AmreekanDesi » Indians Abroad

The FOB who became an ABCD

amreekandesi — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:00:00 +0000

She was a starry eyed fresh off the boat when she landed at the Seattle airport and was driven to her host family by one of the members of the Indian Students’ Association who helped jetlagged, confused, and unsettled FOBs like her settle down the first time they landed in America. Her host family was a respectable and God fearing South Indian couple who had promised to help her with her homelessness for the first few days.

Expecting a Kanjivaram-clad hostess with the welcome thali of flowers and sweets was perhaps too much, but nothing had prepared her for the shortness of the shorts she found her hostess wearing. She had literally gaped at her bare legs in horror, feeling like a true fresh off the ~~boat~~ bullock cart from the nearby village. Her house had seemed like a mansion, and that had thankfully taken her attention off her legs.

It did not seem like some 30 hours since she had labeled her name on the newly acquired American Tourister suitcases, checked her flight timing for the eighteenth time to avoid any am versus pm confusion, touched her grandparents’ feet, promised her parents she will never marry a “foreigner”, loaded the rental Tata Sumo with the suitcases while the neighbors from every balcony watched with interest, and had left for the airport. Little did she know that she would not use most things in her suitcases. She never touched the brick-heavy Biotechnology textbook she had painstakingly packed.

In six months, she outgrew most of the clothes she had shopped for, thanks to the land of milk and honey (and cheese, canned food, and Nutella) that America was. The rest of the clothes (including the formal shirt and trousers tailored at the biggest Raymond’s showroom in Calcutta) soon seemed out of fashion compared to American styles. Two weeks into the program, and she had befriended a couple of Jims, Evas, and Emilys. She was spending her weekends hiking, rock climbing, attending barbeque and beer parties, and laughing at American jokes she did not understand. She was clearly trying to fit into America.

Her acclimatization experience did not come without some ten dozen embarrassing experiences when she made a fool of herself. But she learned well. She learned that light switches worked differently, bathrooms were restrooms, baths were showers, notes were bills, bills were checks, and checks were also checks. She learned to run hot water without burning herself. She learned not to use the word dicky for car trunks, and learned that a fast food chain was called Dick’s. She learned that it was actually okay to ask for boxes for leftover food, and capsicums, brinjals, and lady’s finger had their own names here.

She learned to drop the words sir and madam, and address her professor, as old as her grandfather, using his first name. She learned to acquire cheap junk from Walmart and garage sales. She learned that it is actually possible to score a 90 in an exam and still be counted as below average. She learned that FOBs and ABCDs are as different as chalk and cheese. She learned the irony of American courtesy, where every stranger you passed by would nod and smile, yet there was much hype about space and privacy.

Her steep learning curve was not without many embarrassing experiences. The first time a stranger on the street had smiled and said, “How are you doing?”, she had stopped and asked him, “Do I know you?” She had asked a single mother where her husband worked. She had ordered que-sa-dilla, fa-jita, and tor-tilla at restaurants, enunciating it exactly the way it is spelled. She had called guacamole avocado paste at Chipotle, and had piled up huge blobs of white cheese on her plate, mistaking it to be pastries at the departmental lunch.

She had dreaded dinner parties consisting of green leafy veggies fit for ruminants, turkey sandwiches, bland pizzas, chips, egg dipped cookies, cut fruits, and coke, terribly missing the daal chawal from home. Slowly, this became a way of life. She accepted that she would always be asked if India was still the land of elephants, belly dancers, and snake charmers. She learned that she will always be that brown girl with a Rajesh Koothrapalli-like English accent. Most importantly, she learned that no matter how much she tried to fit in, she would never be one of them. The alienating experience did not come from people. The alienating feeling came from within her. She soon got tired of dressing up for Halloween, going for the happy hour at an insanely loud local pub on a Thursday night, or laughing at jokes where she did not get the reference at all.

Sick with nostalgia after the initial excitement of America had faded, she then recreated her India away from India. She started hanging out predominantly with her Indian friends, trading Halloween costume parties for traditional Indian events, almost celebrating every Indian festival from Sankrantis and Shiv Ratris, and learning more about Indian culture than she had ever done during her 25 year long stay in India.

Every little thing associated with India made her nostalgic, be it the sight of frozen hilsa fish or the chubby Bengali couple at the Indian grocery store, the Satyajit Ray movie nights, or meeting a flock of NRI Bengalis at the Durga Puja who mainly talked about green cards, material affluence, sarees and jewelry. She had transformed from being an Indian in India to an FOB in America, and then to a tearfully-nostalgic Indian in America who wept while watching partition movies or listening to the national anthem. However, life hadn’t come full circle yet.

She was intelligent enough to figure out that no matter how she loved the freedom and the opportunities life in America provided, she would never be one of them. She was not eligible for certain scholarships or government jobs because she was not a citizen. If the economy got any worse and companies were downsizing, she would be the first one to be fired. If she did not make it to the H1B lottery, she would have to leave the country. Her existence in America after graduating from school depended on a string of factors she had no control over. She was light years away from bargaining for a secure life. America was slowly losing its charm.

Life came to a full circle during her maiden visit to India. She was gone for four years, only to come back to a different country. Random aunties dropped in for evening tea and free snacks to ask her questions invading her privacy. People laughed at her when she used words like space and privacy. They asked her why she was not getting married. Many showed surprise that she still remembered Bengali.

They asked her unsettling questions, like if she was going to settle in America. They asked her what she eats, what she wears, and how much she earns. They came home and checked her out as if she was a gorilla in the zoo. They told her not so euphemistically that she had become fat. They asked her when she would take her parents to visit America. They laughed at her when she tried fastening the seat belt. They mocked her when she looked for a ~~trash can~~ dustbin to throw trash. They asked her quizzically why she was not drinking mineral water. They asked her if Indian boys and girls really lived together before marriage in the US. They assumed people lived on burgers and fries, and drank beer all day.

Her greatest shock came during her outdoor visits. The cheapest coffee at a coffee store cost more than hundred rupees. Ordinary looking clothes at Pantaloons and Westside cost her monthly salary back from 2006. People swore by KFC, Subway, Sephora, and United Colors of Benetton. People no longer hung out at College Street or Victoria Memorial, the “mall culture” had caught on as a fever. An ordinary looking dress at an upscale shop that barely impressed her had a price tag of three thousand rupees. Bengalis paid a fortune to eat authentic Bengali food that our mothers and grandmothers have always cooked gratis at home. Ever dreamt of spending a thousand rupees eating Mocha’r Ghonto and Shukto? People looked at her in disbelief when she told them she has never been to a KFC, neither in the US, nor in India. She wondered what was the craze about eating at “Mac Dee’s”, a fast food joint fit for nothing better than a last resort during road trips.

“What were you expecting Kolkata to be? Some village? We are doing equally well as you are, even better”.

It took her a while to figure out who was “we” and who was “you” here. Clearly, she had become “you people” and the rest were “we people”. America hadn’t alienated her as much as India had. If she felt like a dehati in America, she felt like a dehati on steroids in India. People subjected her to harsh scrutiny every time she did things a certain way. She was having dinner with a close friend one evening when the waiter asked her if she needed more water. “I am good”, she said instead of a no, thank you, more out of habit than out of the need to show off her Americanism. The waiter looked confused wondering how “I am good” had anything to do with wanting or not wanting more water. Her friend got extremely upset about this, accusing her of showing off. When she wore traditional Indian clothes in India, her tank-top wearing friends remarked with sarcasm that she was so western that she only wore Indian clothes to show off.

She imagined she was standing in the middle of the streets of Seattle, trying to blend in with the people around her, when they turned to her and said, “You can never be one of us”. The next moment, she was standing in a crowded street in Kolkata, trying to fit in after all these years, and her own people turned to her and said, “You are not one of us anymore”. In more ironic ways than one, she was a foreigner in America, and now she had become a foreigner in India. In less than five years, she had transformed from being an FOB in America to an ABCD in India.

An Alienated & Badgered Confused Desi.

[The author is a doctoral student at the University of Virginia. Her interests other than educational research and designing studies include writing, photography, and globetrotting. She is known as DC.]

[If you would like to contribute an article, read this for details.]

Who Wants To Become A US Citizen?

amreekandesi — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:57:55 +0000

Check out the following picture to, well, get the real picture.

(Click on the link to go to the original graphic. It’s bulky, at over 2 mb)

Mike Flynn, Shikha Dalmia, and Terry Colon bring us the entire story of US Immigration. Check out the original post here.

Basically, you are screwed if you are a Mexican laborer. The only option for you is crossing that long fence and hoping to survive the desert.

If you are a genius or super rich, then things maybe a bit smoother.

For all others the best bet is to hang out near the Taj Mahal, spot the American getting harrassed and/or groped by a mob. Act heroic and rescue them from their predicament. Get MARRIED. Or adopted.

Just make sure they are Americans. You dont want to get stuck with someone from Canada.

All For A Good Cause

amreekandesi — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:57:28 +0000

So Shahrukh Khan says that My Name Is Khan, and that is the reason for being hassled in Newark. That incidentally also happens to be the title of his upcoming film. Not saying anything here, but people have been known to do some rather interesting things to promote their movies.

As always, we jobless Indians are up in arms against the ill treatment of a popular icon who has done a lot for India. Like what? Do his job well? Pay a few crores in income tax every year?

We have a minister calling for tit-for-tat action. Because that’s why we elected a government? Making sure that the pride of India is not bundled up in a room by people who would not bow down in subservience to an actor who is such a big deal that he is above the law?

Reacting to the incident, civil aviation minister Praful Patel on Sunday said that the government will take up the issue with the US government at its highest level. [link]

“Had it been for ten minutes or even twenty minutes (of detention for questioning), one can understand it. But one fails to understand how could they hold him for two long hours?” said Chidambaram, talking to reporters. [link]

If anything, this could have been an opportune time to take up the case for racial profiling. But no, we don’t care about the scores of minorities who face immense discrimination traveling across borders. This isn’t about those ordinary people.

What is this about, then? The pride of an actor who suddenly got a dose of what life outside the bubble feels like? Or is it just our beloved media blowing things out of proportion, in their own animated style?

Because We Own The World

amreekandesi — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:00:31 +0000

So the Indian students stabbed an Australian with a scew driver, and have started patrolling the streets. Soon they will march up to their seat of government, acquire it, and proclaim Australia an Indian colony. WTBF!

I have been an Indian student in the US, following which i lived a happy few years before returning to India this past week. I never encountered any racist abuse or anything of that sort. As do so many Indians all over the world. The trick is to respect the country where you are living. You need to appreciate the fact that that country is hosting you and live by the local rules and customs.

If you don’t, then you will not be welcome anymore.

About the Indians suffering racist abuse in Australia, i don’t have a lot of sympathy for them.

From news reports, there is nothing to suggest that those attacks were racial in nature to begin with.

Indian immigrants very often live in substandard conditions in an effort to cut down on costs. Most reports i have come across mention the attacks as having occurred late at night in shady neighborhoods, perpetrated by rowdy teenagers/drug addicts. I fail to understand how this classifies as racist.

If violent muggings are a hate crime, then India probably has a million such incidents every night on secluded expressways and narrow by-lanes. India must be the most racist country on that count. If we cant even put our own house in order and live like a united country, what right do we have to go to a foreign country and label any violence as racism?

However I won’t be surprised if the attacks start getting racial now that the Indian students are acting the way they are.

Nothing shouts ‘outsider’ louder than holding rallies wielding sticks and baseball bats, and shouting Bharat Mata Ki Jai on the streets of Sydney. If anything, they need to make more attempts to assimilate into the local society instead of trying to stab anyone who calls them Indian.

How long will we Indians keep hiding behind the mask of racism? Why are we always so quick to bring up the r-word at any trace of injustice? Is it because we know that this is such a safe card to play in a politically correct world?

If we are so sensitive to race, then why are foreigners treated so horridly in India with everybody out to take them for a ride?

Do we think we own the world, and have the right to go settle anywhere and expect to be treated as equals even if we dont adapt to the local ways?

(Image courtesy: Daily Nation)

Sunita Williams on the Colbert Report

amreekandesi — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:52:21 +0000

Indian Sunita Williams was on the Colbert Report yesterday.

For those not in the loop, Williams is a NASA astronaut who holds the record for the longest space flight by a woman – 195 days. That’s six months and a half of gravity-less existence.

The Colbert Report is a talk show hosted by Stephen Colbert. Colbert is an interesting host. Funny, loud, satirical, and probably a bit too self-aggrandizing.

“What’s that mommy?
“Its the Stephen Colbert module from the space station”
“The same Stephen Colbert who saved earth from the zombies?”
“Yes. He was the most tender lover i have had”

Anyway, Colbert has been trying to get something on the space station named after him, and seems like they are going to name their treadmill the ‘Colbert’. The Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistive Treadmill

Now the words that will be passed to the ground whenever someone has to workout will be – “Its time for me to jump on the Colbert“

Here’s a clip of Sunita Williams talking to Stephen Colbert. Check out the hair! (On her. Not him)

Watch and enjoy!

Brain Drain – Reversed

amreekandesi — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:25:07 +0000

For many years commentators have lamented how India has lost its brightest brains to the west – the phenomenon lovingly referred to as the Brain Drain.

It appears that we are seeing another trend these days…the brains that had gotten drained seem to be heading back to India. There’s new phraseology in town: Reverse Brain Drain.

There’s a whole bunch of factors that seem to have contributed to this phenomenon.

India has made tremendous progress, expecially in the field of technology. Indian offices are engaged in cutting edge software development and boast of amenities comparable to anywhere else. Most, if not all major software companies have setup offshore development centers in India. Salaries have risen, and the gap between an Indian salary and a Silicon Valley salary has greatly diminished.

The Indian Elephant has finally started gaining momentum. India is Shining. The economy is doing well, and IT has led the way these past few years.

As the private sector in India now is the main source of wealth production, and it is not as murky and intervened by Indian government as it was before 1991 periods, the highly skilled professionals feel they can get their rewards for their talent and hard work in Indian private sector.[link]

On the other hand, immigration related issues are a constant hassle for Indians in the US.

Most immigrants work on the H1B visa which virtually ties their hands in terms of who they can work for, and what they can do. Besides, their spouses are not allowed to work as dependents, which is another big irritant. The H1B visa is valid for a total of six years, which is about how much time it takes to get the green card. Once you get a green card you are relatively free, and can do pretty much anything you want with your life. But the Green Card process in itself takes a long time, and employers abuse the fact that you need to stay with them for that much time to get as much out of you without providing the correspondent benefits.

Like many Indians, Girija Subramaniam is fed up. After earning a master’s in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia in 1998, she joined Texas Instruments as a test engineer. She wanted to stay in the United States, applied for permanent residency in 2002 and has been trapped in immigration limbo ever since. If she so much as accepts a promotion or, heaven forbid, starts her own company, she will lose her place in line. Frustrated, she has applied for fast-track Canadian permanent residency and expects to move north of the border by the end of the year.[link]

These issues are highlighted even more in the current times, with the government proposing that institutions receiving government bailout money cannot hire H1B workers. This is a big blow to the aspirations of people no more working in the financial industry, and from personal experience i know that a huge chunk of Wall Street employees are immigrants – Indian, Chines, Russian. You name the country.

Not just Wall Street. Across the country, there are loud voices against immigration and the government seems to be going into a protectionist mode. This would seem to be a knee jerk reaction to the economic crisis, given the often touted facts about the large percentage of Silicon valley startups that have been started by immigrants. Even in other professions, immigrant workers continue to innovate and contribute to the society and economy, in a big way.

Another strong motivation for some is the call of the country. There are families back home. There may be corruption. There may be power cuts, but there are no restrictions. There is no fear of going out of status. No fear of the immigration officer at the airport raising questions.

For whatever reason, people are heading back. A recent study tracked more than 1200 Indian and Chinese immigrants, and presented some interesting statistics on the reverse brain drain.

This study was conducted by Vivek Wadhwa and the Kaufman foundation, and concluded that over the past 20 years 50,000 immigrants have returned to India and China, each. Further, and more interestingly, it projected another 100,000 returning over the next 5 years.

Economics, not visa headaches, is the main engine of the shift, according to the two-year research project, which surveyed 1,203 Indian and Chinese workers who had studied or worked in the United States for a year or more before returning home. Growing demand for their skills and shining career opportunities back home were cited by 87 percent of the Chinese and 79 percent of the Indians as the major professional reason for returning. Most also cited the lure of being close to family and friends. [link]

This number is surprisingly high. I am surprised because there is the obvious downside of moving back to India. The standard of living is obviously not the same. The everyday struggles of life in poor, overpopulated, corrupt India are not for everyone.

I personally know people who moved back to India, and now curse themselves for it. I also know people who moved back, and are very happy and satisfied with their lives.

This begets the question.

For the India and Indians of today, what matters more? Is it being home with family? Dare i say, love for the nation? Or is it the money, infrastructure, cleanliness of a developed country?

For Indians working in India, would you still jump at the chance to work and live in the US? I know going onsite was the craze till a few years back.

For Indians working in the US, would you ever consider returning to India? What would it take?

American Idol – Anoop Desai

amreekandesi — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:01:18 +0000

Its becoming a trend.

Last year it was Sanjaya Malakar, known more for his hairdos than his singing. This year it is Anoop ‘Noop Dogg’ Desai. Another desi guy in the running to be American Idol.

Anoop almost didn’t make it. He was not in the final 12 selected for the Idol finals, but scraped through as a wild card, thanks to tremendous public support. Maybe the show organizers realize the importance of the Indian community which pretty much carried Sanjaya through to the last stages of the contest. There’s a lot of viewership (and ad revenue) there!

This was the performance that got Anoop through to the final round. The ones who don’t believe that saying about looks being deceptive, check out this guy. He looks like a nerd, but that voice! Wow.

Here’s a video from one of his earlier performance with the group ‘Clef Hangers’ at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hil. Check out the glasses, and check out the voice.

Now, if only there was some way to combine Sanjaya’s antics, and Anoop’s singing talent, we could have our very own Indian-American Idol!

Talking of Sanjaya, here’s a video from his appearance on David Letterman. Not bad going for a seventeen year old kid with fancy hair.

H4 Husbands

amreekandesi — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:31:42 +0000

Asha and Ravi were a happy couple. After an agonizing year and a half of misery living as an H4 wife, Asha had finally got her H1 visa. She had found a job with a high school in New York city who filed for her H1 visa. She was lucky and the visa got approved.

She had already been working for a few months now.

Life was all settled and going on nicely. Their combined income afforded them a very comfortable lifestyle. Life was great. They would save for a while, buy a big house in the suburbs with their own garden. Ravi had his Lexus. Asha would get her second love, a Honda CRV. They would have two kids and a dog. If all went well, Asha and Ravi would achieve their American dream in a few years.

All did not go well. Their dream was to come crashing soon.

Ravi’s trading division at Goldman Sachs had been struggling under the weight of the ongoing financial woes. Goldman decided to cut off the aching arm.

Ravi no longer had a job. Ah…the vagaries of life!

They would keep him on the payroll for three months, and he had that much time to look for a job. After the three month period, he would no longer be employed and Goldman would notify USCIS to revoke his H1 visa.

As it turned out, 14 February was going to be D-day. If he did not have a job by then, he would be out of status. If he stayed in the US beyond that date he would be living illegally, and doing that would hurt his chances of ever again getting a US visa, forget Green card or citizenship.

February was ringing in. Ravi had been looking for over two months, but nothing had worked out. At his level there were hardly any jobs out there. For the few ones the competition was intense. With a hundred people competing for each job, the odds didn’t really stack very well in his favor. Employers were beginning to give preference to American citizens. Some were outright refusing to sponsor H1 visas.

Ravi was out for drinks with some of his ex-colleagues from Lehman. Like elsewhere on Wall street, his group had consisted of a lot of immigrants like himself. Swamy was his closest buddy.

Swamy was done with America. I am going back to India man, i made enough money. He was going to leave next month, and take a few months off traveling across the country. For some weird reason, he didn’t seem worried about what he was going to do once he was done traveling. You have gone crazy..why would you go to India?

Ravi couldn’t follow Swamy’s footsteps. He had too much at stake. He had his unfulfilled American dream. He had left India behind for good. Besides, what would he do in India? Who would pay the kind of salary he wanted?

All hope was not lost yet though. Ravi had one more interview lined up with this hedge fund in Connecticut. If that went through, all problems would be solved. If it didn’t work out, there was nothing he could do. Except for that one last recourse.

The interview was on 5th February. On the 3rd he picked up the Wall Street Journal only to read the headline that made his heart sink. His hedge fund had folded. It was gone – buried under the rubble of a few billion dollars of losses.

He picked up the phone and called Asha. It was time to take the drastic step he had hoped he would never have to consider. He was going to call the lawyer and file an application for transferring his visa to H4, as Asha’s dependent. That was the only way he could stay on in this country, and get some more time to find a job.

Ravi was going to be an H4 husband.

Life had come full circle for this happy couple.

Fast Track American Dream

amreekandesi — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:58:24 +0000

Here’s how it used to work.

You come to the US on a work permit (most often the H1B visa). You work for a few years and find an employer willing to file for your green card, which sorta makes you less of a bonded laborer. Once you get the green card and have been living in the country for about 10-12 years you could hope to get citizenship, which makes you superman. You still remain a FOB though.

This was is the path millions have aspired to take. Some got there, some got laid off en route, some took more time, and some took less. But this is how it has been.

Not any more.

Here’s a new fast track path towards becoming superman citizen. Join the US military and serve in the ongoing wars. If you came back on your feet, you will be a proud American citizen. The US military is going to allow immigrant workers to join the military, following which they could get citizenship in as less as six months.

In a far reaching proposal, the US military will open its doors to skilled immigrant guest workers (such as those who hold H-1B visas) who have lived in the US for a minimum of two years. [link]

So friends, go for it. This is a once in a lifetime offer. After all, you have just a one life to gamble away.

American Dream/Desi Consulting

amreekandesi — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:29:37 +0000

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.

He had it all planned out. In a few years he would have made a bag full of money. Once he had enough (how much was enough was not clearly defined) he would find a nice Indian girl and get married. Soon they would buy a house with his stockpile of cash. The parents will come over. They will have a few kids, and a couple of cars. Life will be fun.

Bye Bye India.

He was ready to live the big life. He was ready to make the moolah. He was ready to conquer America.

The flight landed at JFK. The first gust of american air felt like magic on his stubbled face. Rajat was already in love.

Immigration, Customs, a huge and complicated airport, and four hours later, Rajat reached the address that the consultant had given him.

As he got off the cab in the shady Jersey City neighborhood, Rajat had a severe sense of foreboding. This did not seem like the America they showed in movies. This looked more like downtown chandni chowk.

The apartment. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms. Shared by six guys. There were people all over each other.

Ahh..what the hell. This must be busy season. This is just temporary accommodation for a few days.

The temporary phase eventually didn’t turn out to be that short term. Rajat stayed in the apartment for a month, and his co-inmates made him realize that he was not in the special place in life he thought he was.

Every year thousands like him got hired by those body shoppers and dumped in these dungeons till they became productive and started bringing in money for the consultant.

It was one big industry. There were the companies who needed to outsource work to consultants. Then there were primary vendors who were responsible for providing these people to the client companies. These primary vendors in turn got their people from secondary vendors, who could be getting people from another consultant, and so on.

It was one big messed up food chain and Rajat was at the very bottom. He was of no use to anybody till he got a client project, and with the dwindling economy, competition was tough and projects hard to come by.

There wasn’t going to be much dignity in this american dream. He would stay in this apartment with six other people for now, and live at the mercy of the consultant who had, by the way, kept his original papers, as added safety. They knew their game. Rajat wasn’t their first.

This was slave trade. The modern version.