SOUTH ASIAN SUCCESS: TRUTH OR MYTH?
by Kumkum Ramchandani

From dotbusters to dotcoms, desis have coolly weathered titanic ups and downs on the stormy seas of success in North America.

Recognition has come slowly but surely. Amartya Sen won a Nobel Prize. Amar Bose designed the perfect speaker. Zubin Mehta headed the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Billionaire Kanwal Rekhi made the cover of top business magazines. Deepa Mehta made a controversial film. Kalpana Chawla zoomed into space. Bobby Jindal stood for governor.

If success is to be measured in economic terms, American desis have certainly earned it. Merrill Lynch has estimated that there are 200,000 millionaires of Indian origin in the USA. That means one in nine Indians is a millionaire contributing to an average Indian income of over $60,000 compared to the national average of $38,885.

At the height of the Silicon Valley bubble, 200,000 Indians in the San Francisco Bay area and their companies accounted for a whopping $235 billion in market value.

Though we desis might generally view ourselves as having made it on an equal footing, the American media sees us as Appu, the curry-coloured penny pinching Kwik Mart owner in The Simpsons. But like the “Potels” or Patels with motels, Appu has achieved one version of the American Dream.

So, given the premise that we are on the road to success, how have we reached there? According to Dr.Amar Bose, the man who defined audio system sophistication: “No one ever won a chess game by betting on each move. Some times you have to move backward to get a step forward.”

Every Indian family would love to rear an Amar Bose or an Indira Nooyi, COO of Pepsico who was voted Fortune’s 8th most powerful businesswoman in America today. From a young age, little desis are brainwashed into believing that they must one day cross the seven seas into the US of A where gold-lined streets leading to Ivy League colleges are waiting to receive the ladla bacchas. Ironically, the Indian Dream is to achieve the American Dream!

South Asians, more often than not, are raised in a family atmosphere of competitiveness. Academic progress is encouraged to the detriment of prowess in sports or arts and culture which means that we have become a community of nerds. There is this joke where little Pappu comes home overjoyed from school to tell his mummy, “Ma, ma, I have won the Nobel Prize for Literature!” “Okay beta,” says mummyji. “Have you done your homework?”

Nevertheless, ill-fated astronaut Kalpana Chawla attributed her interest in space to the “solid science education” she received in school in Karnal, Punjab.

For Rajat Gupta, CEO of McKinsey & Co., his breaking through the glass ceiling has been partly attributed to the teachings of the Gita. “The fundamental philosophy is that you worship work and do it for its own sake and don’t judge it by what results you achieve.”

Farooq Kathwari, president of furniture giant Ethan Allen, points out that his boyhood in Kashmir may have led to his success. “Living in high altitudes and climbing mountains helped because big business is not only a game, it is a game of stamina!”

Another motivation for South Asians is the desire to please the extended family and almost as important, the material wealth that is associated with success. Which is why “hot male” Sabeer Bhatia (estimated to be worth $200 million), who sold his company Hotmail to Bill Gates for $400 million, bought a oak panelled crystal chandeliered home in glitzy Pacific Heights for $2 million as well as a Porsche Boxster, Ferrari Spider and BMW M3.

Bhatia’s philosophy: “The greatest risk in life is not to take a risk at all.”

So are we a greedy race? Not in the case of the most successful venture capitalist of all time, Vinod Khosla. Money was not his motivation when he founded Sun Microsystems. Fortune magazine placed Khosla, with an estimated worth of $700 million, 357th in its list of 400 richest Americans in 2003. He was the only American of Indian origin to make the list.

The man with the Midas touch said during a seminar: “Entrepeneurship is about those who dream the dreams and are foolish enough to make them come true.” At the height of his career, Khosla was credited with transforming about $50 million in early investments in just half a dozen companies into $15 billion!

Originating from a country with over one billion inhabitants all struggling to make a go of it has made us a community of opportunists. Take new age guru Deepak Chopra.

The man has come up with a pretty potent masala mix of eastern philosophy and western pragmatism to grab the attention of obese and guilt-ridden Americans looking for the easy way out. In his book, The Karma of Brown Folk, Vijay Prashad has pointed out that “sly babas” like Chopra have perpetuated the myth that South Asians are a pliant spiritual group peddling opiates that comfort. Well, this “poet-prophet of alternative medicine” has come a long way, baba!

Opportunism is why a talented yet hitherto serious filmmaker like Canadian Deepa Mehta made a mindless potboiler like Bollywood/Hollywood. She wanted to cash in on the current global interest in everything Bollywoodian. Author Rohinton Mistry, the acclaimed Booker Prize nominee, who has lived for decades in Canada, still uses vivid Indian imagery in his books to make them sell like hot chappatis. After all, not everyone can be asli American ghee like Manoj Knight Shyamalan of The Sixth Sense fame.

If cerebrally-inclined South Asians cannot compete in sports, arts, mass media and entertainment in phoren lands, they have made their mark in two fields that are dear to every desi heart – films and politics. Lets face it, every Indian worth his name is raised on a diet of Bollywood and Pollywood (the murky world of politics).

In politics, our Punjab da puttars have done exceptionally well. When Ujjal Dosanjh, who was born in the village of Dosanjh Kalan in rural Punjab, was appointed the first ever brown Premier of British Columbia, he set a precedent. Today, Canada has a Sikh Minister of Natural Resources in Herb Dhaliwal and four brown Cabinet members.

However, it is an inescapable fact that pukka integration into mainstream society will eventually have to be achieved by the ABCDs (American Born Confused Desis). ABCDs, in their bid to become true blue Americans, are actually one up on first generation desis who still cling to their traditions. Why? Because they are more accepted with their Amreekan twangs and hybrid names. After all it’s easier for Americans to relate to Jack rather than Jaggu!!!

As a testimony to this is 32-year old Rhodes Scholar Bobby (Piyush) Jindal, a Sikh turned Christian who stood for Governor of Louisiana in November 2003. Hailed as a political prodigy, US-born Bobby was secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals at the tender age of 24. Even though he lost the race for governorship, he won the marathon for recognition of ABCD progress.

Funnily enough, despite giant strides, North American desis are still hovering on the fringes of the asli mainstream, waiting for the ABCDs to come into their own, which is just a matter of time. In the mean time, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind about one thing – most desi qualities are an undisputable asset in any phoren land!