YOUNG INDIA WITH A FIRE IN THE BELLY

I was at a mall in Arlington near Washington DC with my niece whose family migrated to Australia from India about twenty years ago. My niece had the advantage of a good education of the quality that her parents could not have afforded in India. Now in her twenties with an MBA to her credit my niece works for a consulting firm in Virginia on the outskirts of Washington DC.
At the mall we noticed three young Indians, possibly students, walking around, the way we do back home— with a swagger and loud talk and laughter. They seemed to be carefree in contrast to the other shoppers who talked in whispers, walked slowly and their brows were furrowed as if they had been just divorced— some of them possibly were.
My niece was quick to show embarrassment at the behavior of fellow Indians and told me ‘I always tell my American colleagues that I am not like these Indians’ obviously referring to the students’ uncouth –by American standards –behavior.
I did not tell my niece that these youngsters belonged to a new breed of Indians who come from very poor or modest backgrounds, have lived in villages and small towns and could be ‘unsophisticated’ even by India metro standards . But they have one critical difference from the previous generations and often from their urban counterparts–—they are fiercely determined to make the best of the rising opportunities that a resurgent India offers .The parents of these students might have sold the small family silver, scraped the bottom of the barrel to send them to study in the US. The students are therefore determined not to let their poor parents down.
Young Indians are no respecters of your background and are not cowed down by their humble start in life They , in brief, have a fire in their bellies and their credo is ‘ It does not matter where you come from . What matters is where you are going’.
I told my niece ‘ Mark my words , these young Indians will achieve great success in life. They will of course quickly learn the American codes of conduct and will soon wear a frown!
There is a change in the air in India and this is most evident in cricket. If you read the biographies of many members of the national eleven you will find that about half of the players are sons of lorry drivers, paanwallas, junior state government officials, TV mechanics and so on . They have never lived in a big city or town and can mumble a few words in English now—they will soon learn the language as they travel over the world. In the I.A.S., IIT ‘s and IIM’s and cinema one sees many students with humble family backgrounds .
In the recent campus recruitment the boy who got the highest salary offer at IIM Ahmedabad was from a family of a truck driver in Mumbai. His offer was –hold your upper middle class breath–a U.S job at a quarter million dollars!
What is surprising is THAT HE REJECTED THIS OFFER!
He spurned every middle class Indian’s dream in favor of starting his own business in India.
This kind of sensation is seen far more often in the IIM’s than ever before—a sign of the idealism and the entrepreneurial drive among humble Indian with a fire in the belly.
What can hold India back is the cynicism .the feudal character of our society, the corruption and above all the absence of meritocracy. Fortunately the younger generation seems determined to prosper DESPITE these serious debilitating factors. Therein lies our only hope.
This generation does not have the inferiority complex towards the whites that has been the bane of our society. They are no respecters of names, will not take insults in their stride and will give back when matters take an unpleasant turn.
Doubt it? Ask the Australian cricket team.

K.R.RAVI
USA