Posted on 03/16/2005 9:02:20 AM PST by ekidsohbelaas
20th August, 2020 was only a month away. And Jay Palvayantewsky was all tensed up by the mere thought of it, because it was on that fateful day his current job assignment was getting over. Neither he nor his boss knew if the global behemoth Infosys would renew their project or if they had to pack their bags and return to the good old USA. Life sucked when you were just one of the crores of foreigners in India on a temporary H1-B visa where your every move was dictated by the capricious and ever-changing Indian immigration laws. There was nothing worse than being a simple employee number in a huge database, being a measly line in an ocean of computer code. Jay hated the temporariness of it all.
But then, Jay was also aware of the changing global economic reality. Already a large number of jobs were getting outsourced from India to cheap countries overseas such as the USA and Myanmar. A lot of Americans were already heading back to their motherland to grab those newly-created outsourced jobs. But heck no! He wasn't going to be one of them. He would stick it out no matter what -- even if it meant having to clean those ISO-9002 certified toilets in his campus There was no way he was going to sacrifice his good life. He was determined to remain in India by hook or by crook .
Frustrated and unable to think clearly, Jay dragged his feet into the nearest 'Starbucks Chai' and ordered a strong, soulful cupachai. Even the Bangalore air felt very muggy. Is there life after the 20 th August?
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The elaichi in the tea made him introspective. He remembered his undergraduate days back at Caltech in the USA - where the competition was so intense that students planted bugs in each other's computer programs. Oh, those were the days! There were passionate bull sessions on Graduate studies in India - about 'how to 'app' the 'univs', 'how to ace the GRE' and 'how to write Statement of Purpose', that read like a page out of the New Testament.
"With your crappy GPA, you will only get lousy colleges like the IIT Madras", Jay's friend Linda would taunt him.
Jay would be instantly outraged and would come up with an angry retort. "So bhaat?!?! My engleej better Indian engleej eej."
"Aw, cut out that phony desi accent, for heaven's sake!" Linda would reply back. "With that accent you may perhaps land a job in a call center, but even those jobs are now starting to come to the USA."
And on and on.
Eventually his prayers were answered. Thanks to strong 'reco' letters from Prof. Ringo Rangopadhyay, he got an 'admit' into the Khandelwal College of Engineering in Bhundelkhand. His mother Abigail was so elated she tap-danced around the house for an entire two days. Along with a zillion others, Jay too woke up one day at three AM and joined the tail end of the visa queue in front of the Indian Consulate. Since he had played American football in college, he was able to push and shove through the crowd and finally, the semi literate human being who interviewed him through a tiny window even gave him the golden egg of an Indian visa, after asking him a string of humiliating questions.
His mother stayed up all night and made loads of Angel Food Cake for him to take to India Till recently, she used to work for Sears - until the US economy became so bad that jobs got scarcer and President George Z Shrub passed a law that all moms should stay home. The rest, as they say, is history. The Indian economic might grew day by day. And all things American got gobbled up by Desi Corporations and by the rising Indian imperialism. Overnight the Sears Tower got renamed 'Laloo Mahal' with an entire floor dedicated to Laloo's twenty four sons and daughters. Not just that. Many, many other places too had their names changed - right from Mumbai to Kolkatta, from the Oregaon coast to Jersey Nagar - and all the way up to the territory of American Samosa.
Jay's three ex-stepfathers and two maternal grand-aunts showed up at the airport with the rest of the family and bade him tearful farewell. He still remembered the exhilarating feeling he had when he first stepped into the Mumbai airport. Barely five minutes after he landed, a low-life used a sharp object and cut off and stole Jay's fanny-pack and underwear from right under his belt. He chuckled silently, amused by such culture shock that he went through.
And now he may have to leave this land of ghee and halwa, perhaps forever.
What a country, this! A land where nobody puts ice in their sodas. A country where lingering goodbyes are the norm. A place where a thousand people die if a thunderstorm occurs. And when a gentle breeze blows, still four people die. A country where on any given day, some region or the other is celebrating a New Year's day. Sadly, Jay is going to be no part of this after a month. Or would he be?
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As he looked around, he spotted a bunch of his colleagues sitting at a corner table. His office Administrative Assistant Priyanka, who doled out paychecks, office gossip and paan, came by his table and began to chat with him.
"Jayaprakash, I am sorry to hear that you may be forced to leave India. Its such a shame."
"Yes, Indeed. I hope something happens before that." he said. "But it is okay. Even if I have to go back to the USA, finally our country is getting a lot of good jobs. I am sure I can find something there. The good thing is that I will be with my family...I will be in touch with you all via email."
"Be hopeful, Jay. Something will happen." she pepped him up and went back to her original table..
Next cup of tea and more reminiscing. He remembered his just-out-of-college days, fresh on his first job in India. He and his fellow NRAs would congregate for the weekend Pictionary and Touch football parties, complete with pot-luck dinners. He would swap stories with his friends Butch, Mitch and Hutch and Hillary, Shilary and Bisleri about driving in downtown Moradabad and such. Having overdosed on silly Bollywood movies like 'Charlie ki teen deviyan' (starring Aishwarya Rai, Hema Malini and Meena Kumari) they would yearn to see movies from their country, even if they were only cheap imitations of the original. Or they would discuss the local America Association politics and how parochial units like the Kentucky Associations are springing up all over. And they would derisively make fun of the 'lakhs' of Americans who had obtained Desi citizenships and their DBCA kids. (what a silly acronym! Only the dyslexics will find it funny) Or they would gripe about the annual America trips they would make and how the Jet Airways screwed up their requests for special American meals of hamburgers. About how the tough Indian Customs agents ruthlessly threw away a mom-made jar of mayonnaise. Ad infinitum.
He was hoping that he too would have a cushy future in the desi wonderland. How one day he too would be married to a nice girl. And how he would bring his parents to visit him from California. Of course he would have to install a satellite dish and get the Fox Channel and CBS channel for his mom. Dear God, what will come of Jay Palvayantewsky?
Jay needed yet another cup of tea and this time, also a plate of pakoras.
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It was Jay's tenth cup of tea. His head was no clearer. When he looked up, his department Admin Priyanka was now sitting right in front of him!.
"Get hold of yourself, Jay." - Priyanka.
"I am trying, Priyanka. But this immigration thing is stressing me out..." - Jay.
"Jay, I have something to tell you." she continued. "I have known you for three years now and I know you are a good man. If it is okay with you, I want to marry you...."
WHAT ?!?!
"I am serious, Jay. I may not be very good looking, but in my heydays I too have won the Miss World contest. Of course, these days every third Indian girl is a Miss something or the other. But I will be a good wife. And you too can become a desi citizen. I assure you that this will not be a sham marriage.
Jay couldn't believe his ears. It was true that he too had his eyes set on Priyanka all these years, although at times he felt that she might be a tad older than him. Why would she marry him of all people?
"Because most of the Desi guys are boors. They all have pot bellies because of excessive siting in front of the computer. And a lot of them waste their time reading silly Ramesh Mahadevan articles on Sulekha. I always wanted a foreign husband, you see. Besides, I got your horoscope from your resume and it matched mine....."
She couldn't even finish her sentence as Jay was all over her, giving her a very tight hug and a lip-smacking kiss. Suddenly everything was bright and exuberant.
"Just stay right here, Priyanka, I will be back. in five minutes." Jay told her.
Then he rushed out, logged in and sent a quick email to his mother Abigail's PDA "Mother, I have found a perfect match for me here in India. Even though she is not a girl you chose for me, she is very good in our culture. She knows a lot of old Britney Spears songs and wears only jeans and T shirts. You will like her......By the way, I am also going to get my Desi citizenship because of her. Mom, I am so happy I am already planning to attend a special service in the new American church that has opened up here in the Malleswaram area.
P. S. I miss your tuna sandwiches......."
Author's note: Those of you who know me may recognize that this article is just a rehash of an article Balaji and I co-wrote in the Cheshire Cat , the IIT Ksanpur student rag of yore.
If you think US Immigration Laws are problematic, try getting a work permit for Thailand, Japan or Switzerland. Then you'd see that the US has what are just about the most liberal laws in this regard. Australia may be slightly better, but there are not many better than the US, from the perspective of a foreign worker. Quit yer whining!
That's funny.
Satire is lost on you, innit?
Chill amigo... liht up a Cuban and a brood over a Tom Collins.
Satire yes, however, at it's root, a (false) statement (an anti US statement) regarding immigration laws. You are a slippery character.
And you old yeller, seem fossilized.
I don't feel the need to be oblique if I wish to highlight issues. Kapish?
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