For example, a Bengali will tell you solemnly that the word Marwadi is synonymous with unscrupulous buccaneers even though Bengal’s economy today rests majorly on their hard work. A Marathi will tell you angrily that the word Bihari means job-stealer, while a Northy will affirm that a Malyali is one who can voice undecipherable sound bytes in the name of ‘language’. A Punjabi will swear by his patiala-peg that all Bengalis are effeminate poets while the Bengali will in turn write a book accusing the Sardar of being philistine and gaulish.

So one can well imagine the pandemonium that breaks out among relatives, neighbours, and outright strangers when a ghar-ka-beta walks in with a girl from a doosra gaon. The girl is viewed as a Japanese fighter pilot hell bent on disturbing the tranquility of Pearl Harbour (i.e. the groom’s house).

Typically, Indian marriages are all about rank strangers discussing intimate details of the to-be-wed, momentarily forgetting their own domestic worries and focusing the sun’s rays on the hapless couple through a magnifying glass. This continues till the couple feels the scorch on their backs and run for their lives to seclusion, euphemistically termed as the “honeymoon”.

So when an alien-beti walks in, she causes several problems.

1) She does not understand the local language. So she cannot participate in a vernacular conversation that is intended to dissect her hitherto little known love life. An utter disappointment!

2) One cannot fault her for not following the all-important local customs because she does not know them in the first place. So, no chhi chhi, no hare ram hare ram for entering the house with the wrong foot, or wearing the bangle on the wrong wrist, or forgetting to wear the all-important mangal sutra, or walking in public without the ghunghat on!

3) One cannot test her in the kitchen! She may not know to tell between mustard oil and phenyl but may know to cook five types of dosas and nine types of idlis to make a unique breakfast for an entire fortnight. So, does one consider her a good cook or not? You see her premise is uncharted territory for the jury.

On the other hand if she is intelligent she can use this ignorance to her advantage, by learning a few vernacular sentences (like my wife who’s Konkani by birth but has learnt to say, kemon achho, ki korchho, kothae giechhile and kokhon khabe in Bengali very quickly) and throw a doubting neighbour off guard. She can also learn a few local dishes which would have been an “OK” for a local girl but is an “A+” for this alien-bahu. A slippery customer this alien-bahu can be, I tell you.

As our hallowed epics tell us, the groom however need not pass any such agnipariksha. If there is one thing in common across most cultures in our country it is the deification of the boy-child notwithstanding the simpleton he is. A stupid one is considered the incarnation of Bholenath; a rotund sloth an incarnate of Ganesha; a philandering one is Lord Krishna himself, and a headless gym-holic must be an avatar of Bhima. With such reputation the alien-damaad struts in his beloved’s household. He wears a smile with a carefully measured aperture (ranging from 0 to 32, the unit being the number of teeth he is allowed to show). He cannot talk the vernacular tongue, nor does he have a common topic to share with the several Predator-like eyes that are scanning every inch of his being like a US drone. So he looks for a familiar face in the bride’s household and strikes an animated conversation that starts with the humid weather and inevitably ends with the salary that he gets paid and the number of foreign-trips he has made.

The most feared part of this alien-damaad’s endeavor to assimilate with the bahu’s culture however is the food! A girl will scream at a restaurant if she finds an unfamiliar object on her plate, but cometh the marriage hour rest assured that she will gulp an octopus down her throat if that is the custom of her in-laws. The damaad will however have to be force-fed at the girl’s house like they show in Saza-E-Kala Pani. If it is a North Indian boy charting in South Indian waters, he will dabble with the drumstick like an oar in a pool of sambar and look morosely at the curd-rice wishing it was kheer. The “mixture” will remind him of his Patiala-peg and the gobi manchurian of the roasted chicken legs. If it is a Southy lad in Northy waters, only a pilgrimage to the Tirupati temple will suffice in washing the sins of which he will be a part. It will start with a drunken revelry with everyone ranging from the bride’s grandmother to the colony’s watchman doing Bhangra on the road as if no one’s watching. A non-vegetarian meal will follow where every specie will be represented on his plate. If he is unlucky indeed he will be made to sit through a qawwali/antakshari session where discordant acoustic missiles will be hurled at his eardrum. Eventually, he will have his freedom sleeping on a bed underlain with roasted paapad.

 The real stars however in such weddings are the parents. They go largely unnoticed despite the concessions they make during this day for their child’s happiness. Imagine asking a veteran Viking warrior to abandon his inherent boisterousness and adorn a toga on his ward’s wedding and move around with a pallid face of a Roman senator (or vice-versa). With all the liberal mindset in the world it isn’t easy to act and be a part of an alien culture (that too on the all-important night of your bete/beti ki shaadi). You may watch the 1967 Hollywood classic Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner  to remove your doubts. For the bride and the groom they have each other at the end of the cataclysmic day. A parent sits dazed wondering if the event went well or was it a disaster. Their heads buzzing with the vision of rituals they did not understand in a place full of people who look and talk different. It can be unnerving to say the least.

 In a world today that is rapidly going grey (with whites, browns, yellows, and blacks breaking socio-cultural barriers with startling audacity) India is playing its part from the forefront (knowingly or unknowingly). In ridiculing each other we are perhaps becoming more aware of the slew of cultural shades our country exhibits to the outside world. That would explain the million momo-stalls in Bangalore, a Bengali bride wearing a lehenga at her wedding and rasagollas being served at a ceremony in Andhra!  Soon, we may even collectively begin to understand what the word “Indian” actually means.

[Image courtesy]

[Guest post by Saptarshi Moitra who blogs here. If you would like to write for amreekandesi.com, please read this first, and shoot me a note at contact@amreekandesi.com]

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Among them was I, who had accidentally deleted a solitary copy of the resume from the desktop the previous night after making painstaking additions to it.

In short I was still looking for the promised land where manna would fall from heaven. A week later, long after having been rudely awakened from the dream of pioneering research I had started looking for the lowlands of Dice and Monster. And one day by the power of whoever’s-up-there I got a call from an American dude, Jigs!

Jigs said he had a perfect opportunity for me if he was convinced that I had a thorough understanding of a certain “technology”. He only needed a 6-month commitment. My accommodation and food would be taken care of. The location being a city in the north-east of the US. In short, Jigs was Moses. He was taking me to the land of milk and honey. I noticed that Jigs sounded surprisingly Indian when he pronounced words like “opportunity”, “thorough” and “accommodation”. At other times he was the occidental dude again. Given my situation, I couldn’t care less if it was a red-butted baboon on the other end of the line.

So I flew to Jigland. Those in the know may have guessed it already. New Jersey.

Jigs had provided me a number that I needed to call for pickup from the airport. After having left four missed calls and two voice-mails, just as my doubts were taking root a mini-van screeched to a halt in front of me. Out came a sombre looking dark-skinned man wearing a doodhwallah mustache. I was not surprised when he introduced himself as, Ramu. Ramu had three white streaks on his forehead (as if three F-16s had flown their sorties across it).

Not knowing what rank this soldier held in the company I introduced myself well. Ramu wasn’t interested. He simply ushered me to the rear of the van like a professional kidnapper. The next half hour was spent in eerie silence among cans of milk, frozen meat, bags of apples, bananas, and baskets of vegetables as the van sped past the busy city-life. Now, I agree that the past few months of fruitlessness at the university had reduced my self-esteem. But never in that time had I envisioned myself as a future vegetable vendor in some obscure farmer’s market in North America. I was afraid fate was playing a dirty jig again.

We reached a narrow road with two-storeyed apartment complexes on either sides. There were huddles of inquisitive stares from every door. I realized that I was a newbie in town and was being paraded in front of the pros like that scene from The Shawshank Redemption. I secretly wished a different fate. I noticed with a degree of satisfaction that they were all Indians. As if SRK had landed in town with his million side-actors and paid all the gora to take a hike. As the van stopped, there was a stampede. It took a while for me to realize that I was not the prize everyone were fighting for. The stuff Ramu had brought in his van was their weekly ration. I must say it was an awful lot. People were carrying dozens of bananas, crates of egg, and bottles of milk back to their apartments. Some were even demanding certain brand of corn-flakes, snacks and biscuits for breakfast. In that commotion, Ramu unceremoniously dropped me and fled to safety. I barely heard him saying, “room 18″.

I picked my luggage and walked towards the door that once had metal numbers saying “18″ but not any more. A dozen hand shakes greeted me. I was told that I would be the thirteenth inhabitant of the apartment, originally designed for six. I set down my luggage, shared my story with my new roommates and confessed for having naively believed that I was joining an actual job. They laughed themselves silly and some even fell from their seats at the mention of a “job”. They pointed at each other recounting the months each of them had stayed here waiting for a job (the top being 18-months). Then the venerable Anna, named so by virtue of his seniority-by-stay at the place very modestly explained to me the following; “Babai (in Telugu), this is a consultancy.

First they train you in a technology of their choice. Then they put years of experience in your resume according to their will. They you go on bench and wait for interview calls. On the call you defend everything on the resume. Finally, if selected you go to work and do justice to that resume. Half of your salary goes to them. With the other half you can live your American Dream. Fair enough?” I wished my fear of becoming a vegetable vendor had come true. That night, Mr. Jack Daniels lulled me to sleep in a way only he could. The next morning I dressed up and went to confront that bastard, Jigs.

Jigs turned into Jignesh Patel in less time than the frog must have taken to turn into a handsome prince. The accent fell apart very quickly as we braced for hand-combat. He assured me that a certain technology was doing very good in the market recently and soon they were looking to place twenty “heads”. I reminded him of our earlier conversation and all the assurances that he had given me regarding the “job”. He faced all my ire with the nonchalance of a professional con artist. Finally, he handed me a couple of CDs and asked that I go through them in the training room.

In the training room there were a dozen more diligent “trainees” preparing for the battle ahead. With headsets on and eyes glued to the computer screen they were acquainting themselves with technologies that they may not have heard only a week ago. They were blindly preparing to defend the lies on their resume that may already have reached the hands of some company looking for expert consulting. Each had a six-page fabricated resume to commit to memory. I crept back to the apartment telling myself that it was no wonder that my emaciated resume was finding no takers.

Back in the apartment things were merrier though. Anna was having a party, along with Venky, Raghu and Malle (all names changed). Here was a creed of men who knew the murk they were in and had learnt to opiate themselves from it. They had long lost the interest of looking for jobs. They were enjoying the “free lodging, free food” part of the bargain. They did odd jobs all day like working at a mall or attending a grocery store or manning a gas-station to fill their pockets with enough green bills. At night they partied. An American dream of a kind I must confess. I joined the guys in their merriment. Knowing that they loved a nice chicken meal (but did not know to cook) I set myself the task of cooking a chicken curry for the dozen. It gave me an odd satisfaction of doing something useful for someone other than myself. I spent the night regretting it though as the apartment reverberated with the snores and winds of a dozen bellies filled to brim with that curry.

In the two months that I spent at this place, I realized how similar it was in social structure to the US penitentiaries that are portrayed in so many Hollywood movies. True there are no Mexican, Negro, or Caucasian factions. But there sure are the Gults, the Gujjus, the Mallus, and off course the Northies. Each abiding by a code of allegiance and secrecy. However, every time a “someone” got a job, all factions would come together to congratulate the soldier. On the day of his parting sympathies and good wishes would pour freely for him. He would need both in plenty defending the heavy burden of a six-page resume. I could only imagine the plight of the poor soul shouting “Freedom!” from his office seat like Mel Gibson in Braveheart.

Every night I stayed there my resolve to get away grew stronger. I kept applying for jobs and preparing for interviews. Ramu used to visit us every morning to say “hulllo”. I soon discovered that he was counting heads to make sure no one had left in the darkness of the night.

Finally, they day of my anointment arrived. I was ceremoniously handed my six-page resume by Jigs. I could barely believe it. Every technology under the blue sky was listed there. I had worked on them all. I was an “expert” in most if not “exceptional”. I had worked in three firms in the US and two back home. And, there was no mention of the Masters’ degree that I had painstakingly pursued for the past two years. That had to make way for two years of concocted industry experience. I would be interviewed in two days time where I must be straight faced about the lies that I now held in my hands. I went to Anna’s room and broke the news to the guys. They exclaimed in unison, “we’re very happy for you ra!” and started planning for a party. I told them, “I want to leave this place tonight”. Somehow, it did not come as a surprise to them. They had known me more in two months than I had expected them to. That night I packed my bags, opened a bottle of whiskey took the first sip and left the rest for the wolves. I left Jigland in the darkness of night under the watchful eyes of Anna. I left for greener pasture, where perhaps even my nightmare of becoming a vegetable vendor could bear fruit!

PS: This author is known to hallucinate. Therefore the above incident may or may not be from the author’s own experience. The characters certainly are fabricated. The author suggests you read the article in zest and not to read too much into it.

[Guest post by Saptarshi Moitra who blogs here. If you would like to write for amreekandesi.com, please read this first, and shoot me a note at contact@amreekandesi.com]

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(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.

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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?

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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)

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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!

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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