O Son, Where Art Thou?

In Guntur, in the 80s if your son, sibling, uncle or even if your neighbor had moved to USA it's a proud thing. In early 90s it became a norm and by late 90s and 2000s it's expected that young man or woman would go to USA. This change can be attributed to many reasons. Corruption, lack of opportunities due to reservations in India, Y2K/dot com boom and the sudden rise in the engineering college graduates.

IT boom and social mobility, migration caused by it had put Andhra Pradesh on the world map. But slowly and clearly it's changing the demographics, as young people are leaving state just as they turn voters and their vote goes unused. I can't predict the long term impact but this change might appear more precipitous in the next few years.

China is trying some sort of social engineering by moving 250 million people from villages to Cities. What's happening in our state now isn't forced migration, more of voluntary or need based. Make no mistake, 73% of Telugu speaking people still live in Andhra Pradesh only. But young, educated people are leaving the state in droves, that'll impact.the legislature, government and society over the long term.

I left country as 22 year old, for me this was the obvious path. My uncles and aunt paved the way and set the expectation, so there's no other alternative. That's how 20s would be, no second thoughts. 30s make you mull over past and think about future. Wonder what 40s will do. I haven't thought about this issue, until I was 28. When I went to India for my sister's engagement, one of the guests asked me, where I live. After I mentioned NJ, he jokingly said, అందరు అమెరికాకి వెళ్ళిపోతే, కొన్నాళ్ళకి ఇంక మన కులం వాళ్ళు స్టేట్లొ ఎవరు ఉండరేమో.(Don't be offended by caste reference. In India when it comes to caste, they don't beat around bush) His casual remark then, sounds very prescient now.

My native village Paluvayi, Guntur Dt. December 2009

Young people moving out of home towns for better jobs is a universal phenomena. But AP is in a peculiar position, as it's churning out the highest number of engineering graduates. Obviously they can't all find jobs in their town or state. they're moving wherever their next academic choice or job is, it could be neighboring state or USA. US DoS opened Hyderabad consulate as most of the applicants showing up at Chennai are from AP. We don't keep many statistics, but you can get a rough estimate of how many Telugu speaking people live in USA compared to rest of Indians. As per 2010 census, 2,843,391 Indians or of Indian ethnicity live in USA. As per another rough estimate 1 million of them are Telugu speaking. So 1/3rd of diaspora is from AP (I sourced these from Wikipedia, better estimates are welcome). Why look at statistics, when you can find it at your workplace in USA. Most of the time Telugu people constitute 50% of Indian workforce in IT. Point I want to make prove is, other states aren't losing young people like us.

OK Telugu people have the mobility, that's not a problem. Problem is, this migration to abroad isn't across the board, This is more predominant among upper middle class, upper caste (as designated by government) families from Krishna, Guntur, Godavari districts, predominantly from Coast and of course around Hyderabad. From my personal perspective, snapshot of my first cousins also gives the same picture. In my generation (born between 80 and early 90s) we're 13 first cousins (maternal & paternal) altogether. Out of 13, 3 of us are in USA, 5 are living in Hyderabad, 2 are working outside of AP and only 3 live in Guntur District. Considering the fact that Hyderabad is gonna be part of Telengana, only 3 out of 13 are in state. That's 23%. Not just my extended family, most of the friends with whom I went to college, are outside the state or abroad. Only people who took over family businesses stayed back.

I and most of the friends who left country along with me @ 21 or 22 had never voted (officially) in India. Many of the new grads in early 20s might not've utilized their voting right in last election as they're outta state or country. Those votes might've tilted results in many constituencies. Now, that imbalance will be even more as Hyderabad would be part of a different state. So from voting perspective, if you just look at data, it might appear as if the upper middle class people of certain communities in certain towns didn't even procreate.

There'll be demographic and sociopolitical changes also. Population growth of fewer castes growth will slow down and voter representation of fewer castes will increase. Castes, politics, power are deeply intertwined in India. I believe next elections in AP (sans Telengana) would show signs of this. I'm sure about this though, people voting for welfare schemes outnumber the voters who don't rely on welfare and pay taxes. 

There's a also a trend of families moving out of villages to towns and cities for their children's education and better lifestyle. For that, many families from farming communities are giving up agriculture. We don't know how this pans out in long run, may be farming will be corporatized like in USA. One change is already conspicuous, it became very difficult for an upper caste guy who's in farming to find a girl. Girls' parents want their daughter to have better future, so they're looking for a person with a paycheck rather than a farmer. Men in priesthood profession are also experiencing the same issue.

When youngsters leave country in prime age, they might not return but their money returns to real estate. I wrote about this before and Guntur is at the forefront of this. As apartment of equal square ft in Brindavan Gardens area of Guntur costs almost as an apartment in HITEC City area in Hyderabad. Consider the fact that there's severe water shortage and power isn't reliable. All this is cause of NRI redemptions and scarcity of living space caused by mobility from villages. Of course there're other reasons like capital speculation. A 30 year old with family, who earns a paycheck in Guntur and doesn't have access to black money, how can he afford  a home in Guntur?

Yes change is happening, but we're far from it. For NRIs, all this would be news. Personal issue is how to care for parents. This is the first generation which left country en masse, there's no example which you can follow. Two things which I'm worried about are safety & health. All the young men are leaving towns and villages, nobody will be around to ensure safety and tend to their daily needs. Western countries might've experienced this in early 20th century. But that immigration to US might not be as imbalanced as ours. Many NRIs of my age are  asking themselves the same question.

Until 2012, many people used to say or might have had serious plans about going back. After Delhi rape incident, accidents, assaults on woman and handling of state bifurcation and aftermath, many people are dropping those plans. I never planned on return, and I still don't intend to. But again, Never say Never. Whatever happening in India in AP isn't shocking to me. All that corruption, lack of law & order, is kinda like told ya. One thing still saddens me though, How little of a value is human life in India. A woman gets raped and killed, dozens die in bus and train accidents, there'll be outrage for a day or two and people move on until something else happens.

Elections have consequences. India right now looks like democracy in action, when law abiding citizens who contribute to economy, pay taxes aren't interested in exercising their voting right. People who sell their vote, live on welfare even in the prime age of 20-40s are voting and electing governments. I don't blame politicians, I blame people who didn't exercise their voting right. This is their reckoning.

Other thing which is leaving me confused is political activism among NRIs, I'm not critical, I'm more of lost about the objective. During last couple of weeks Telengana (not an issue anymore, it's a state) caused tensions among facebook friends and those spilled into real world too. I'm not gonna claim false equivalency here, you know who you're. Our money would be overpowered by corrupt money and our voice gets drowned by hired crowds, so why bother? We consciously chose to live outside the country, for the pursuit of better life and safety which is lacking in motherland. Do we've right to complain or is it our duty to reform it from outside? I'd a closer look at villages during my short visit to India in 2013. People who voted for present government are happy. Only educated upper middle class are suffering.

I might've made few wisecracks about state politics on fb, but I'm not at pain like others are. How can our contribution to Lok Satha change caste conscious voters mindset in villages or how much impact would it have? I'm not even gonna talk about AAP, that's beyond my ability to comprehend. Yes I'm cynical, but history & reality vindicate my view. I hope I'm wrong about future, but again I'm not an optimist.

Is a revolution overdue in India? Depends on whom you ask...

At any NRI gathering, if we're not talking about immigration or how people are suffering cause of Thaman's music, we talk about India politics. Wherever the discussion starts, we end up with corrupt AP politics, by that I mean how much wealth Jagan amassed with his father's influence, how he might come out before elections and how corrupt was YSR's administration. Some of us will proclaim that, one day a change will occur and it'll cleanse the system. Few other places and settings, it's also called a revolt or revolution.

I'm skeptical about that revolution or change...cause most of the revolutions happen when people are vexed and their lives become unbearable. If you pay attention, in India, particularly in AP, only middle class is suffering. Poor are happy with their upgraded living standards.

Yes there're poor people and poverty exists. But it's not like 80s or 90s, any poor who has vote is covered by one or more welfare scheme. In AP I can list Paniki Aaharam, Jala Yagnam, Fee Reimbursement Scheme, Bangaru Thalli, Mana Biyyam and then Aarogyasri. At central level Food Security Bill, Cash Transfer Scheme etc. As counter intuitive it sounds, it's not that bad to be poor in India.

Poor aren't struggling. They've cellphones, bikes and all other stuff which were considered as comforts 10,15 years ago. It's not like they've running water and 24 hours power supply. Consistency of life is not what's important for them. Middle class yearns for it, cause they paid their dues. What poor look out for themselves is food and shelter. No matter how much corruption exists in India, most of the poor with a vote gets these. It's good thing to be poor and born in Lower Caste. Cause you'll be benefited by poverty schemes and reservations.

But upper middle class, salaried people with professional jobs. They have to pay all kinds of taxes, as taxes are deducted at source. There's no such thing called black money...other than some money which they might've made with a real estate sale. But there's no reliable power supply, no proper roads, and no consistent supply of water. In the year of 2013, power and water became luxuries.

In Guntur, AP the place where I come from, a 3 BR apartment of standard living area goes for 1 cr. But there's no ground water, you've to buy water through tankers every day. Yes there's no ground water in Hyderabad or Vijayawada, but they've river water which is pumped to homes by Muncipal corporations. But there's no such thing for our area. The last few days, with all the bandhs you can't expect tankers to be on time.1 cr for an apartment where you don't reliable water which you're willing to pay. And when there's an unregulated industry, a cartel develops. e.g. Banglore water mafia.

Rich and wealthy, as you know they can get all the GOs passed and they're prospering. Look at all the scams Emaar, VANPIC, Bayyaram Mines, Outer Ring road. And the people who're in jail now, Koneru Rajendra Prasad, Gali Janardhana Reddy, Nimmagadda Prasad and others. All those construction projects, road widenings, mining projects gotta make somebody rich right?! It's not that all the rich are happy about this. Corruption and racketeering became so prevalent in YSR's administration that reputed business families in AP like GMR, GVK and Lanco stayed out of AP as they couldn't play by Jagan's rules. But again, being capitalists they investing elsewhere to the loss of AP. Rich didn't loose any, more of an inconvenience for them and loss of GDP for the state.

Jagan's Empire : But how much a poor voter cares

Coming back to Welfare schemes, I've relatives who got benefited by Aarogyasri. On of my distant aunts, approximately 55 year old widow had a leg fracture and got treated under Aarogyasri. Issue here is, middle class pay for all this and poor are getting benefits cause of the politicians. My aunt who's barely educated, wouldn't think who paid for this, who's becoming rich cause of this and all the economic theories. Back in the day, government hospital might not've treated her at all, but she got treatment at corporate hospital cause of Aarogyasri. That's all she cares and that's all she could. You can't explain a daily wage earner, how much govt land is lost cause of SEZs and mining lands.

Entitlements/Welfare schemes, they exists here in US also, but that money spent should at least be budgeted for. Social Security and Medicare operate that way. But Medicaid wasn't. Food Stamps  budgeted for. But in AP, I don't think it's a problem, NTR might've started Rs.2 rice with good intentions but he never cared for budget. YSR started most number of populist schemes, nobody cared for budget as liquor sales are paying the bills, and it made his friends and followers extremely rich

Most of the Telugu NRIs who despise YSR have a level of disconnect about Aarogyasri. Yes, it's cronyism, but poor got benefited by it and they'll vote for his son. Same with fee reimbursement. More people are getting false income statements to get that fee. Middle class are the one who pay for all these, rich they'll never pay their fair share. cause most of the income is never accounted for. Poor would never have any income that can taxed, other than the sales taxes which they pay.

Usually we blame politicians for all the problems. but voters are never blamed. Voters are the culprits here. (In US you can blame candidates first, as they take bribes, oops..I mean contributions from corporations for their PACs) I've seen last panchayati elections closely. Villagers expect money from all the contestants. In a moderate village, almost 50 lakhs was spent. The person who won the election, he expects that money, interest and profit from his term. And how would he get that money back? Development funds. How can villagers ask for better roads, power or drains if they're sold out.
This repeats for Assembly, Parliament, Cabinet etc.

Poor are always well engaged with voting. By that I means, they'll vote for highest bidder. Upper middle class are always disengaged. To vote, they need to register for vote, which many wouldn't. But again they don't have much choice. You've Congress or TDP candidate, most probably both of them entered politics to make money. If you're from lower caste in India, you're very well represented. if you belong to an upper caste but poor, tough luck.

If you look at the immigration patterns in western countries, more than ever..very big number of educated and working Indian youngsters are living outside the country. And those are votes which aren't cast. It's not to imply that people living abroad are smarter than people living in India. These votes could've tilted results of many constituencies where the winning margin was low.

Here in US, people of all economic classes, corporations are engaged in politics. Rich to protect their lower taxes and poor to protect their entitlements. Of course there's a set of people who vote against their interests, like a hedge fund manager's social conscious wife who votes for democrats and a poor plant worker in red state  who votes for republican. Why, cause it's the right thing to do. Middle class get swayed by social issue/culture wars that year. Gay marriage, Abortion, Immigration..

The lowest strata of the society is happy with the way things are. Affluent are prospering even more. A change or mass movement usually comes from these two. With poor it's genuine and rich can orchestrate a AstroTurf campaign or use hired goons. And upper middle class they've jobs to do, spouses and kids to go home to. They need their salaries to pay for their house, car, kids education and all other. There's no energy or drive left for these. That could be one of the reasons why the Anna Hazare movement lost its steam. There's political spinoff by name Aam Aadmi Party, but I don't know how effective it would be.

There's one way this could end, when governments run  out of money for  these welfare programs. In AP I've seen these schemes in full swing since 2004, they haven't stopped until now. As long as India can borrow and taxable base increases, this will go on.

With the complacency of middle class and the entitlements of poor and luxurious lives of rich, I don't see a incentive/opportunity for any change. Poor doesn't want anything taken away from them. Rich are happy at where they're. Who cares if politicians are corrupt, about their nepotism, cronyism or how much public wealth is plundered.

I used almost 1500 words for this, but Sri Gollapudi Maruti Rao said this more effectively in 2 minutes.in Leader movie.

 

Unlike other arguments, I'd like to be proven wrong about this.

But I just don't know how I can lose on this.

Why Me

Whenever we feel  that we're going through unjust pain or agony, sooner or later we'll go through that Why Me feeling. It could be an accident, relationship issue, immigration hassles, job loss, change in physical appearance...anything. In most of these, we don't have much control of circumstances. One of the things people say to comfort us is Things happen for reason. I always had an issue with it, I'll come back to it later.

Let's get through the few types of situations we or others whom we know might face.

If it's Relationship or Divorce, there's a partner in the mix. You can attribute the difficulty to many incidents in the past and the declining compatibility, infidelity, finances etc. It's not like we're being punished by an invisible hand or something.

Then there's this situation of kids being born with incurable ailments. If they're born blind or deaf they might not even know how the other world feels. How a world with vision or sound works and feels. That kid while growing up might understand that he's different from others, but wouldn't know how other world feels. Imagine how hard it would be on parents, they've nobody to blame except for some weird genes or bad luck. But think of dwarfs or people with visible disabilities like polio. It'll be both hard on them and their family. But, there's nothing anybody can do. Fortunately polio is almost eradicated, many thanks to Bill Gates.

Today I get to watch this news about the rise of Iraqi babies being born with birth defects and abnormalities cause of uranium residue from the war. In this case Iraqis know whom to blame, neo-cons and Bush for that unnecessary Iraq war, but the babies might not survive that long. If they get to grow older, they can understand that soldiers didn't target them. It just happened to be that they're born in Iraq and they're victim of the residue in air.

And then there's being at wrong place at wrong time. Like people who got killed in Boston Marathon, Texas fertilizer factory explosion, Sandy Hook school. In all these cases, victims aren't personally targeted. They just happened to be there.

In all the above, no body is specifically profiting by making others suffer. But lately I've been reading about the kind of news where law enforcements incarcerate innocents because of racial profiling or their inability to capture actual culprit.

In this Central Park Jogger incident in 1991, 5 teenagers started their 13 years prison sentence for the rape, but actually they didn't commit that crime. They're all forced by Police to make wrong statements implicating their other friends. Rape victim being white woman, 4 teenagers're black and 1 is Hispanic. This added racial prejudice to this case.

In 1991, New York resident 36 year old David Ranta was convicted of a murder of  a Rabbi. But there's no physical evidence connecting him to the murder. After serving more than 23 years in jail, he's released this month as 58 old, thanks to a Public Defender effort. As the irony goes, Mr. Ranta suffered heart attack after he came out of jail.

And this case from Arizona where an innocent black man Louis C. Taylor served 42 years in jail for an arson crime.He was convicted by an all-white jury. He was exonerated cause of the advances in science, but he wouldn't be able to sue the police. That's the deal he got.

 

As you can see there's a party to blame in all the above cases. Law enforcement trying shortcuts to close the case, over zealous District Attorneys and Jury members who're ill informed or biased. For most of them there wouldn't be any repercussions. But think of all the time these people spent in jail for the crime which they didn't commit, few times they're not even aware of until they're arrested. 

Mr. Taylor spent 42 years in Jail, 42 years! That means he was thrown in jail before I was even born. That time I grew up in India, went to college, moved to US...all this time he was languishing in jail. Their prime age was lost in jail.  If not for this imprisonment, they could've got married, had kids and if lucky had grand kids also.

I can't imagine how many times, these innocent people asked themselves Why Me. That usual cliched line, Things happen for a reason wouldn't help it. How can you reason, when innocents lost 20, 40 years of their life cause of others lack of concern, ignorance and racist prejudice.

All these incidents happened before the existence of private prison industry. You can imagine how many more people are going to jail cause of three strikes law and mandatory sentencing laws. Like many of my other posts, I don't have any answers or suggestions. This is just the sad reality,  result of ignorant voters voting for corrupt politicians and bad ideology mixed with capitalism.

We might try to rule out all the above incidents as something from another generation and those wouldn't happen now. No, they're happening right now, it's the Gitmo. Read this op-ed in NYT, narrated to a lawyer by a prisoner. Even though Bush started this, Obama got blood on his hands. 

We'll never question lawmakers about these as we're all busy with our shitty reality shows and talent shows.

My Christmas Wish

TIME magazine is famous for dumbing down the news coverage and there's no bigger contrarian indicator than their cover page.

Every new Warner Brothers movie gets a cover story, every apple device launch gets one, and if there's dearth of publicist driven stories...there's holy Mary, Jesus to fall back on.

Fine, every magazine does the same thing, wait....there's Housing bubble, what housing bubble?
There's no year-end media circus event which is more idiotic and unimportant than the TIME person of the year. (Excluding TIME 100, that's beyond my intellectual ability). Every President elect will be chosen as TIME person of the year, that's a default. Enemies of US, no matter how much they changed the course of our lives, wouldn't be the person of the year. Osama bin Laden wasn't the person of that year, Rudy Giuliani was. (Of course Stalin and Hitler were exceptions, not quite sure where we stand on Putin though). See the previous person gallery here

As God is my witness (intended to dramatize), here's the list of probable people I wrote for this year, before checking TIME website.

Arab Uprisings
Occupy Wall St
Anonymous
Navy seals
Barack Obama
Grover Norquist
Steve Jobs
Kim Kardashian
Rupert Murdoch

I checked TIME website and they didn't disappoint. Below are the few people who're nominated for this year, and I'm delighted to see Kim on the list

Usually TIME probables can be broadly categorized into these
Obvious picks
Barack Obama
Anonymous
Navy Seal Team 6
1%, 99%
Steve Jobs

Lame picks
Gabriel Giffords (I don't mean to diminish the Congress Woman's shooting, but she's only a victim of a deranged person's shooting)
Kate Middleton (A British woman married to a British prince, 2nd in line to throne)
Dominique Strauss-Kahn (accused of raping a hotel maid, but prosecution dropped the charges)
Charlie Sheen

"Who the F is this again" picks
Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Turkey's PM)
Lionel Messi (Argentina's soccer player)
Ai Weiwei

"Intended to rage readers" picks
Reed Hastings (Netflix CEO, who have a knack for splitting companies and sending emails to all the subscribers after having too many drinks)
Casey Anthony
Michele Bachmann
Rupert Murdoch
Kim Kardashian

The last section is the reason why I love TIME. Just for the web hits, robo voting...they'll let people vote for their choice, even though Time's contributors pick the person. the panel for this year is very diversified(for the lack of better word)..Brian Williams, Mario Batali, Anita Hill, Jesse Eisenberg, Grover Norquist and Seth Meyers.

I'm appalled that heavy weights like Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and Sarah Palin aren't on list, I'm gonna weep to sleep tonight. Meh, my intellectual inspiration Rep. Michele Bachmann is here..I'll take it.

Folks I'll cut to the chase, I want Kim Kardashian to be the new Person of the year. Please TIME, please! She's the epitome of the moral bankruptcy of the American culture, that is putting very mildly. She got everything you're looking for. No real talent in whatsoever form, sex tape, reality show, perfume, overpriced clothing, paid appearances, discontinued charge card, dimwitted athlete husband. Wait there're spin off reality shows for her sisters and other family members also.

She divorced her second husband with in the span of 72 days and that tipped off the Public. They actually believed that the fairy tale wedding was real and they'll live together ever after. Now they all feet cheated, they're angered and outraged that she took' em all for a ride.

Please TIME, keep it real, and make this woman the Person of the year.
(Don't mind the 19220 haters who voted against her, haters gonna hate)

Peace.

P.S. For what it's worth, time predicted the next president right. It's a kinda bold move for 2006, as Spitzer/Obama was perceived as hot ticket at that time and then Eliot Spitzer got caught in a sex scandal.

Update 12/03/2011
There's one more media event, which is more trivial and idiotic than this. It's the year-end sex surveys in Indian news magazines. For some reason, they do it every year and each year it's shocking. India Today just released theirs and Outlook might send one our way pretty soon.
Here's BBC's Indian Correspondent's column about this topic.

images via TIME