Occasionally, I’d love to cover some rags-to-riches stories of people who’d inspire us (like Elon Musk) & instill a faith in our instinct to enterprise. But this one is different. And frankly speaking, not so in a positive way.
Recently I finished reading ‘Code Name God’ written by Dr. Mani Bhaumik – the man behind Lasik Eye Correction Technique and numerous other laser based technologies – and found an interesting reference to the early Independent India. Even at that time, the great American dream was as valid (read imperative) as it is today for the young technocrats vying to theorize or monetize a concept.
Dr. Bhaumik writes about America as flourishing because “there even the most lofty ambition was encouraged if backed up by a will to work hard, whereas in India ambition was often seen as overreaching pride.”
For the unaware wannabes, Dr. Bhaumik moved to US in the year 1959 to pursue his research at UCLA upon completing his PhD in Physics from IIT, Kharagpur (and that makes him the first PhD of all IITs too).
So how far have we come since independence in changing the social substructure of our society? In numbers, how many Mani Bhaumiks have happened from India since 1960, particularly those who did PhD here and decided to stay back to try their luck with the same vigor and flame? And now even after sixty years of existence, do we really have the infrastructure or a social fabric that supports forward thinking?
Here are the choices that an Indian youth has today:
Dr. Mani Bhaumick
1. More than 18000 H1B visas (keys to America) are yet to be utilized, so if you still believe in flying abroad and living the dream. Just go ahead.
2. Stay back in India as the economic growth parameters are truly positive here.
3. Close your eyes and choose not to seeing the nightmare of truly ‘no choices’ at all.
So what does one do, when the Great American dream has withered away completely and the Great Indian dream fails to take off another sixty years?
Well I truly am still searching for the answer as our Prime Minister takes on opposition through another buzzword called austerity.
Do you sometimes face a similar question (and like many of us, sit on it for the curiosity to pass)?
So very true. It’s also like I hate congress, but then I hate BJP, RJD, BSP, TDP and all other P’s too!!
May be you should create a poll in Pluggd.in. We would love to participate.
That’s a pretty good idea.
I don’t think the Great American dream has withered away…just a matter of time…but yeah I am not hopeful about the Great Indian dream…India is a very different place…a silicon valley cannot be built here and maybe it is not needed either…
not needed??? as in how and why not needed? and if so, then why the xenophobia against the people returning to India, huh? that’s double standards.
Well there’s money to be made in the mean time folks. You can offer a whole suite of services to the disillusioned returning Indians to enable them to have a “soft” landing. At the same time there’s plenty of upwardly mobile junta here who will consume everything in sight.
Being at a startup I know that our goals are nothing short of global (not just being global but global dominance
). The spirit of folks in the trenches is just indomitable. That is just so different from anything I have experienced in the 3 continents I have worked in. Infrastructure or not, India is unstoppable.
seriously “Jester”???
Aravind,
It’s a Nehruvian fallacy that we can prosper without developing markets. The collectivist, statist approach to nation building has led us to this cesspool where an individual and his ambitions have been relegated to the fringe.
It’s completely understandable when an individual like Dr. Mani Bhaumik emigrates to the USA to pursue another nation’s dream. What is a nation’s place in the hearts of its society when it cannot hold the aspirations of it’s brightest?
Some other tough questions which beg an answer are –
** Are entrepreneurs in India educated enough on civil liberties and free markets?
** Do any of them seriously conceive of a startup without ably counteracting it’s artificial entry barriers? (Exceptions remain web-based businesses)
I do agree with you @Naresh … Nowadays “vision” of the name has been reduced to “flowery language on a piece of paper”, whereas the vision should have been clearly visibile through work and effort the country. let’s hope for the best, however.
ok, so here is the comparison of two countries, one which is standing on 200 years of freedom and the other which is underdevelopment but with the pride of developing really faster and the other thing is comparing India to Iraq or other gulf is not fare ………India is a totally differ country, who thinks we do not have power to reach till them so they are wrong because the golden sparrow now is a fastest hawk ready for response …….and for upcoming days where info. tech. is required here India is a champ .. and the country who can reach the moon can easily reach anywhere in the world…..
I did my Ph.D in lasers in India.Did my Post Doc in London and Liverpool for five years and now running sucessfully laser Industry at Pune.I always thought I must belong to India and hence came back,had to do a hard work and I am sucessful.But I feel some divine force always helped me in serious difficulties as I was persuing my goals honestly.