Monthly Archives: February 2023

Study in the USA

Understanding student visa takers, who helped the US Embassy break records

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Study after the times of Covid

OpenDoors Report is probably the only data to fall back on the close enough numbers on the international student enrollment in the USA. This is supposed to be a record breaking year for the US Embassy. Some people also commented on how and why middle class is sending students to the USA, despite the history of visa difficulty for working visa population based on the Great Backlog. Yes, everything in this country is great.

A few Indian challenges

I would defer to what my ex-supervisor said. I was in two minds to go or no go to the USA when it was my turn. I had already spend fair deal of money back in the United States of India on education, burned through some savings and achieved two degrees and a post graduate diploma. And still struggling for a proper foothold in core engineering jobs viz electrical, mechanical, civil engineering. The entry criteria for all the public sector undertaking (PSU) jobs had changed to GATE, now you need to crack GATE to get into PSU, and that graduating from an accredited university does not guarantee getting through the GATE exam. No wonder it is so competitive and exclusive. There are a few who are successful, but if you did not want to incur any gap in employment and then joined workforce, then studying for GATE becomes a bit harder. The flexibility and freedom is on our side, but the time is never, the clock keeps ticking. I have known various yet unknown places in the country of India by attempting different types of examinations for entrance into public sector undertaking jobs, bank jobs, and so on. It is a journey on its own and takes a character far away from actual engineering. It would remind someone of the initial entrance examinations that we go through to get the Bachelors in engineering in the first place. It was interesting and funny to pose one such GATE electronics circuits problem to a senior scientist at the place I was working, he had a Masters in Engineering already and a working professional. But he got to answer it incorrectly. This proves how useful GATE as an examination is. My advisor, said even if he could not make it big in the land of the states of the Americas, he would still encourage me to go and have that experience.

The challenges for students is not in getting a degree from the USA. There are not many Americans who attend colleges. Like many practical minded population they understand that education can do so much but money trumps, and there are paths of lesser resistance available to them, like associates degree, vocational training and so on. The challenge may actually lie elsewhere. The current population estimate of India is very close to being number one in the world. Statistics is a nice way to look at this. An eye opening map for the global India is given by Xavi’s tweet.

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So if India is that big and populous, why is the demography not yielding its benefits, why is Tamil Nadu not Germany, why people want to go to Germany instead of Tamil Nadu? There is enough internal migration within India, the data for which is yet unknown.

How do we try to answer the student visa issued by US embassy in this context? Even with so many opportunities to study and work within India, the drive for the people to get educated, to migrate, to see, experience, learn and work with new and different cultures is only increasing. There is also a serious lack in the number of educational opportunities at par with the western standards. Despite having the most universities per country, beating out USA by a huge margin, India is yet to be known as a global educational hub, or one that gives education at par with the places that students flock to. So we have the quantity, and some quality, but overall still more kilometers to go.

Work Culture is one major understanding that comes through foreign work. Be it in another state or a country. Work is a beast, to be tamed. Work culture in India is different from Spain and is much different from the USA. To understand a different work culture and understand the shortcomings and benefits of being in home country is one benefit of immigration, this kind of economic immigration is facilitated by post study work permits in majority of the western world. This is a sample time period for the beneficiary and the employer, kind of like a date to understand each other and to see if this kind of relationship is sustainable in the long term. With good post study work permits such as that in Canada or in the USA for STEM degrees, a student visa holder is ability to get good Return on Investment in terms of cultural exchange and recover the student loan debt. It is not uncommon to have student debt in some countries like the USA, while may be surprise for yet another countries like Germany. Choosing a place of study, so as to transform into a post study worker to undertake such activities is incorporated into visa and study schemes in western world. At the same time, India does not have a culture of Internship, or a smooth transition from study to work. There is a GATE to be opened for a better future. This experience of endless entrance examinations leads to burn out and focusing on the means than the end. Coaching centers galore.

That brings in the relevance of Spadikam (1995) movie to this days.

So to answer the first question based on the tweet from US Embassy, who are all these student visa holders?

New students

There are fresh students in student visa in this pool. They fall into the category of people who want more experiences and cultural exchanges that we discussed before.

Change of status visas who needed to travel

There are some who are already in the USA in a different visa status, had to change to student status and then get a visa to re enter USA, the news does not say how many fresh F1 visas were issued vs how many are getting a renewal or a change of status and later a changed visa. This two pronged idea of status and visa may confuse a few people, the status is to be legally in the USA. The visa is only to enter the USA internationally. Several people lost jobs through out Covid times since 2019 onward, many lost jobs, many changed plans, many returned to India, many want to return to study or continue studies that was stopped earlier. This needs a visa if they were stuck in India and had to physically reach USA for continuation, completion and post study work.

Choices that we make, some we are forced to make

There are people who wanted to rejoin family, but do not see any pathways and visa and status that are viable other than a student visa. There are aged out children of H1B or other temporary visas, who reached age of 21 and need to hold their own visa status because they are legally not a dependent anymore. F1 visa is their only choice.

Should you come to the USA?

If you have valid reasons, and see benefits beyond the visa troubles and other limiting factors, do come. If you are on the fence, better to get matters sorted out before heading into the USA. If you have better options, better countries, that align with your interests, and ambitions closely, go with them. If you can’t make your own choices, someone or something else would make choices for you.

Movie Review

Bharat (2019) Movie Review

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I got to see Bharat (2019) in the Amazon Prime Video OTT. This movie is underrated per IMDB. I would put it at a much higher rating than above average, likely 8 or 9 out of 10.

Who would not like this movie? It is pure fiction and has a larger than life story with strong emotions covering the whole spectrum from sadness to happiness, death to life before and to life after, from patriotism to atrocity, from poverty to richness, from dependence to independence, from childhood to old age, from non violence to violence, from fantasy to reality, from existence to non-existence. I would count this as Salman‘s best movie ever, that I have seen.

Placing the Tiger in the background and working in and around untouched domains

Coming from the hangover of the YRF Spy universe. Bharat, makes me think of this as a precursor to the Tiger. Almost completing the Tiger’s background story, which could have easily sat between pre-Tiger to Tiger. With similarly bold character of Katrina Kaif holding up and performing beyond expectations of a stereotypical Bollywood heroine. This also fits well with the Salman Khan’s zone of movies with the premise of India-Pakistan making this one also a true pan sub continent movie of Bajrangi Bhaijan. Complete with the Pathaan and upcoming Tiger Movies, this almost demands at least in people’s mind to give Salman movie fans to make these attempts a redeemer of whatever faults the human has and keeps the hope of negating the differences and unifying the broken hearts of both countries.

Bharat the redeemer

Coming back to Bharat the movie, at some Katrina’s character also knocks out the superhuman of the character making it very human. This must have been a truly humbling experience for the fans. As for the actors, they are just acting, it is for us, that it matters more.

Bharat and work

That scene of getting himself and his team a work visa was funny, unrealistic and stupid, nevertheless entertaining. Going through tough times of Partition of the sub-continent to formation of different countries, the effects of which were shown with good intent and effectiveness, Bharat stands out. Taking us through numerous jobs that the titular character undertakes and gives his best, it is a reminder for anyone who is willing to succeed, to also be willing to put in the effort. As we grow up we relate to different aspects of a movie. A working class person, someone in the working age, hopes to get to work and live a work life, accepts a VIP orAla Vaikunthapurramuloo or The Pursuit of Happyness at a much more realistic viewpoint. On a parallel, Katrina’s character also goes through work life, of immigration, public broadcasting and reality TV, a natural evolution resonating with the macroeconomics of the country of India.

Bharat and immigration

As a southerner, the effects of partition are not known much in the south, only history testbooks and interests in geopolitics would draw a curious mind towards this forgettable but important nation creating moment. I would have to use much imagination on top of the excellent writing of Kushwant Singh in his Train to Pakistan, to fill the gaps of humanness and the lack thereof. Bharat also goes through ambitions of the unemployed, how they wished to build their family first, reminding an average Mamootty fan of Pathemaari. Pathemaari was a serious take on poverty, helplessness, economic immigration and immigrant workers. Similar immigrant worker stories of which we heard and read in the recently concluded Qatar world cup 2022 as well. So many years have passed, but history repeats itself. Bharat particularly touches the immigrant’s nerve when it talks about hopes. Destroying someone’s hope is worser than death. In Kerala, a related proverb goes like, “Give an elephant, but never give hope”. Sometimes as immigrant and/or worker, we give hopes to ourselves, some of them may need a reclassification as a false-hope, to satisfy our ego and give ourselves a really hard footing. Don’t hopes drive us? Don’t we give ourselves hopes to live on and live by? Sometimes winning, sometimes losing and having a lifetime of experience to reflect upon.

Going through different jobs, posing different situations and the associated struggle and fun, it sits well with me as an economic immigrant working out of home country. The fun side of which reminds me of yet another great movie – The Forrest Gump. Salman portrayed an emotionally less aged character in the hit Bajrangi Bhaijan, whose innocence, just like Forrest Gump captured the heart, this one in and as Bharat combines the best of both worlds, and includes a whole universe of characters, emotions, situations and struggles, which is yet another surprise in a Bollywood movie, especially one normally expected out of Salman. Dealing with even pirates, on his own style, who would not want to be Bharat’s friend. It is his friend in bad times, that kept with him, and even this aspect of friendship was explored,in addition other relationships with siblings, parents and extended family with much importance in the movie.

Overall, Bharat was an interesting experience, of laws and lawlessness, ambitions and complacence. It is a wonder for someone who went through The Forrest Grump and Bajrangi Bhaijan to see that even within a standard Indian movie duration, Bharat could offer this much, and keeping a coherent narrative with effective visualization. Like other Salman movies, this one too, stands ground on hit movie songs. Bharat was a refreshing experience, and thence for once putting this particular movie well above my average ratings for an average Hindi Movie.

There was only one instant where I felt the movie could have improved. During Bharat’s near death experience in the underground work place, an otherwise stopped watch should have started working, to show us that this was unreal times, where his whole life flashes before him, and the watch should have stopped, when he recovers, indicating that we are back to normal where the watch never worked.

Bharat also pays good reference times for the legends Shah Rukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar and Amitabh Bachchan.

Sidenotes

As someone who worked for a Pakistani Origin CEO, in a company which had significant footprint in Pakistan, USA and office in India. Going to a sponsored vacation trip with all Pakistani people in an unknown country, was a unique and memorable experience for me. Thanks to the USA for letting us do that.I would confidently claim that time has been proving over and over again of no much difference between humans, their needs and emotions. And people of all countries gel well when they are outside of their homes. So I would encourage everyone to get out of the comfort of home, and go and see the world. To shine lights on the darkest corners of our brain, to open up and bring in a true acceptance of the world we live in.We need to do more of that between these two beautiful countries and many other countries as well.

Footnotes

I could not end this without relating this movie to my own work life and visa experience as an economic immigration, though not as exciting and entertaining, it has its own ups and downs captured as related posts here.

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The work animals

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Nervous system, does most of the control signal propagation leading to control and actions for an average organism. Thereby, are voluntary and involuntary system, so I learn. The involuntary system would do what it has to do, regardless of how much we hope to control it. The voluntary system is in our conscious control. Consciousness collaborates from awareness, when we are aware, we are conscious, we could put our effort into controlling the controllable using the voluntary systems. Sometimes, we forget to understand the controllable and then worry voluntarily about the uncontrollable, uncontrollably.

A movie may make us go through motions of emotions, make us believe, make us happy and sad, and if there are options go through the entire spectrum of rainbow. The measure of success of a movie, also depends on the human connect, how convincingly it can make us forget the controllable, and transform us into an universe of unnatural systems and processes.

In regard, to the economic immigration, people choose to go to places where there may be opportunities, try their ‘luck’, because that ‘luck’ is uncontrollable. But the effort to get to the luck is controllable with achievable targets, workable with checklist.

We can choose to take chances and work towards job using study then work, or straightaway work. From the beginning of humanity there may have been some kind of work, some form of employment. Industrial revolution would have solidified the systems in place to streamline employment and hence work-life was officially born. In some countries they have classified the universe of employment into categories. Like Charles Darwin’s origin of species, origin of employment would eventually evolve into labor classification, standard occupation code in the USA, national occupational classification code in the Canada and similar codification elsewhere. This is a more logical organic classification than the erstwhile work based caste system in Indian peninsula where you are born into a caste. While the pros and cons, supporters and haters exist for this this. Little would an Indian imagine that you will be born into a work based lock in the US H1B visa system. Which is a work visa system.

Other countries have yet another chance for foreigners in terms of job seeker visa. Currently some countries have some form of job seeker visa.

These countries are looking for workers, if working is what we are seeking, then we can get the job seeker visa, which does not guarantee the issuance of the visa, nor does it guarantee a job when we land there. We may voluntarily take these chances.

Some relations are also like this. In particular the immigration systems of the world. First and foremost, Canada as a globally known immigration system with express entry system, works for them. By entering the pool of candidates that the country may be willing to select, the metrics of which may be known, however, who will be beneficiary will not be known. This is a chance based system, a lottery with some components that we control like work profile, life skills and so on, but with absolutely no guarantee to get selected. Many in the USA mistakenly think that Canada is an easily place to migrate to. Perspectives, that we control. Ignorance is controllable. Ignorance is a choice in this age and time.

Sweden is also apparently an immigrant friendly country, until you read the troubles. How an employer’s paperwork can cause the beneficiary of the visa to be in uncontrollable situation is exemplified by this story.

With each of these opportunities we do not see much transparency in the policy, consistency, laws and systems in its entirety. Some things have to be experience, somethings learned, somethings we are told and are mandatory. The mandatory ones are easily understood, like getting a job needs work visa, legal residency, temporary or permanent, tax numbers mean to do the work, enough health to work and so on. Sometimes it is easy to fill forms given to us, as part of job application. We know that we need an address, a phone number and so on. This is as good as a checklist. And working through it is achievable to the most part. We do not predict natural disasters with 100% detailing, not all lives are saved in the world with all the predictive knowledge, do we say the universities and the eminent scientists of the world are useless? We could probably say they are not as useful as expected. Expectations are controllable, expectations however great can be controllable.

In all such employment, if we keep our expectations to limits, emotions to limits, limits to a controllable, then we could control. This is so as not be become a control freak. Every limit also defines the sphere of influence and control. Every control gives us a feedback, a feedback completes the loop, the loop of employment, work-life. Is this a re-definition of the work base caste system, at a global scale?

We get classified based on education, work, for some people work defines there routine and family life. Defining boundaries and freedom, benefits and rights. To the extent that success defined by work translates to work life. I need not believe this, though there is some understanding of the way this system works and I get to play it by being in an employment based visa. Even without taking visa and work permits into consideration. In everybody’s home country of citizenship too we get our life defined by work and employment. Even if we are running our own business, the employment of business defines certain part of us. Social life, environment, situations and circumstances that present to us are influenced by such work.

Social animals evolved to be a work animal.