The X = X + 1 Syndrome

[LankaSites]

When an Indian professional becomes a 'Non-Resident Indian' in the United States, he soon starts suffering from a strange disease. The symptoms are a fixture of restlessness, anxiety, hope and nostalgia. The virus is a deep inner need to get back home. Like Shakespeare said, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." The medical world has not coined a word for this malady. Strange as it is, it could go by a stranger name, the "X + 1" syndrome. To understand this disease better, consider the background. Typically middle-class, the would be migrant's sole ambition through school is to secure admission into one of those heavily government subsidised institutions - the IITs.
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With the full backing of a doting family and a good deal of effort, he achieves his goal. Looking for fresh worlds to conquer, his sights rest on the new world. Like lemmings to the sea, hordes of IIT graduates descend on the four US consulates to seek the holiest of holy grails - the F-1 (student) stamp on the passport. After crossing the visa hurdle and tearful farewell, our hero departs for the Mecca of higher learning, promising himself and his family that he will return some day - soon! The family proudly informs their relatives of each milestone - his G.P.A., his first car (twenty years old), his trip to Niagara Falls (photographs), his first winter (parkas, gloves). The two years roll by and he graduates at the top of his class.
Now begins the 'great hunt' for a company that will not only give him a job but also sponsor him for that 3" X 3" grey plastic, otherwise known as the Green Card. A US company sensing a good bargain offers him a job. Naturally, with all the excitement of seeing his first pay check in four digit dollars, thoughts of returning to India are far away. His immediate objective of getting the Green Card is reached within a year. Meanwhile, his family back home worry about the strange American influences (and more particularly, AIDS). Through contacts they line up a list of eligible girls from eligible families and wait for the great one's first trip home. Return he does, at the first available opportunity, with gifts for the family and mouth-watering tales of prosperity beyond imagination. After interviewing the girls, he picks the most likely (lucky) one to be Americanised. Since the major reason for the alliance is his long-term stay abroad, the question of his immediate return does not arise. Any doubts are set aside by the 'backwardness' of working life, long train travel, lack of phones, inadequate opportunities for someone with hi-tech qualifications, and so on. The newly-weds return to America with the groom having to explain the system of arranged marriages to the Americans. Most of them regard it as barbaric and on the same lines as communism.


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