Archive for the ‘Immigration’ Category
An emotional goodbye
Posted on: May 15, 2017
- In: Australia | Country | General | Immigration | Languages and Politics | Real Life | USA
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I still remember the day I landed in the US for the first time. It was January 5th night and there had been heavy snow in Pennsylvania. My international student advisor along with another student whom I had contacted through students association had come to pick me up. I was 22 years old and had never lived away from my parents for more than a month. I was confused, scared and was thousands of miles away from my family.
I did not know to cook, did not know how to manage finances and basically was unfit to stay alone at that time. To top it all, one of my luggage did not make it through on time. That suitcase was the one which had all the food and I was basically afraid of how I was going to manage. I still remember the night I landed and I did not even know how to call my parents to inform them of my safe arrival. The guy who came to pick me up wasn’t very helpful in telling me how to make a call. Mind you this was in 2003, calling to India was still not easy or cheap that it is today. So I just went to sleep without knowing how to inform my parents.
Thankfully my parents called the college and got to know that I had safely arrived. I was lucky that I had my cousins in the US already and they helped me out with the initial calling cards to India. Everyday from the morning after was a learning experience. From learning to cook to managing my own bank account I was Fast tracked to independent living. Even though it was difficult at the start it progressively got easier.
The college life was excellent, I met some wonderful people and I am still in touch with some of them. The 2 years I spent at the university taught me a lot and made me confident of taking care of myself. Once I graduated I did have few months of struggle but I did find a job which I held to the last day I was in the US.
The overall experience in the US was brilliant. The country gave me a lot and I loved every minute of it. I got married when I was in the US. My wife and I travelled a lot and saw lots of beautiful places. We had our first child while we were in the US. Lots of amazing friends and people, the memories would be etched in my mind forever.
It was really sad when I had to leave the country which I called home for 14 years. It was a really hard decision to take. I guess I had reached that tipping point when it did not make sense anymore to continue waiting. It was hard to make that call but I feel it was the right one. 14 years is a long time in a person’s life and I was not getting any younger. America gave me a lot, it was wonderful experience and I enjoyed every bit of it but unfortunately the law makers are stuck in the stone ages.
Things happened too fast and I along with my family moved out at a breakneck speed. It never sank in as I did not even have time to say goodbye to people I know properly. It was good in a way that it happened so fast. The only regret I had was when I moved out of my home where my wife and I stayed for 5 years. The home where my wife and I experienced lots of highs and quite a bit of lows. The home where my wife and I spent hours together talking, watching movies and cooking. It was an emotional moment when I left the keys at the counter and locked the door for one last time.
There is no regret and I would do it all over again in a heart beat. I had wonderful 14 years and I leave with no regrets. Thanks US for everything you gave me and this post was a long time coming. I have moved on to a new country and new life but I carry with me wonderful memories. Bye Bye US, thanks for everything.
I posted this 3 years back and it seems like this issue has resurfaced again. It is funny how our celebrities can do anything to be in the news.
No news has grabbed the headlines in the past few days more than Shahrukh’s detention at the US airport. Even swine flu had to take a back seat on the Indian media. Was the Indian superstar making a huge deal of the incident to promote his upcoming movie which is based on the same theme? May be, but Shahrukh has denied such claims. Yeah it was bad that Shahrukh was detained at the Airport for couple of hours but it’s not a National disaster. It was funny when a famous Bollywood actress claimed that Shahrukh is a “World” figure and should not have gone through such treatment.
The above statement is all that is wrong in India. If she had said something like any Indian should not be subjected to such treatment based on his religion or race, I would have had more respect for her sentiments but that was…
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Shahrukh Khan was detained at the US Airport for 2 hrs for interrogation
No news has grabbed the headlines in the past few days more than Shahrukh’s detention at the US airport. Even swine flu had to take a back seat on the Indian media. Was the Indian superstar making a huge deal of the incident to promote his upcoming movie which is based on the same theme? May be, but Shahrukh has denied such claims. Yeah it was bad that Shahrukh was detained at the Airport for couple of hours but it’s not a National disaster. It was funny when a famous Bollywood actress claimed that Shahrukh is a “World” figure and should not have gone through such treatment.
The above statement is all that is wrong in India. If she had said something like any Indian should not be subjected to such treatment based on his religion or race, I would have had more respect for her sentiments but that was not what she meant. There were lots of reactions from Bollywood after the incident which only showed arrogance on their part. I know that there are millions of Indians who go through such hell everyday around the world and none of us complain. Maybe we should, but who will listen? If I had been detained at the Airport for any reason, it would have been difficult for me to even get hold of our Indian consulate.
The VIP, VVIP, VVVVIP etc culture in India is sickening. In know that the Indians are now used to that culture but why do you expect the same treatment in a foreign country. The comparison with Brad Pitt was another dumb statement by yet another Bollywood bigwig. If the Indians treat Hollywood superstars differently then it’s our problem and the US immigration should not be blamed for that. The Indian security check is a joke and lots of Americans (not only Brad Pitt) are let through without even being checked. The problem with this incident is that no one has spoken on behalf of the entire Indian community who undergo such checks and interrogations every other day, it’s all about one superstar detained for 2 hours for the first time in his life.
Since becoming a superstar in Indian cinema, he was made to feel human for the first time which the star did not like. Now the stars should realize the predicament of common Indian who goes through such scrutiny everywhere in the world. If Dr. Abdul Kalam can be stopped at the Airport then why not Shahrukh? Is Shahrukh bigger than our former President? Our defense minister had to go through the same problems, so is our Bollywood superstar bigger than the above two National leaders? No he is not, at least not for me.
Yeah I know that this is not an ideal scenario and discrimination based on caste, Religion and race has to be questioned but why only when a high profile star is detained. What about the common Indian man? I guess it’s okay that our over the top superstar was brought down to earth for couple of hours, I don’t care if that happened. Nothing is going to change here. Even if the US immigration apologizes for their act, Indians are still going to face these checks, so why worry so much. The incident is done and dusted and Bollywood has to realize that this is not India and the immigration officers across the world don’t recognize Shahrukh Khan.
Collection of my thoughts
Posted on: February 19, 2009
- In: Cricket | Cricket and Sports | Entertainment | Immigration | Music | tennis
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The Indian team with the trophy in SL
AR Rahman with the Golden Globe
I have had a frustrating last few months which came to an end yesterday with the visa approval. For all of us here the extension process has been a real long and frustrating journey which controlled our thoughts for all these months. I have decided to put in a summary of the happenings in the last few months about which I was planning to write about.
Indian cricket team’s successful 2008 and the NewZealand tour
I would like to begin with the exceptional season the Indian cricket team has been having since they won the Perth test match last Jan. The only blip being the test series in Srilanka. The Indian team under Dhoni has performed really well and are in top 3 in both forms of the game. The recent series in SL where Dhoni’s men won 4-1 further emphasized their raise in the shorter format of the game. The Indian team has found great bunch of youngsters who are hungry for success and want to win every game. Having said all that Dhoni’s great test is just around the corner, the tour of NZ. This will be his first full tour as a captain of the Indian team. India would be looking to win the test and the one-day series against the Kiwis which will not be an easy task.
The Kiwis have had a good series against the Australians recently where they drew the one-dayers 2-2 and lost the one-off Twenty20 by one run. They will be full of confidence and would be hoping to drive their home advantage to trouble the Indian team. The Indians on the other hand would want to erase the memory of their disastrous 2002/03 tour to the Kiwiland by turning in good performances in the both forms of the game. If India play to their potential they should win the series. The series gets underway with the first of the 2 Twenty20 games next wednesday. Lets hope that the series is competetive and may the best team win.
Slumdog Millionaire and A R Rahman
Musical genius A R Rahman made every Indian proud when he received the Golden Globe award for the best original score for his song “Jai Ho” in Danny Boyle’s award winning movie Slumdog Millionaire. There has been lots of speculation in the Indian media reagrding the movie as well as A R Rahman’s music claiming that both are over-rated. Few people in the media have slammed the movie and some also said that it has shown India in a poor light. As far as I am concerned the movie was just okay and was nothing great but thats my opinion. To be frank its a movie made by a British director in India and if Hollywood calls it as the best movie of the year then so be it. I dont think that this movie showed anything wrong about India.
At least the movie was made in India. How many bollywood directors make movies in the slums of Mumbai? How many Indian directors who commented on this movie can make a movie which will prove otherwise? Actually no one cares. Its just that this movie has become so big that people have decided to cash in on its popularity. The Johars and the chopras have stopped making movies in India and few more directors probably will follow suit. I guess we have to treat SM as a hollywood movie which has been made in India with Indian actors, thats about it. We have made so many substandard movies in US and UK, they dont claim those as theirs and slam it in the their media when we give awards to those movies. So lets just be realistic, Hollywood thinks its the best movie of the year so thats where it ends.As far as the award to ARR is concerned I am really proud of him and his achievements. He has put Indian music on the world map.
Whether this is his best composition is open to speculation but there is no denying the fact that he deserves all the accolades he is receiving right now. Lets not unnecessarily dissect the music and enjoy the success of one of the finest composers in India. Congrats to ARR on his Golden Globe and hope he wins Oscars too.
Tennis in India
Tennis in India received a tremendous boost when Yuki Bhambri won the junior Australian Open title earlier this year. His victory along with the performance of Somdev in the Chennai open gives great hope to the Tennis scene in India. Mahesh won yet another mixed doubles championship, this time with our own Sania Mirza to make this the most memorable Australian Open for the Indians. Sania though continued her horror run in singles when she was beaten in the second round. Hopefully Somedev and Yuki can take the Indian Tennis forward and make a successful transition to the senior level.
Thats all for now from me. Lets hope that India continues to shine in 2009 and we have more awards and titles to add.
Last few months there has been one question in every Indian’s mouth “Did you hear anything about your H1B extension?”. We are a bunch of people who had their H1B extension due at the same time and are currently waiting for approval. There hasnt been one lunch break in the last 3 months where this has not been a topic of discussion. There has been excel sheets maintained to collect the list of people waiting for their approval.Its been a tension filled few months for all of us. It was expected that the US immigration would come hard of foriegn workers at some point and its unfortunate that its happening to us.
The decisions are taking ages and the updates have been few and far between. People are holding of their plans to visit their homes and it has already made it to the Indian media. The Indian media has jumped on this delay and have started to talk about the same in papers.I can understand the fact that the US immigration wants to make their Visa norms strict but the processing time for the same is the worrying factor. There are people who are waiting for more than 5 months to hear something about their case. No matter how short staffed they are it shouldnt take that long without the applicant getting any information on his/her case.
Even though this has been a frustrating few months for all of us, we have no other choice but to wait little longer. Hopefully some one incharge will realise the same and will speed things up.
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My Thoughts 