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Anjan and Harshini
Bacchu
Two weeks after Anjan meets Harshini, a young
computer instructor, through a computer-aided
matching bureau, the two are celebrating their
engagement with family and friends. Although
they have met only twice, they have high hopes
for their life together.
Anjan wants Harshini to know and understand
him, so he gives her a copy of Gandhi's autobiography
as a betrothal gift. "Gandhi is my idol.
There’s a lot I need to learn from him.
"My father, it’s he who told me
about Gandhi, Nehru, truthfulness, purity,
stuff like that. The ideal that I have in
my life comes from him [my father]. But then
again, there are many things, which because
of our father-son relationship, we quarrel."
Anjan's father, a devout Gandhian, believes
India is suffering from an American "brain
drain" and worries that his son will
be corrupted by America's secular materialism.
Anjan promises his father that he'll return
to India in 100 weeks to resume his career
with even greater prospects for success.
Anjan is part of a wave of Indians going to
the U.S. on a coveted H-1B visa, which is
reserved for highly skilled immigrants. In
2000—the year Anjan comes to the U.S.—more
than 100,000 new H-1B workers arrive from
India alone to help fuel the booming U.S.
economy and the dot-com bubble.
Anjan and his relatives express conflicted
feelings about his desire to work in America.
Anjan sees different sides of himself, both
materialistic and spiritual. He is nervous
about nurturing his spiritual self in America:
"There is an ideal part of Anjan, there’s
a base part of Anjan. The base part wants
these clothes, a car. There is this ideal
part of Anjan, which strives for spiritual
attainment, which strives for peace, which
strives to do lots of social service. I am
actually not only one person."
He says that he wants to return to India with
his new skills. But his relatives are skeptical,
having seen many Indians seduced by the American
lifestyle and never returning.
"More than anything it is a question
of patriotism," says Anjan's father.
"He must come and serve India. You must
be true to your mother first. No country has
produced as intelligent people as this…
And we spend so much on them, just to give
it to America and Britain and France and Germany.
All the rich cream they are taking."
Four weeks after their engagement, Anjan and
Harshini are married in her hometown of Mysore
in a traditional Indian wedding. After the
wedding, Anjan turns his focus to job hunting
in America and getting to know his new wife.
After one job offer and some hand-wringing,
Anjan accepts a position with a small software
development firm in the San Francisco Bay
Area. Only days after their first wedding
anniversary, Anjan prepares to leave for the
U.S. Harshini will follow in a few months.
When Anjan arrives, he finds himself working
long hours and struggling with homesickness."This
is a difficult part of coming to the U.S.,
leaving your near and dear ones," he
says. "There’s my father who’s
alone, who’s sick, who’s old,
who needs me a lot. There are my sisters,
you know, I’ve never been separated
from them for more than four months at the
max."
After two months, Harshini joins Anjan in
America where he surprises her with an apartment,
and together they buy a used Toyota Camry.
Since Harshini's visa does not allow her to
work, she fills her days with housekeeping
and shopping, a lifestyle that frustrates
and depresses her. She is ambitious too, but
recognizes that their stint in America offers
them a unique opportunity. "I stay at
home the whole day sitting in four walls.
I don’t have a car. I cried a lot initially.
I have wanted to go back to India. I feel
very lonely sometimes."
When the dot-com bust devastates the high-tech
industry in 2000, Anjan loses his job. There
is a lot of pressure on him to find a job
that will extend his H-1B status. If his old
company informs the INS that he has been laid
off, he could be asked to leave the country
immediately. Unfortunately, the declining
economy means thousands of workers are competing
for few jobs.
"If I wanted to go back, okay, well that’s
something else," says Anjan. "Forced
to go back is like kicking out a guest. You
make money out of us while we’re here
and the moment you don’t want us, kick
out. That’s not the Indian way of doing
things."
In the three months following the loss of
his job, Anjan is twice hired and let go from
temporary positions. Finally, the couple is
forced to move into a cheaper apartment. When
Harshini becomes pregnant, her parents come
from India to care for her through the pregnancy.
Four weeks after daughter Amita is born, Harshini
returns to India, leaving Anjan behind to
continue to search for work. "I’d
rather fulfill some of the goals that I set
out for before I go back home," he says.
He has overstayed his 100-week plan by 35
weeks.
As Anjan leaves the airport after putting
Harshini and Amita on the plane, he reflects
on his journey. "I’m sad that now
I’m lost in this world, that I wasn’t
wise enough when I got lost to find my way,
so I didn’t have to put others to sorrow.
It’s like I’m in the South Pole
and I have just a compass, and I don’t
necessarily know how the compass works. It’s
not only me, I have two other people that
I have to take care of—so many visions
about life have changed. That’s the
saying in India, ‘for a stone to become
a sculpture, it needs lots of hits.’"
Learn
more about India, the U.S., and the tech industry
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| Harshini and
Anjan on their wedding day |
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| Anjan Bacchu |
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| Harshini and
Anjan with baby Amita at the airport |
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