American Dream/Desi Consulting

As the air hostess handed over the immigration forms, Rajat felt a daze from the blood rushing to his head. His dream was coming true, at last.

Ever since he had gotten into engineering and heard all those stories of Indians going to America to live out their american dream, he had had only one goal in life.

Rajat wanted to live in America. He wanted to bathe in american water. He wanted to eat american eggs and drink american milk. He wanted to work in America.

He got that golden chance two years into his job with one of the leading consulting firms. Once he lost out on that onsite opportunity, there was only one way out.

Rajat found a consultant who would file for his H1 visa. Once that came through, he would go to the US, and be assigned to work on a project for some fortune 500 client.

This was too good to be true. He paid $2000 towards the visa filing fee, and another $2000 as a deposit to the consultant, just as security that he wouldn’t chuck the consultant as soon as he landed on the hallowed shores.

Luck was on Rajat’s side. He got the visa.

With bravado unusual for him, he bragged about his plans to friends and colleagues, and virtually spit in the face of his supervisor while resigning his job.

He didn’t mind burning this bridge. He was never coming back.

You and your stupid Indian consulting business. I am a big game player now. I have wasted enough time working with morons. This is going to be the big break i need and deserve.

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Filed under: American Dream, Desi, Humour, India, Stories, Thoughts, sarcasm, satire , American Dream, consulting industry, indian, indians in america, Short Stories

H4 Wives

Asha got off the Continental Boeing 747 with a constipated stomach and a flutter in her heart. She had just crossed the proverbial seven seas over a fifteen hour non stop flight from New Delhi.

She was in America.

The past two weeks had been a whirlwind. She had met Ravi on 20th Nov, and ten days later they were husband and wife.

Ravi was a strapping 30 year old vice president at Goldman Sachs. He had been lapped up from NYU’s Stern school where he had been among the top performers in his MBA class. He had managed to hold off his mother’s insistence for the past few years, but now that he had gotten the promotion he so desperately wanted, there was no stopping her.

All he had to do was take a picture with his Lexus in clean clothes and send to his tech savvy mom. She set up his profile on Shaadi.com and set about finding a suitable match for her son. A shortlist of 25 was prepared and Ravi was summoned to headquarters in Mumbai.

Of all the doctors, engineers, and finance types that his mom had shortlisted Ravi liked Asha most. They got married a week later. There was no time for a honeymoon in a two week leave.

The newly weds were in New york.

Asha used to teach math to high schoolers back in Mumbai. She would have to find work once she was in America. Alas, she didn’t know jack about the visa and related vagaries involved in living the American dream. Ravi was still a few years from getting his green card, and as his dependent, she was in the US on an H4 visa.

She was not allowed to work. Not for money. Not legally, at least.

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Filed under: American Dream, Desi, India, Stories, Thoughts , Desi, h4 visa, immigration, immigration problems, indian, uscis, visa

Smile. You’re Indian

Are you an Indian? If yes, take a minute and cheer for yourself. You may not realize it, but Life is pretty G.O.O.D. India is blossoming. Indian industry is growing. India is prospering. As they liked saying, India is Shining.

Need more reasons? Here, you cynical Indian, are some reasons to be proud of your country. Cheer up now. Yes, you too.

Democracy

India is the world’s largest democracy, and loves it. Even though we are supposed to have elections every few years, we try our best to make that happen more often. So much so, that we even had them twice over the course of a few months, just a few years back. We love our democracy. It keeps the blood running through our body.

Politicians

We love our democracy, but it is our politicians that make our lives worth living. Every time they open their mouths, it is as if a fountain of knowledge has been bestowed upon us. Oh, we love our politicians. They are just awesome.

Ekktaa KKappurr

Yes, the same Ekta Kapoor who gave us the blood curdlers such as Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki, and Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. You see, it was her clever little plan to unite the people by giving them something common to hate. Give her a hand guys; She took one for the team.

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Filed under: India, Thoughts, sarcasm, satire , barkha datt, Desi, ekta kapoor, India, indian media, politics, satire, Terrorism

Terrorists’ Best Friends – News Channels

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Till a few years back, here’s how terrorists operated. They picked a target, decided whether they want to bomb or shoot, implement the plan and kill a bunch of people, and soon the world would get to know about it. There would be news for a few days and then people would move on.

With the advent of modern news channels, things have changed.

Now the terrorists’ job has become easier, thanks to 24 hour live coverage on TV. Now they need to begin their attack, and wait till media persons arrive. Then they start playing to the media.

Earlier their actions affected a few hundred, maybe a few thousand people, but now millions of people can watch in real time all the gruesome details, and the message is spread far and wide. As much as we appreciate information sharing, this is one arena where too much information is counter productive. Not only is the terror message delivered far and wide, and repeatedly, but they get assistance from television channels beaming live coverage of operations against them.

Its like the law enforcement agencies are fighting two enemies at the same time.

Case in point, the recent operations in Mumbai to weed out those rotten scoundrels responsible for bringing India to a standstill for the past few days. As NSG commandos were dropping onto the roof of the building, their images were being telecast live.

How in earth are they going to surprise any terrorists if they can see what is going on outside on CNN-IBN? How about deferring telecasting the footage by maybe half an hour?

…Shankar says anchors play a critical role in maintaining balance in the midst of live coverage. “Unfortunately, many channels have people of poor intellectual calibre and maturity as anchors. And this is across English and Hindi news channels,” he said. “We also need to find more dignified ways of approaching victims who’ve just emerged from a traumatic experience rather than thrusting mikes in their faces as if they have just come out of a matinee show.”[link]

You see survivors coming outside the hotels, and a dozen cameramen surround them.  A person coming out from a horrific ordeal in a state of trauma deserves some courtesy/water/space/respect, not twenty howling journos asking how he felt.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, News, Thoughts , attack, Bad Journalism, cnn-ibn, deccan mujahideen, India, indian media, maharashtra, mumbai, mumbai terrorist attacks, Terrorism, war on terror

The Last Straw

They carried out bomb blasts in Mumbai. We rebounded and rebuilt the city. They attacked our parliament, and we stopped juust short of eliminating our neighbor state. They carried out bomb blasts in Delhi, and we kept going on.

Today they crossed the line. We have had enough.

Our hearts go out to the families of those killed in the latest attack on India. This sudden turn of events is unbearable, unfortunate, undesired, unnecessary, and completely uncalled for.

When the US was attacked in 2001, they went to war with Afghanistan. How is India going to react? Our prime minister has already condemned the attacks. Does he have the balls to do anything more?

The proverbial long arm of the law apparently isn’t long enough. We are being attacked at will, and the intensity of the attacks and the damage keeps increasing.

Somebody needs to start taking their job more seriously.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, India, News, Thoughts , deccan mujahideen, isi, Kashmir, maharashtra, mumbai, mumbai terrorist attacks, Pakistan, simi, Terrorism, war on terror

James Ellroy once said “Anybody who doesn’t know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.”

The dichotomy between crime and politics has been often talked about. Once you are a big enough politician/criminal, the lines start diminishing. Nothing you do is wrong. You can kill ten thousand people and nothing will happen to you.

Heck, you can attack the parliament, and nothing can happen to you. Ask Afzal.

After intense and immense analysis, here’s relative career graphs for politicians vs criminals. Those of you contemplating either of these professions might notice that there is no distinction between the two beyond a certain point.

All roads lead to, well, power public service.

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Filed under: Desi, India, Thoughts , afzal, Crime, Desi, India, parliament, policitians are criminals, politics, politics and crime go hand in hand

Divided We Fall

Once upon a time, there was a nation that could have lived happily ever after. But then that nation decided to become a democracy, and a confused mix of socialism and communism and capitalism.

Things would never be the same again.

Down the line, several new isms joined in. Big brother communalism started dividing the people on the basis of their regional identities. The nation of twenty one national languages and thousands of other languages and dialects started breaking up. South India hated North India. North India was suspicious of South India. Things came to a pass in 2008 when Maharashtra started beating up people from other states for taking up local jobs and not speaking the local language.

Separatism soon engulfed different corners of the nation. Kashmiris started burning flags and killing people. ULFA went on a rampage in the northeast. Naxalites took over Andhra and adjoining regions.

Then came along secularism. This one was funny because it was really anti secularism. This practice involved certain people from certain political outfits favoring certain religious communities, while ignoring the needs of the majority community. Anyone doing that was proclaimed non secular. Secularism acquired a new meaning – taking for granted the Hindu majority and appeasing the religious minorities to tap into their vote bank.

This secularism eventually broke up the country and gave rise to hatred and intolerance among the various communities.

Soon this evolved into fundamentalism. Muslim groups started blowing up Hindus. Hindu groups started blowing up Muslims. Christian missionaries started getting burnt (literally, unfortunately). When this got too predictable, terrorist outfits started blowing up their own people, just to make the other side look worse. Nobody gained, and a lot of lives were destroyed.

Sikhs got plundered in 1984 because two of them had killed the reigning monarch of India. Hindu pilgrims got burnt alive inside their train at Godhra, and many more Muslims were killed in the ensuing riots.

Gandhi died a second death. And a few dozen more.

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Filed under: Happenings, India, Thoughts , bhaiya, bihar, communalism, communism, gandhi, godhra, hindu, India, maharashtra, muslim, national language, north vs south india, Regionalism, Secularism, Unity in Diversity

Kahani Reality TV Ki

V is getting boring. Who really cares about Ekkta KKappoorr and her shitshow? Reality TV is the new Soap Opera.

Here’s a list of shows that we would love to watch on our Idiotbox.

Return of the Desi

This show documents the returning to India of a Wall street couple fresh from a layoff. Their innumerable sacrifices are the selling point of the show. Their coming to terms with the poverty, the various stenches, lack of power, abundance of crime, lack of water, lack of manners, and the all-encompassing corruption would bring tears of introspective joy to every self respecting Indian’s eyes.

Eventually they would give up the fake pretences, bribe their neighborhood district magistrate and open up a successful call center business.

Chal Meri Gaadi

This show goes inside the lives of four blue line drivers. We get to be part of their daily struggles on Delhi roads (daily on Delhi, see what i did there!?) dealing with unruly passengers, cops always asking for more, lazy helpers, and more importantly, people not getting out of the way quickly enough.

Chal Meri Gaadi would be one fabulous chance for redemption for Blue line drivers. Needless to add, the TRPs will be sky high.

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Filed under: Desi, Humour, India, Stories, Thoughts , Desi, funny, humor, India, Masti, reality tv, television

Obama Wins

Today is a historic day for America. The country just elected it’s first Black president after 43 White ones.

The US has come of age.

Leave alone the glass ceiling, the steel door has been blasted open.

Makes me think of India. When will we Indians rise through petty barriers to appoint leaders based on merit and not their race, religion, or gender?

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, News, Thoughts , barack obama, democracy, India, us elections, us president

Great Wall Of Terror

t all started when some not so creditable people were allowed to take loans to buy them homes.  Down the line, some of them started defaulting on their mortgages. Suddenly banks were competing with each other in writing off billions of dollars of assets. Bear sterns went down. Lehman Brothers went down.  AIG went down. Washington Mutual went down. Wachovia is lined up. Overall some sixteen banks in the US have shut down this year.

Wall street has laid off over a hundred thousand people so far this year, and there’s no end in sight.

For those who didn’t know, Indian faces abound across all levels and departments on Wall Street. There’s a Vikram Pandit heading Citi. Finding an Indian MD at a Wall street firm is as hard as watching TV for a few hours without hearing about Raj Thackeray. There are Indian traders, Indian bankers, Indian techies (lots of them). Heck, Wall street loves Indian food.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, News, Thoughts , AIG, bear sterns, depression, des, economic downturn, financial industry, India, investment bank, layoffs, lehman brothers, subprime crisis, unemployment, Wall Street

Happy Diwali

So yeah…i have been thinking about doing this for a long time. About Time.

Diwali would be an auspicious enough occasion to get back to writing. So, Happy Diwali  dearest readers, and i am back.

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Filed under: Desi, Thoughts , Amreekandesi, comeback, Desi, diwali, happy diwali, India

Fear

Fear seems to be the underlying theme of our lives these days.

Parents fear their kids not being smart enough to make it to the good colleges. Worse, they fear their kids being too smart to care for them. Teachers fear students filing FIRs if spoken rudely to. Kids fear getting paralyzed because a reality show host talked rudely to them.

They grow old and then they start fearing bad relationships. Or jilted lovers trying to throw acid on their face, or just kill them. Not being rich enough.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, India, Thoughts , acid attacks, Desi, fear, India, mind, nuclear deal, pfizer, society

Sharing Some Love

LinkLove that is…

You may notice a new logo on amreekandesi.com saying ‘u comment i follow’. Essentially, this is a way of giving back to you readers. If you comment on your site, the link to your blogs will credited by way of search engine/technorati indexing.

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Filed under: India, Thoughts , blogs that follow, comments, link love, linkjuice

Sonia Goes to Olympics

“Eighty heads of state and government will grace the Beijing Olympics in August but PM Manmohan Singh will not be among them.” [link]

Instead, the Chinese people, being as smart as they are, have invited the real ruler of India. The Madam. They did not invite the prime minister or the president, but the mere head of congress party.

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Filed under: Desi, Happenings, India, Thoughts , china, Desi, India, olympics, Sonia Gandhi

To Be Or Not To Be

I am considering going Big…getting my own website and doing a whole lot of fancy stuff with it. Just wanted your take on this…yes yes you reader..i am talking to you there.

What do you think?

Would be very interested in hearing from people who have made a similar switch from WordPress to their own blog. People who didn’t make the switch? Would i lose everything (my readers, my pagerank(!?) etc)?

Any tips?

Any recommended hosting services?

Above all, would you still read the blog? Visit more often?

Filed under: Amreekandesi, Thoughts , web hosting, wordpress