Armed with degrees and work experience from the US,many Indians are coming back and replanting themselves in their homeland. Hiren Kumar Bose takes a look at the blossoming new US-return community
Is `Swades' happening in real life? Mumbai suddenly seems to have become the hub of`returnee' Indians who, when in their 20's, went abroad to profit skills andknowledge from the West but have returned to harvest their learning in theirown watan. And these individuals are a game -- ready to experiment, willing to puttheir acquired wisdom to test and to take the risk to succeed among their fellowbeings.
It's a very unlikely place to meet a 'returnee' in a South Mumbai restaurant, which incidentally he also owns. But then Abhinav Agarwal (33) is not an easy-to-be categorised individual: for he tells you that his Bistro Chat Masala(tm) is the only place where you get Tiranga kulfi. And that he makes corporatefilms too.
Abhinav graduated from Ivy League, Brown University (Rhode Island) majoring indevelopment studies and organizational behaviour and Management. Besides running amulti-cuisine restaurant, located behind Bombay Stock Exchange he also makescorporate films on subjects such as sales motivation and training for clients, likeGlaxo, Dabur, Ranbaxy, BNP Paribas etc.For all those who wish to chase the `USA returned' dream, Abhinav advises, "Get ajob with a company that has an India presence, work with them for a a few years and then get placed back here. You will still get a dollar salary and expenses would be inrupees."
In Mumbai you are likely to find many such returnees in improbableplaces pursuing careers or founding enterprises, often unconnected with their studies abroad. And they all have one thing in common-the decision to return rather than wait for years to become proud possessors of a green card!
In the eighties and early nineties Taiwan-born individuals working in the US returned to their country of birth with dreams of changing things. And they did. Today, Taiwan is a major supplier of semi-conductor and chips. Even those who continued to stay abroad remained closely connected to Taiwan's emerging technology sector. Silicon Valley-based engineers formed the Monte Jade Science and Technology Association with the goal of "promoting cooperation and the mutual flow of technology and investment between Taiwan and the US." It is not an exaggeration to suggest that this is happening in India. "Brain drain" is giving way to "brain circulation" as talented immigrants who have studied and worked abroad are returning home to pursue opportunities here, thanks to liberalisation.
Having studied and worked abroad, Indian expats like restaurateur and film maker Abhinav Agarwal, netpreneur Mehul Patel, career counsellor and manpower consultant Riddhesh Gandhi, software technologist Akhil Sahahani and biotechnologist Ganesh Kamath have returned home with new skills and dreams of rebuilding India. For them patriotism is not just sending dollars as remittances. It is about being in the land of their birth, taking challenges that come with it and emerging as winners.
As engineers and other professionals return home--either temporarily or permanently-the returnees transfer not only technology and capital, but also managerial and institutional know-how to formerly peripheral regions.
Moreover, they link localproducers more directly to the market opportunities and networks of more advancedeconomies. Entrepreneur Mehul Patel who completed his MS in e-Commerce and New Media from New York University and worked with IBM (New York) says, "I always had a huge entrepreneurial bug inside me and believed that no location can be better to test your entrepreneurial skills than the place you grew up."Mehul (31) heads KIPL.Net one of the largest New Media/Digital services firm, whichprovides consultation across digital platforms, like Internet, Mobile, Intranet andTouch-Screen. Additionally, KIPL is into turnkey solutions across Infrastructure,application, content, design, real time servicing/updates etc.For the returnees the beginning was hard, really hard.
As Abhinav puts it: "Myfriends were in the USA and I missed the social life. It took me some time to findmy groove."Reminiscences Riddhesh Gandhi (26) who did a BBA at the University of Texas anddespite job offers with investment banks in New York decided to return and startYoungBuzz India Ltd, "It is tough initially because even in four years you get usedto the lifestyle in the US. If you have something here that you are passionateabout then staying and working won't be a problem."
Having being in the US for ten years, Dr Ganesh Kamath (38), returned for adifferent reason: "The US is great place for singles and even for those married butnot once you have kids as there is lack of family support system. I used to getsleepless nights thinking about my old age and reduced to spending the grey yearsin an old age home!"Dr Kamath acquired his M.S. in Pharmaceutical Science from Temple University,Philadelphia and became a licensed pharmacist. Following a doctorate specializingin Drug Dosage Delivery, he worked for Wyeth in the U.S. as a research scientist.After a brief stint as a pharmaceutical technology consultant, he used microencapsulation techniques (from Drug Dosage Delivery) to improve the stability ofmicroorganisms when applied in the environment. Back in India in 1997, he worked as a consultant and founded Organica Biotech in 2000, which is a premier biotechnologycompany involved in the development and marketing of environmentally responsibleproducts for industrial wastewater treatment, lake bioremediation, sewage treatmentand solid waste composting.
In India, most IT firms focus on selling low-end IT services but Akhil Shahani'sAjax Knowledge Systems is one of the few that not only have focused on softwareproducts, but sell them solely on the internet. "In 1996, the economicliberalisation happened and I realised that a quickly growing economy such as Indiawould give fantastic monetary opportunities," says Akhil (36) who in 1999 was votedas one of NASSCOM's future 'star' software companies is an MBA from JL KelloggGraduate School of Management Akhil returned home after four years."I focus on low cost but smart ways of creating and marketing newsoftware products. I also use the facilities offered by the Internetextensively for it is a great resource for any entrepreneur who knows how to use iteffectively," says Ajay.
Why go abroad? A question which needs answering and what do the returnees have tosay on this. Says Mehul: "Go with an open mind; don't get stuck to the initialoffer (remuneration), try and learn as much as you can, specially the systems,commitments and respecting each and every second of your time rest all is kool!"
Adds Abhinav: "Education in the top universities in the US isincredible. As money is not as much of an issue as people imagine. Talent isrecognized and scholarships are possible. Get the very best education the world hasto offer and international exposure that would hold one in good stead in years tocome."Concludes Riddhesh: "Going abroad to study is the best experience. The four years Ispent there helped me grow as a person. If you are able to go abroad, just go. It'sa fantastic experience.""But don't get stuck there. Come back home to roost,'' is what they advise inunison.
Published in The Education Times, June 26,2005
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Monday, June 20, 2005
QUILL COURAGE... Write, says Hiren K Bose, profiling the woman who refuses to put her pen down. Taslima Nasreen's only parallel could be Nagib Mahfouz, the Egyptian ...
www.taslimanasrin.com/quill_courage.htm -
www.taslimanasrin.com/quill_courage.htm -
Rewriting the San'script' (appeared in The Education Times)
From Shastras to software and beyond, Sanskrit has secured morethan its just space in the world of words. Hiren Kumar Bose traces thehighs and lows of this erstwhile lingua franca, both in the country ofits birth as well as in the lands the language is out to conquer
Dictionaries would have us believe that the Sanskrit word 'guru' means nothingmore than venerable or spiritual teacher. That's not the complete story.Let us see how the word came into being. The word 'guru' consisting of theaksharas (alphabet) 'gu' and 'ru' stand for a teacher - one whodispels darkness (ignorance) of the mind (person). 'Gu' means darknessand 'ru' means the act of removal.This is how Sanskrit works – by explaining each and every word we use in ourday-to-day lives. Each akshara or alphabet of Sanskrit denotes the setof letters from the first to the last. Besides, the word also meansthat the sound of the letter does not ever get destroyed, signifyingthe eternal quality of the sound of the letters. It retains thephonetic characteristics of the language and also their individualmeanings as well! Conclusively, the sound of a word is essentially thesounds of the aksharas in the word – a concept that will help simplifytext to speech applications with computers.What differentiates Sanskrit from the Western languages? The bestexplanation has come from Vyas Houston who has popularised thelearning of Sanskrit in the US. Vyas compares Sanskrit to mathematicsand goes on to say, "The way words unfold from their seed forms isremarkable. A root is always a single syllable that contains one ofthe basic sounds, 'a', 'i', 'u' or 'ri'. When the root creates a word,the sound undergoes guna, or a transformative principle, to keep itresonating to its optimum. Hence, chit 'to be aware' – becomes theresonant chetami 'I am aware,' and chetanam, 'being aware'. Budh'knowledge' becomes bodhami 'I know' or bodhanam 'knowing'. Theserelationships operate with mathematical precision throughout thelanguage and gives it an extraordinary power."The Vedic or the Sanskrit view gives more importance to the specialsound it should produce, and the compositions of that sound than tothe meaning of the written or spoken word. Hence the Sanskrit languageis phonetic, not linguistic – unlike the Western languages.The language is particularly suited for encrypting without ambiguity.This is particularly apparent in scientific treatises in Sanskrit,such as works of Aryabhatta, Varahamihir, Bhaskara and others of thatera. Sanskrit, the vocabulary of which is derived from root syllables,is ideal for coining new scientific and technological terms. Theprecise and extremely well defined structure of Sanskrit coupled withits antiquity, offers a number of areas in linguistics researchincluding computational linguistics. Sanskrit has a built-in schemefor pronunciation, word formation and grammar.Sanskrit is co-original with the Vedas. The scientific construction ofthe Sanskrit alphabet is well known. No other alphabet in the world(except those that have adopted the alphabet structure from Sanskrit)has such uniquely positioned letters. In Sanskrit, even the soundswhich make the word are consciously selected.While we in India today consider Sanskrit a dead language, theWesterners consider it as simply a fascinating language, a language inwhich the genius of the human civilisation was perfected to itsfullest. Top-notch Western universities have been busy churning oneesoteric dissertation after another on Panini's Ashtadhyay andcomparing Bhartihari's and Patanjali's grammatical logic.Among US universities, it was the University of Michigan which beganteaching Sanskrit as early as the 1890s as part of the Orientallanguages. Today, it attracts a large number of undergraduates, mostof them second-generation Indo-American kids, majoring in engineering,medicine, and business studies read Sanskrit not as a specialisedbranch but to satisfy the four-term foreign language requirement.George Cardona, a professor of historical linguistics at University ofPennsylvania who teaches Indian grammatical theory and is consideredto be a modern tikakaar (commentator) on Panini's Ashtadhyayi saysthat in recent years there has been an inflow of Japanese students toAmerican universities with very advanced knowledge of Sanskrit.Twenty-two universities in the US have Sanskrit as one of theirsubjects, followed by 18 German universities, five BritishUniversities and four Italian universities.Other countries which take Sanskrit seriously are Austria, Belgium,Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland , Netherlands, Norway, Poland,Russia, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland.In Mumbai, three colleges offer a six-paper degree course in Sanskrit,namely Ruia, Wilson and Somaiya while three others – Jhunjhunwala,Patkar and Bhavan's offer a three-paper degree course.A typical characteristic of the Sanskrit language is its totaldisregard to 'syntax'.Words with their typical case endings may be at any position of the sentenceswithout affecting the meaning or understanding. Take the case 'AhamShalam Gachhami' or 'I go to school'. Play with changing thepositions, like 'Shalam Gachchami Aham' or 'Gachchami Aham Shalam'. Solong as the grammar is perfect, the sentence construction doesn'tmatter. The meaning doesn't change. Try doing that in English though!"This fluidity has rendered Sanskrit particularly suitable forversification and thereby transmitted through generations in the formof shlokas and thousands of aphorisms," elaborates Dipen Chakrabarti,translator, researcher and a Sanskrit lover.Another powerful characteristic of Sanskrit is its ability to be brief and yetinformative. For example, Panini's Astadhyayi, the most celebratedgrammatical work in Sanskrit, is unique in its brevity whilemaintaining all the details. With 3995 aphorisms, the total expansecovered is rather amazing. Apart from the grammatical rules,Astadhyayi is unique as a philosophical treatise as well.Another typical characteristic of Sanskrit works is the greatimportance given toclassification and logical deduction. A language with essentially asingle spoken form that is written in many different ways, Sanskrit isopposed to classical Chinese, which is a language with essentially asingle written form that is spoken in many different ways.Many believe that the language can be revived only if it's brought out from theprecincts of the campus into the streets. Suggests Dr Kala Acharya, director KJSomaiya Bharatiya Sanskriti Peetham, "Its teaching has to be informaland only then can it be popularised. It should be learnt for the joyof reading the classics inthe original or as we say in devbhasa."Samskrita Bharati, an NGO, has done a yeoman's job in this regard byorganising 'Speak Sanskrit' workshops and training volunteers. In1981, Chamu Shastry, a Kannada Brahmin and his friends started Bharatiand have so far trained 20,000 volunteers all over India. Its campsare held regularly in Ghatkopar, Andheri, Dahisar and Borivali andattract housewives, teachers, students and retirees.Shastry's method is to skip grammar and teach Sanskrit as it isspoken. The students thus do not have to wrestle with the nuances ofan arcane syntactics. In fact, people do start speaking Sanskrit aftera 20-hour course spread over ten days. "If the Jews could reviveHebrew why can't we resuscitate Sanskrit?" Shastry argues, then adds,"Popularising Sanskrit is far easier as it is the mother of all Indianlanguages and up to 60 per cent of the words in the other languagesare derived from Sanskrit."
From Shastras to software and beyond, Sanskrit has secured morethan its just space in the world of words. Hiren Kumar Bose traces thehighs and lows of this erstwhile lingua franca, both in the country ofits birth as well as in the lands the language is out to conquer
Dictionaries would have us believe that the Sanskrit word 'guru' means nothingmore than venerable or spiritual teacher. That's not the complete story.Let us see how the word came into being. The word 'guru' consisting of theaksharas (alphabet) 'gu' and 'ru' stand for a teacher - one whodispels darkness (ignorance) of the mind (person). 'Gu' means darknessand 'ru' means the act of removal.This is how Sanskrit works – by explaining each and every word we use in ourday-to-day lives. Each akshara or alphabet of Sanskrit denotes the setof letters from the first to the last. Besides, the word also meansthat the sound of the letter does not ever get destroyed, signifyingthe eternal quality of the sound of the letters. It retains thephonetic characteristics of the language and also their individualmeanings as well! Conclusively, the sound of a word is essentially thesounds of the aksharas in the word – a concept that will help simplifytext to speech applications with computers.What differentiates Sanskrit from the Western languages? The bestexplanation has come from Vyas Houston who has popularised thelearning of Sanskrit in the US. Vyas compares Sanskrit to mathematicsand goes on to say, "The way words unfold from their seed forms isremarkable. A root is always a single syllable that contains one ofthe basic sounds, 'a', 'i', 'u' or 'ri'. When the root creates a word,the sound undergoes guna, or a transformative principle, to keep itresonating to its optimum. Hence, chit 'to be aware' – becomes theresonant chetami 'I am aware,' and chetanam, 'being aware'. Budh'knowledge' becomes bodhami 'I know' or bodhanam 'knowing'. Theserelationships operate with mathematical precision throughout thelanguage and gives it an extraordinary power."The Vedic or the Sanskrit view gives more importance to the specialsound it should produce, and the compositions of that sound than tothe meaning of the written or spoken word. Hence the Sanskrit languageis phonetic, not linguistic – unlike the Western languages.The language is particularly suited for encrypting without ambiguity.This is particularly apparent in scientific treatises in Sanskrit,such as works of Aryabhatta, Varahamihir, Bhaskara and others of thatera. Sanskrit, the vocabulary of which is derived from root syllables,is ideal for coining new scientific and technological terms. Theprecise and extremely well defined structure of Sanskrit coupled withits antiquity, offers a number of areas in linguistics researchincluding computational linguistics. Sanskrit has a built-in schemefor pronunciation, word formation and grammar.Sanskrit is co-original with the Vedas. The scientific construction ofthe Sanskrit alphabet is well known. No other alphabet in the world(except those that have adopted the alphabet structure from Sanskrit)has such uniquely positioned letters. In Sanskrit, even the soundswhich make the word are consciously selected.While we in India today consider Sanskrit a dead language, theWesterners consider it as simply a fascinating language, a language inwhich the genius of the human civilisation was perfected to itsfullest. Top-notch Western universities have been busy churning oneesoteric dissertation after another on Panini's Ashtadhyay andcomparing Bhartihari's and Patanjali's grammatical logic.Among US universities, it was the University of Michigan which beganteaching Sanskrit as early as the 1890s as part of the Orientallanguages. Today, it attracts a large number of undergraduates, mostof them second-generation Indo-American kids, majoring in engineering,medicine, and business studies read Sanskrit not as a specialisedbranch but to satisfy the four-term foreign language requirement.George Cardona, a professor of historical linguistics at University ofPennsylvania who teaches Indian grammatical theory and is consideredto be a modern tikakaar (commentator) on Panini's Ashtadhyayi saysthat in recent years there has been an inflow of Japanese students toAmerican universities with very advanced knowledge of Sanskrit.Twenty-two universities in the US have Sanskrit as one of theirsubjects, followed by 18 German universities, five BritishUniversities and four Italian universities.Other countries which take Sanskrit seriously are Austria, Belgium,Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland , Netherlands, Norway, Poland,Russia, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland.In Mumbai, three colleges offer a six-paper degree course in Sanskrit,namely Ruia, Wilson and Somaiya while three others – Jhunjhunwala,Patkar and Bhavan's offer a three-paper degree course.A typical characteristic of the Sanskrit language is its totaldisregard to 'syntax'.Words with their typical case endings may be at any position of the sentenceswithout affecting the meaning or understanding. Take the case 'AhamShalam Gachhami' or 'I go to school'. Play with changing thepositions, like 'Shalam Gachchami Aham' or 'Gachchami Aham Shalam'. Solong as the grammar is perfect, the sentence construction doesn'tmatter. The meaning doesn't change. Try doing that in English though!"This fluidity has rendered Sanskrit particularly suitable forversification and thereby transmitted through generations in the formof shlokas and thousands of aphorisms," elaborates Dipen Chakrabarti,translator, researcher and a Sanskrit lover.Another powerful characteristic of Sanskrit is its ability to be brief and yetinformative. For example, Panini's Astadhyayi, the most celebratedgrammatical work in Sanskrit, is unique in its brevity whilemaintaining all the details. With 3995 aphorisms, the total expansecovered is rather amazing. Apart from the grammatical rules,Astadhyayi is unique as a philosophical treatise as well.Another typical characteristic of Sanskrit works is the greatimportance given toclassification and logical deduction. A language with essentially asingle spoken form that is written in many different ways, Sanskrit isopposed to classical Chinese, which is a language with essentially asingle written form that is spoken in many different ways.Many believe that the language can be revived only if it's brought out from theprecincts of the campus into the streets. Suggests Dr Kala Acharya, director KJSomaiya Bharatiya Sanskriti Peetham, "Its teaching has to be informaland only then can it be popularised. It should be learnt for the joyof reading the classics inthe original or as we say in devbhasa."Samskrita Bharati, an NGO, has done a yeoman's job in this regard byorganising 'Speak Sanskrit' workshops and training volunteers. In1981, Chamu Shastry, a Kannada Brahmin and his friends started Bharatiand have so far trained 20,000 volunteers all over India. Its campsare held regularly in Ghatkopar, Andheri, Dahisar and Borivali andattract housewives, teachers, students and retirees.Shastry's method is to skip grammar and teach Sanskrit as it isspoken. The students thus do not have to wrestle with the nuances ofan arcane syntactics. In fact, people do start speaking Sanskrit aftera 20-hour course spread over ten days. "If the Jews could reviveHebrew why can't we resuscitate Sanskrit?" Shastry argues, then adds,"Popularising Sanskrit is far easier as it is the mother of all Indianlanguages and up to 60 per cent of the words in the other languagesare derived from Sanskrit."
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