Diasporic Indian

Kaalchakra:

Re: # 27

:-)

Romair:

Re: # 26

By certain professions I meant bankers, specialty marketers, hospitality and travel industry experts, doctors, etc. I was not referring to businesses.

The 51% thing does not apply in practical terms. That is more of a paper based arrangement. Most of the locals would give you permission to run a business in which they are theoretically 51% owners, but would settle for an agreed minimum payment on a monthly basis. But if a partner is well educated and wants to be involved in running the business then he / she may look for 51% share in practical terms also.

Cupola, owned by Pakistanis, produces cards for many banks and other service providers within UAE also.

There are many other Pakistani businesses like Chemical dealers who procure chemicals from around the world and re-export into Pakistan and import chemicals from Pakistan to re-export elsewhere.

A close friend of mine runs his car business from the UAE. He has developed his niche in importing those cars, which will be considered exotic for Pakistan e.g. WW Beetle, BMWs, etc. and exporting them to Pakistan where children of the affluents buy those as a status symbol.

Jawahara
You chose an interesting subject. Very recently I noticed that several people that I always thought to be Indians were actually from kenya, South Africa, Zambia and Mauritius, and had been living there for 3 or 4 generations. Amazingly some of them were following Indian customs more strictly than us first generation NRIs.

And all members of Indian diasphora have experiences similar one you quoted about restaurant. 10 or 11 years ago I and a friend were walking in Sandy Springs area of Atlanta. A cab stopped near us and desi cab driver asked us in Panjabi if we were lost. Though we were not he took us to our apartment (he did charge us for the ride), gave his address and invited us home. He was from Pakistan.

re: ahmadzai # 11

Indians need to be a little more careful about the sensitivities of some of their other South-Asian friends, and others a little more generous in their interpretations of Indian behavior :)

Ahmadzai/faisaluno #: ``2) Prefer the UAE (or increasingly Qatar now) if you want to accumulate some wealth (only for certain professions) quickly and have good infrastructure.
3) Prefer Pakistan if you want to have career ultimately leading to respect in the society and to wealth.``

Thanks for the info.........

What would those, ``certain professions`` happen to be. I believe barring IT, and a few others, one has to have a local partner who owns 51% of one`s business, to incorporate.

Are there are any business based in Dubai, which operate primarily in Pakistan. I know of one called Cupola Group, which does much of its business in Pakistan, but is based in Dubai.........

Romair:

Re: # 23

UAE versus USA/Canada versus Pakistan - some thoughts:

Since I have worked in 6 countries on smaller tenors but for longer durations in the UAE and the USA, my younger brother after graduating from NY University, asked my opinion on these 3 places from career development point of view. This is few months ago when I moved from Australia to join my wife and two kids in Canada. My opinion to him was as follows:

1) Prefer USA or Canada if you want to live with good people and good infrastructure. (I have been pleasantly surprised by the Canadians. They seem to be the best people I have ever run into).
2) Prefer the UAE (or increasingly Qatar now) if you want to accumulate some wealth (only for certain professions) quickly and have good infrastructure.
3) Prefer Pakistan if you want to have career ultimately leading to respect in the society and to wealth.

In Pakistan, infrastructure and people in the workplace suck.

In the UAE, lack of career development and people in the workplace suck.

In the USA and more so in Canada, working your butts off and yet not having wealth sucks. For Canada, perhaps this is too early for me to say, but I have looked at the potential of earnings even if I become the CEO of my organization and I am quite disappointed :-)

IMHO, the best course of action for Pakistanis is to move out of Pakistan for education in the USA/Canada/Australia, try to settle down on a good job for good 5 years in any of these countries, then move out to the UAE (or Qatar) if you belong to certain professions and then keep moving internationally wherever new jobs take you. One can finally retire in Pakistan, die there and be buried in the family graveyard.

This reminds me that the luxurious 2 sq. yard plot in my family graveyard that was reserved for me has been encroached by a traveling family whose 6 months old daughter, a Pakhtana, died of choking on a tidbit while passing through that region and had to be buried there in an emergency. I remembered the little angel’s name that I had read on her tombstone till sometime ago. The name skips my memory now. People had told me that the baby was very beautiful and that the Gorkun refused to dig the grave, because he believed that she was sleeping. May God keep her soul in eternal peace.

Unfortunately, two nationalities are very hostile to Pakistanis in the UAE – Indians and Egyptians. It is a strange co-incidence that both these nationalities take immense pride in their pseudo- civilizations.

UAE locals, Americans, Brits and Canadians are exceptionally nice with Pakistanis. I really enjoyed the workplace in the UAE, because of Americans and UAE colleagues.

I hope this helps all the readers in general.

i was dubai recently. seemed like houston with bits of karachi thrown in the middle. heat was unbearable even at seven in the evening. lifestyle seemed no different from that in any modern metropolis such as singapore or toronto. dubai though had a bit more character because of strong eastern influence. also some of the new construction there has to be seen to be believed. best thing about dubai though: proximity to home.

Can anyone provide a good comparison of life in North America and life in Dubai, from a South Asian perspective. Preferably someone who has lived in both places..........

and the point is......?????

Dear Jawahara

You need not have paan when you come to Dubai. The choice of alternatives is endless.

I just wanted to explain what Dubai is like, let`s say, what we would like Bombay or Karachi to be.

There are many double-standards, however, which makes one feel at home. After all, life in the Sub Continent is full of double standards, isn`t it ? And in the U.S. too !!

For example :

Prostitutes of all colours, shapes and sizes walk on the streets of Dubai from 11 a.m. onwards, while a Sub-Coninental housemaid is sentenced to 100 lashes and deportation for adultery.

There are many other examples of double standards.

Cynically speaking, this makes the dubious diaspora of the Sub Continet people feel more at home in Dubai than anywhere else in the world, because the double standards exactly connect with the situation back home.

Re: # 18

``Middle East is one zone where there is minimal feeling of nostalgia amongst the diaspora``

may be this is due to proximity to sub-continent..and one can easily keep in touch with friends and family...which does minimize the feeling of alienation

Veeresh #17: Of course the diaspora is more than just the US and Canada. Which is why I said in my article that there are about 20 million Indians or people of Indian origin currently livingin 40 countries. Add others from the subcontinent and that number is close to 30 million. The rest are your observations so I`ll not respond to them. As far as standing out because of a haircut, I have long waist-length hair so I don`t think that applies to me :-).

About the world citizen thing: I don`t know, I just have an adverse reaction to that term. A personal quirk I guess. It just seems like a slogan of some sort, a kind of glib (OMG, I`m channeling Tom Cruise :D) term that fails to take into account the real complexities of identities, nationalities, ethnicities, traveling, immigration...everything. Anyway, that`s just my opinion :-).

Ahmadzai #11: Just because Indians talk of the Diaspora (and perhaps we do) excessively does not mean that we are necessarily uncomfortable with other people. But really, even Italian Americans, born and brought up here, talk about their roots. They take trips back to the village their ancestor came from and trace their lineage even if they don`t speak Italian at all. Members of the Polish, Chinese, Japanese Diaspora that I know also feel that tug. It doesn`t matter which country they live in.

As for the Hindi/Urdu thing, since I can neither write nor read Urdu and the only Urdu I speak is probably culled from Bollywood I assure you (since I was there I should know) I was not speaking it. Perhaps Hindustani is a more accurate term there but increasingly it seems to be becoming a more arcane word so I just used Hindi instead.

NhK #16: Jawahara and Saidullah perplexes me too. Damn my parents!!

Nabendu #18: I can`t eat paan so is the meetha variety also available on the black market? :-) I must keep that in mind when I visit.

Harimau #13: :-)

Sridhar: Yes, while traditionally Diaspora was used for the Jews, other groups and not just Indians have co-opted the word for some time now. But that is how language evolves and grows as well.

How, I wonder, does the word diaspora apply to the People of the Sub-Continent (PSC) who live in the Middle East ?

Unlike those who reside in the US, UK etc, PSCs only ``live`` in the Middle East, i.e. they are not permanent residents of the countries where they live. Although there are many PSCs who have lived in the Middle East for decades, only a very few, notably in Oman, have taken (or been given, rather) citizenship. Apart from these few, all other PSCs have to leave one day. In these circumstances, are these people diaspora ?

The Government of India certainly thinks so. There is a conference of Indian diaspora every January in New Delhi, at which prominent status is given to Indians who live in the Middle East. I wonder, though, whether this is correct.

On another note, the Middle East is one zone where there is minimal feeling of nostalgia amongst the diaspora. In Dubai, particularly, you hardly see a non PSC face in the Bur Dubai market area. Local people constitute some 15% of the population. Hindi/Urdu is spoken by almost all. Everything from the SC, from appams to zarda, is available.

By the way, paan is banned in dubai, though you can buy it on the black market !

Re: # 9, Jawahara, point I am trying to make is this, that the diaspora consists of many segments. We tend to ignore the earlier diaspora, the ones that went to West Indies, Far East, Pacific Islands or parts of Africa, for example, and see their transit paths.


So . . . here are a few segments I observe, I am sure there are many more.

a) Indian who stayed back in India and kept his eyes open. In which you include pretty much everybody who has a television since late `80s and internet since late `90s, owns a passport, is fairly aware that a world citizen is what s/he has the option of evolving into.

b) Indian who went abroad usually froze in time. For many of them, the rest of the world = phoren with big-big cars, cola in can, new type of blue rubber chappals, discount department stores and frozen yogurt, and their children are testimony to this.

c) Indian who went abroad and kind of got amalgamated. These are the people who are able to return with open eyes, and will read a copy of The Lonely Planet instead of asking Old Aunt XYZ about how to get around.

+++

As for being recognised as an NRI, I think a lot has to do with the haircut as well as the stance.

+++

On the term ``world citizen`` being a Class-IV term, I agree. But it does seem to have relevance again, specifically if you wave an Indian passport along with your plastic lately. Especially if in between the time you/I were in Class-IV, we moved through Socialist fabrics.

Sincerely, veeresh

Jawahra `Saidullah`

Loved it.

(Jawahra & Saidullah is perlexing me!)

Yesterday. I was waiting outside my office (Colombo) for a radio cab. A car stopped. It was not the cab. I was confused. The man asked `Are you living in Malalasekara (Cinnamon gardens)`. I said `Yes`.

He said `I have seen you taking walk in evening. I live at the end your private road. Come with me`.

And so it turns out that he is from India. And Punjabi. He asked `You speak in Punjabi?` I replied `Bilkul`.

And then, suddenly we were on a big common canvass. His being so close was already a comforting feeling. We quickly exchanged notes on our lives.

We still have to begin our interactions, me being still being in the settling down phase. He is an economic & finanace beauracrat - something I know little about and there is a topic waiting out there.

nhk

re:#3 by veeresh
(India is excessively surplus in foreign exchange....``
No kidding sherlock!
And where do u think all that foreign exchange is coming from?
Sridhar