Page 2 - Seniors Today October 2020
P. 2

Publisher’s Note













                                                                                                                                                         NRI - Not Really Indian,


                                                                                                                                                         Noveau Riche Indian?













                                                                                                                          Many years ago, on a trip to Dubai I had a         America/Manchester. Travel in the south
                                                                                                                          taxi driver by the name of Feroze, a Marathi-      and the aim is the Middle East. The Gujaratis
                                                                                                                          speaking Konkani Muslim, and we hit it off         want to travel to the US and almost everyone
                                                                                                                          really well. He came to Dubai as a driver for a    is looking to exit India and make a life for
                                                                                                                          doctor. In due course he got married and his       themselves out of this country. Feroze’s story
                                                                                                                          wife worked as a maid and cook in the doctor’s     is a telling example of how lower-middle-
                                                                                                                          home. He then called his brothers and found        class Indians found a good life for themselves,
                                                                                                                          them employment with friends and relatives         something that could never have happened
                                                                                                                          of the doctor. He bought himself a car and         in India. Could an Indian taxi driver afford
                                                                                                                          became a taxi driver attached to the hotel         an engineering degree for his son or even a
                                                                                                                          where I was staying.                               catering college admission?
                                                                                                                           Feroze lived in a three-bedroom apartment,         I find a taxi driver not just a great source
                                                                                                                          had a son who was preparing to do his              of information but also a barometer on the
                                                                                                                          engineering and a daughter who was planning        quality of life in any country.
                                                                                                                          to go to Paris to do a patisserie and a catering    Minoo Shah, who left Pune and made a home
                                                                                                                          course. Feroze and his two brothers bought         for herself in the US, writes the first of two
                                                                                                                          their parents an eight-acre mango orchard          pieces on NRIs, profiles success stories and
                                                                                                                          in Ratnagiri. The brothers built themselves        why Indians want to run away from India.
                                                                                                                          three houses and life carried on. On the day I
                                                                                                                          was to leave, Feroze came to drop me off to the
                                                                                                                          airport. We were conversing in Marathi and I
                                                                                                                          asked him if he ever thought of moving back to
                                                                                                                          India. In an instant Feroze replied, aho sahib
                                                                                                                          Dubai cha kutra bara (better a dog in Dubai).
                                                                                                                           Travel to Punjab and every taxi driver has        Vickram Sethi
                                                                                                                          hopes and aspirations of moving to Canada/         Publisher and Editor-in-Chief


    2                                                                                                                     SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #16 | OCTOBER 2020                                                           3
   1   2   3   4   5   6   7