house as well as finances. On the other side, miss family a lot, those Sunday eve outings, daily evening walks, the new house in Pune, friends, the "Splendorous Hoodibabaa" bike ride, mom's love, a hug with Dad, fun moments with dada.
Hope to meet all of them pretty soon...thanks all for supporting me and thank you Lord for keeping me fit, healthy and emotionally strong throughout.

Las Vegazzed

This Friday night will remain in my memory in years to come. I teamed up with friends Billya, Dhavlya and Baptya to go to the gambling capital of the world - yes indeed Las Vegas. All was well planned with finishing off work at office a day earlir so that we cud start early. We cruised (in PT Cruiser) at 95mph on the road to Vegas. As we entered Nevada, there lied stretches of land with no habitat, vegetation and to top it all - the desert heat. Clicked some beautiful snaps of the Zzyzx road exit and the cacti. As we approached Vegas, the excitement kept growing and voila - there we were on Las Vegas Blvd. The Fountain show at Belagio was awesome. We then walked on "the strip", visiting different casinos. We then realized that we needed to gamble here or else it wudn't be a gr8 trip. After observing the different bets, we decided to go for the Russian roulette. Initially, we lost some money, but soon recovered from the loss as we kept betting more and more. And then again started losing..thats the pt we had to stop to avoid bankruptcy. I liked the interiors at Paris Casino. We had a breath taking roller coaster ride at New York New York. The lion at MGM Grand was inviting us to play some more, but we managed to resist the temptation. Had a quick sub and clicked some good snaps. Billya drove us back thru the night with the loud muzic keeping him awake. We reached Los Angeles at 7am, dropped Baptya for his conference (which I assume he must have attended in deep sleep) and returned to Irvine for a hearty breakfast and coffee. There is one more thing that also happened ..but which is a suspense...after all What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!!

Mumbai blasts: An NRI's view

Disclaimer:
This has been taken from rediff.com
http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/12nri.htm?q=tp&file=.htm
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If you live and work in the US, but were born and raised in Mumbai, you may understand my feelings.

Death is never pretty. But, when it comes in the form of seven bombs that rip through passenger trains at rush hour in your hometown, the word 'gory' takes on new meaning.

The blasts occurred between 6 and 6.30 pm in Mumbai. Latest estimates indicate 150 dead, with several hundred injured, most of whom are critical. Train services have shut down and local telephone lines are jammed. The day may have ended, but the trauma has just begun.

As a Non-Resident Indian, this is a strange feeling. You want to help, but the only thing you can do is make a few phone calls. You want to feel sad, but you are too far away to know what it's like for an official standing in the middle of mangled bodies at dinnertime. You want to curse the 'system', but it is no longer yours to curse. In essence, you feel helpless.

I know I do.

There is nothing I can do, and it hurts. Perhaps this could have been prevented, perhaps not.

Having said that, who am I to blame anybody, considering I no longer live in my own country? I have no authority anymore to criticize the way things work in Mumbai, because I now watch events on CNN and only check rediff.com once in a while. I admit -- I can't remember the last time I saw a Hindi movie or cooked a traditional Indian meal. I live like a foreigner and do not know what is going on in my city. The only time I sit up and take notice is on a day like today.

It is sad and, perhaps, shameful. It fosters a feeling of guilt. All these feelings exploded today and made me realize that you can take a man away from his city, but you cannot take the city out of the man. I speak for myself when I say that, as an NRI, Mumbai is an integral part of who I am, regardless of where I live.

Mahatma Gandhi once said "A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, nothing else".

If there is anything you or I can do to ease the pain for Mumbai, we should. If that means taking some time off from work to call or e-mail old friends and relatives today, so be it. If that means sitting still and praying for the dead and dying, so be it. If it means recognizing the simple things we take for granted every day, so be it.

And, if it means remembering you are an Indian, and should feel India's pain (just as you have enjoyed India's nurture and education before moving to another country), so be it.

Interactions

For the past few days, i have been interacting with a lot of techie colleagues at Broadcom, people with 10-15 years of experience in industry. We had discussions on various topics ranging from : how to start a "startup",IT, cultures, economy, war, Indo-US nuclear deal, spiritual, etc. It has definitely given me a new perspective to look at things. Here I have met people from all over the world, in fact true amru's are in a minority. It helped me to see how different people look at the world politics and state of affairs. One of my colleagues is deep into spirituality; he knows more than me regarding Hinduism, meditation, yoga and the vedas. I was amazed and a bit ashamed too! The talk on US economy, federal interest rates ,etc enlightened me. One of them is deeply interested in academic work and what we learn in our Masters program.

Looking at all this, i am getting some good inputs here, ..abhijit..welcome to the real-world!

Ghum jao

The past 2-3 weeks have been pretty good at work and at home too. I managed to learn some good concepts from my internship at Broadcom and I am slowly getting a feel of things. It was just 6-7 months back when I ventured into the kernel space, I thought this is the core work i wanna do...i possibly cant go deeper than the kernel...but here at Broadcom, i realized that the kernel came to life much later..there was a whole lot of hardware and board level bootloader which then transferred the control to the kernel...good to see how bare metal (silicon as they call it) comes to LIFE.. I saw the entire process from board bootup to an actual video being played on the HDTV using our board and it was amazing. Embedded definitely seems to be an intersting arena to venture in..

I also visited a few places around Irvine. The most striking among it being Beverly Hills, It was like heaven with all the goodies spread around...a must visit if u plan to goto LA. Every street has countless Merks, BMWs and all the exotic cars running around. The scenic beauty is enjoyable. Shopping here can drill a big hole in the pocket though!
The week before, I visited the Wild Animal Park @ San Diego. It was a perfect 1-day trip...drive for 80 miles on I-5 and enjoy the entire day at the park. We also did a Balloon safari, the balloon takes us 400ft above ground to get an aerial view of the park span. The train ride along the park was informative.
I also visited Laguna beach, Huntington beach over the weekend. Plan to learn surfing if time permits.

A lot of time was also spent in watching sports - we had a wonderful NBA season with Miami heats stealing it from the Mavericks. World Cup fever is heating up and my favorites are Argentina this time..they seem to be playing well so far. Ghana struck a surprise and secured place in the 2nd round...lets see what they have to offer..

Overall, fan(aa) in California

All set and rocking

The busy days are back with the first week of internship starting a new period in life.. my first corporate experience in america. Its been good and I am enjoying the work so far..ah..this kernel programming is sehr gut! The long weekend was spent by a short visit to Los Angeles and parts near Hollywood. I must mention that it was my first long drive of 100 miles, and I enjoyed the car drive thru the mountains. Had a good Maharashtrian lunch and went to Walmart for some shopping. The rest of the weekend, I just relaxed at home watching some good English movies like The Terminal and Minority Report. Bachelors party in Vegas has given the perfect setting to plan a visit to Las Vegas in the near future.

Orange, continued...

Just landed in my dream county, Orange which also is the 2nd most expensive county in United States. Things are settling down and I enjoyed the 4 hr Delta flight. Feels good to be on the West coast, close to San Diego, Las Vegas and Los Angeles and yes the Rocky Mountains. I had a glimpse during my flight and it was an awesome sight. Oh and I was all alone on the 3 seats, it was a sparsely populated crowd .. so enjoyed my space. Watched Hoodwinked on the flight and ate some excellent cookies. I recently rented a car here and my driving experience has been good so far. While searching for a parking spot, I landed on the San diego freeway and had no clue of what was going on. Suddenly, vehicles in full speed and I had to step on the pedal to maintain...then found an exit and came back to Tustin, only to land right in front of an Indian restaurant - Haveli.
Ate some delicious gulabjamuns, Paneer, Pakodas and delicious fruit salad. Then drove back to my home and finally found parking much closer to my house.

There ends my 1st day of enjoyment in Irvine..lots to do on weekend - a visit to the beach maybe.

Orange, CA

Ha ha.. a perfect plan to spend the summer at Orange county, California. A 10 mile drive and i step into office, work hard for 8 hrs and then spend the evening at Laguna beach..with the pacific ocean. Eat some sea food and drive back home..sounds too good..and after all its in line with my CA dream. There's Disney around to spend a weekend. Los Angeles and Hollywood are close too. As one of the movies says..nobody comes from LA, everybody goes to LA. I think the summer will be just gr8 and will pass out soon too, just as all good days fly and then I will be back to school, my own little Blacksburg (kalewadi, as we marathi crowd call it). Hope to spend some quality time and have fun...abhi...CA se bulawa aya hai!!

Corporate America

The last week has been pretty hectic for me trying to step in the world of corporate america. Some tough decisions have been made and i have tried to follow moral standards in making them. A lot of people including me were hurt in this issue of principles, but finally I think its the right decision. Its only a glimpse of what might happen before I graduate, and I already have some lessons learnt out of this experience. Jaan jaie, par vachan na jai!..ppl who track me closely will mostly understand what all this is about, others can keep wondering or drop me a email to find out !

People try to catch god! and god catch says catch me if u can!

Memorable evening

I am just coming back from a party arranged by my prof Dr.Madhav Marathe and his wife Achla. It was a really memorable evening. Originally planned a pizza party, but we students decided to add some spice to it and prepared the famous "Bombay Bhel", Chicken and Pudding to top it all. The Amrus and Germans just enjoyed this Indian stuff and believe me they hardly ate any pizza. In fact, we had to prepare another round of bhel due to excessive demand. We also got a few gifts for the kids and I was amazed to see the kids singing "Kal ho na ho" and playing it on the Piano as well....i always repent not learning to play any musical instrument in my life.. its just so simple to impress everyone in a party like that!

The house was decorated well and in a pretty serene locality..felt like we were in UK for a while with the mountains just behind us.. i felt i shud have a house like that.. and a laptop to work on my thesis in such awesome conditions.

The desserts like cake, pudding and ice-cream were different too and I had loads of it! Achla also prepared tradiitonal Indian chai, which i cudnt deny at all.. after all its my ekach pyala.. the 1 cup keeps me going day in and day out.

In the end, lot of pictures taken and lot of enjoyment. Hope to have some more parties like that next week after the semester ends!

Orkutting

The Orkut fever has been rising for quite some time now and the time had to come to break it - orkut recently introduced a new feature called profile views.
Boon or a bane?

Well, the smart guys at Google wanted users to know who is viewing their profile and it will no longer be a secret. There is an option to disable it - but then it comes with a penalty for you too - fair enough! even the refresh time has been set to a day to avoid ppl from changing this setting often! - a well crafted plan indeed..

On one hand, it prevents u from simply surfing on orkut for obvious reasons :-)
But as Karyzma and me discussed this the other day, we can always have a secondary profile created exclusively for surf purposes - smarter than the Googleites thought!!
I personally feel this move is to promote the Google romance stuff they released on April 1. They now want the serious users to shift to that product rather than hanging around on Orkut.

Happy aur kut!

Phases of life

I just received an email from a prospective VT student...and the thought passed by my mind.. i was sending similar emails last year to my seniors here..nice to see the cycle repeat and being on the other side of the world this time. Its so beautiful to find that the same month can mean so many different things to each person like--

for a baby - all days are the same.. enjoyment throughout
for a school going kid - mid-April is holiday season and again lots of fun
for a college guy - hmm,, engineering exams, submission and PL round the corner
prospective grads - funding milega kya??
for 1st year Grad students - internship hunt?
for 2nd year Grads - job search and thesis completion?
for PhD studs - qualifier exam; paper publish hoga kya?
for a construction worker in US - time to get to work, these sunny days dont last long!
for employed guys - will I get a promotion?

the list could go on.. what phase r u in currently??

Patchy

Dont be surprised to see another blog from me in a span of 2-3 days, but things are going in such ugly manners and beyond my controls that I cant help it. Just another glimpse in the life of a self-proclaimed "kernel programmer". Its been a week now that I am debugging this matter of spinlock recursion and all efforts to solve this problem have proved futile. Even after implementing some debug tricks suggested by "Sweet Hit" (email me to find out what this means as i cant disclose this in public), spinlocks keep troubling me and giving me sleepless nights and sleepy days! This is a second blow to my dreams of becoming a kernel programmer - the first being when I took an entire semester to port the VTRR patch on 2.6 kernel. Mailing lists dont seem to help either - confusing me more ...and as i write this blog, dont think i am doing timepass bcoz the kernel is undergoing another brutal compilation in parallel...to end up hopelessly in failure again!

Why?

This ones gonna be a bit abstract and a mixture of random thoughts - so beware!!

Sometimes, I keep wondering why ? - for everything like why am I in this world?, what is the purpose of life?, why are we supposed to earn money? , why did I land up in America?, why am I doing masters?

So many questions and no concrete answers really..i also wonder how man cries over petty things - if u take the bird's eye view -> we have a huge solar system with Earth being just 1 small planet, India being such a small country and above all myself being just a small individual in this whole Solar system!!.. and then we men wake up everyday, perform our daily activities in life and go to sleep each night ..waking up the next morning to do almost the same stuff..i sometimes feel there is some external entity governing our actions -> who indirectly treats mankind as Robots -> and we try to invent robots ourselves leading to a recursion!

I know that i dont want to sound like a saint delivering sermons, neither do i want to be one, but i mean is that all we HAVE to do in life? If you guys reading this .now understand that u have been fooled by me in this unique way. could answer some of my questions or at least agree to my thoughts, plz dont hesitate to post your comments.

Industry vs Academia

Its taken me a while to realize this....but better late than never ..i found quite a bit of similarities between Industry and the academia. The calendar for a typical industry would look like hire, train, design, develop and sell your product. At each stage we have deadlines and targets. The academia has similar stuff - admit new students, teach them courses and get them engaged in research .. u might wonder well whats the output.. here it is -> lots of publications in renowned journals. The calendar of academia for any Prof is lined up with various conferences and workshops for that year and which ones to target for publishing research. Coming to targets -> masters students have fewer publishing requirements - typically 1 to 2, whereas PhD's cant graduate without at least 5 publications. Isnt this similar to giving a new joinee a small target and the people at the top a higher goal?
Academia runs like a corporate powerhouse too, with promotions for Professors based on their research output, number of students who graduate under them and so on.
It feels great to have experienced both sides of this equally for almost a year now!
I coin a new term here - the Duality of academia and industry.