Although I got back from India on September 2 (over a month ago! .... still feels like last week), I'm still processing the whole experience. When I first got back, I was more relieved than I thought I would be to have returned to my own bed (especially since the last week with mom in Delhi turned out to be more luxurious-feeling than life in D.C...). Then Addie went and climbed the Himalayas, and things in my professional and personal life took a turn that made me want to re-evaluate whether or not I go back soon.
I very pointedly started reading The World is Flat while I was in India (though I started off with The Interpreter of Maladies for some nice U.S./India immigrant/emigrant/citizen thought-provocation), and while it became clear fairly quickly that Thomas Friedman isn't totally off-the-mark, he also manages to somewhat de-emphasize the role that poverty and massive changes are playing in India.
In my last week there, The Times of India reported on a new World Bank report that showed the percentage of Indians living on less than $2 a day was higher than in Sub-Saharan Africa -- although not surprising, still astounding, given all of the progress that people point to in India.
My favorite moment in Delhi was when my mom left me at a bar (where I planned on journaling) while she went shopping. I was having a moment of weakness, and this bar happened to play "classic American Rock" (which somehow translated into U2 and Alanis...). I was sipping on my diet coke, waiting for my fries when I realized six guys 
were sitting at the table next to me, clearly animated about something. I went up to them and asked their advice on where to get a haircut around there (needed one badly, actually), and they asked me to sit with them. All of them were engineers, about 20 or 21, and each one of them planned on staying in Delhi after graduation. "Where do you want to work," I asked. "What kind of work do you want to do?" The answer? "Wherever we get paid the most." Really. I tried to dig, but got nowhere. These guys were great, though, and I look forward to seeing them again one day when I go back to Delhi.
It's tough to think about that kind of ambition and drive, the seemingly (although clearly not) endless opportunity and growth in India, and compare that to the incredible mess our own U.S. economy is in. I hear/read about these economists and business experts who are talking about Americans having tighten their belt and wonder what all this will come to. We're expecting corporations to cut jobs, salaries, bonuses... but yet our companies can't hire enough skilled engineers... and then we're not even able to keep PhD students in the U.S.
So while I may not totally agree with Thomas Friedman, I do appreciate many of his points. Last week, I had the pleasure of hearing Rachel Tiven of Immigration Equality address the HRC Business Council during our working lunch. She pointed to Thomas Friedman as saying it's a shame we aren't keeping PhD grads, so I had to go and find his statement:
- "It is pure idiocy that Congress will not open our borders — as wide as possible — to attract and keep the world’s first-round intellectual draft choices in an age when everyone increasingly has the same innovation tools and the key differentiator is human talent. I’m serious. I think any foreign student who gets a Ph.D. in our country — in any subject — should be offered citizenship. I want them. The idea that we actually make it difficult for them to stay is crazy."
- "Laughing and Crying," Thomas Friedman (23 May 2007)
So I leave you with that, and some pictures of the trip!
posted by samir @ 21:54
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