Price for becoming a NRI

Beauty of life is its uncanny knack of shaping you, without your knowledge.When you look back and see, there are certain special moments in life, which completely changes your direction and path.

One such moment happened to me after doing my BE in 2001.The moment is reading this article penned by Sujatha (Renowned Tamil writer/novelist).It gave different perspective on US.

http://www.desikan.com/blogcms/wiki/index.php?id=s_k_anbudan

This article explains the price a person pays for settling in a foreign country especially US.I don’t know how true is this, but this essay drew amazing response from people of all walks.

It’s difficult to translate any essay with my half baked knowledge in both English and Tamil. However, I am going to try this.....

The essay was an open letter from the author to youngsters who want to go abroad especially US at any cost. The author proclaims that he doesn’t want to stop any body from going to US, but just want to highlights the price, a person pays without his knowledge for choosing to live in US. And he lists the price, one pays for immigrating to US and they are the following

1. You will not come back. This would be happening 100% .People who says that they will be back after the studies are lying. This is because US spreads on you, it’s like an octopus or an anaconda, and it squeezes you. Its credit card society pushes you and your next three generations to debt. It’s a debt paradise, from which you can’t escape forever.

2. Once you spend considerable time there, you will induce new meaning to relationship and love. You would feel that your parents have done their responsibility in taking care of you and you are no way indebted to them. You feel your job is done by just sending $100/$200 once in a while or sending Mother Day & father's day card would suffice. In simple words you become stingy and detached.

3. Once you start earning in dollars, you will feel India and Indians are cheap. You would start saying thing like, “why don't your city have a good toilet? “, “Oh I am sick and tired of this bloody traffic man “. “As long as people urinate in public places, your country wont improve “(Please not the words your city , your country)

4. You will slowly loose opportunities to talk in Tamil. In few years you would lie that you are unable to read Tamil.

[Note: Sujatha's two sons are in US and he has visited US several times.In responding to the criticisms to this article, he admits this and also adds that because of this specific factor , he was able to write this article with truth and clarity]