The Outward Bound Generation: For the youngsters here, it’s anywhere but here

This reminded me of my father who, when informed of my job offer in New York, flew into erstwhile Bombay, where I was interning at Raymond’s in 1981. The overnight flyover was to convince me, the only son, to return and make a future with the family back home. And yet today parents would rather that their progeny explored their destiny elsewhere. The land of their birth in turn does not bind the new generation either. It is home of course, but they have no qualms of being somewhere else, even far away.

The Ukraine dilemma

The Ukraine crisis showcased dozens of kids from here studying medicine there. The rescue from the war zone has happened but their future is still in a quandary. How will they get to go back? Will they be able to continue their study here? Is their partial education even recognised? Was the qualification they had sought from there even acceptable in India? The vagaries of foreign shores, uncertainties, even racial attacks, have confounded the parents and the kids. Who would have thought of going to the breakaway nations of the USSR in yesteryears? And yet the lure of foreign shores, of differential costs, and most of all the possibility of making a living eventually on European soil is endearing for most. This is just one example. The millennials from town and the villages have literally formed a never-ending queue. Hundreds of IELTS centres and scores of authentic and some fly-by-night travel agents bear testimony to the desperation to look for a future elsewhere.

The whole generation next wants to run away. Is an exodus on the anvil? Not really. It has already happened. Everyone who is anyone and is an adolescent would rather be elsewhere rather than in this nation, for sure not in town. Imagine the contradiction though. Here they are corseted, served, underexposed, even spoiled, but they would rather be on a foreign shore, even if they are menials at work and at home. They cook, they serve, they clean the toilets, they sweep, they walk, they commute, they get abused racially. So, what is this propensity to be disgraced, to be subservient, to be underrated, to be exposed, to be berated and undervalued as a second-rate citizen? I have always wondered why the grass is greener on the other shore. What inspires these youngsters to strive to fly away. What is wrong with our upbringing, our national pride, our societal and familial bonds, our milieu, that our young, our progeny, our future would rather be a part of an exodus. As we approach 75 years of our independence, we must introspect why our kids aspire to go, as also why every parent now is keener for them to go away rather than be their support in old age. Something is amiss. Something just is not right.

That this exodus has been fed by the inherent envy of all those who have managed to scrounge a life on alien soil, some abundantly successful, some making do and others still behind fast-food counters or just trucking. Yet all of them have been landing at the Raja Sansi Airport, now the Guru Ram Das International airport, with elaborate pomp and show. In our time as teens, we would witness the whole village boarding buses, carrying the marigold garlands, showcasing the new damsels of the pind to anyone settled overseas. “Valaiton aya hae Chindo da munda,” was all that was needed to announce the arrival of Tony from Toronto or a Gary who went as a Grewal to Italy. Even the NRI girls, kids of those who left a generation ago, visiting the village, reluctantly though, can take a pick from the newest homegrown crop of bachelors, gabroo punjab de. Runaway brides or jilted girls, ditched grooms, well that’s another story you can have a series on Netflix about.

But today the reasons run deeper, perhaps even disenchantment with the way things are, the lack of opportunity, or even the lure of better living standards. Sounds certainly better than the frustrating existence on land that does not earn enough, jobs that are not available, or the lack of employability from the bookish learning of our academic institutions. Thus, the common refrain heard in the corridors of the city, “Ke peyaa eh ethey,” connoting the dearth of opportunity here.

Good or bad?

Has our society metamorphosed, or has it degenerated? Have our traditions, our sanskaar been ostracised or forgotten? A few years ago, I got a call from a schoolmate from the US. He asked if there was a halfway home, an elderly home of a good standard available. I was stunned and upset beyond measure. I had served my father to his last day, and was a shout away from my octogenarian mother, and here was a guy asking me the unthinkable for his mother. He had met me on his visit home for his father’s funeral. His mum was alone on her own choosing since she did not wish to burden her daughter who had a life and family of her own and a son who was satt-samunder-paar, overseas. It was not an easy decision for him either. He took her along later, but she was miserable. Eventually, he put her in a care home in Phagwara. She passed within six months. Is this an acceptable reality then?

The other day I was chatting with the Vice-Chancellor of a university in central India. She was suitably concerned with this terrible drain of youth. She lamented that the banks willingly lend money to the student paying quantum dollars, marks, pounds, even Chinese currency whereas excellent education is available within the country. She also shared that colleges are now depleted of students as this flow now is a cascade, even a deluge. Resources are leaving the nation. True that. I definitely agreed with her that the best brains, and the able-bodied who can, will continue to exit the country. But curbing this outbound tide is feasible only if we revamp the education system with experiential learning, make minds blossom as they do overseas in nurturing academic environs. We need to expand the capacities of IITs, the ISBs and IIMs. We need to generate employment as we work on employability. But who the hell is listening? Every few years we talk about a rosier future after slipping in the past and sliding in the present. India@50, India@75, or the new India in 2047. Selling dreams even the populace is least interested in.

On the flip side look at our chests swelling with pride. Kids from town are now heading unicorns and banks, Michelin star establishments and fleets, massive orchards, and farms. Armed with degrees from the top business schools of the world, they are honchos of technological high ends and sit on the high tables of the corporate world. This is indeed phenomenal for this sleepy old town regardless of the downsides of brain drain. In fact, till such time that we cannot build the environment to nurture and nourish talent, perhaps it is best that this brain drain is regarded as brain gain for the next generation of youth. In time they may connect when we have set our house in order, they may in fact be the instruments to usher in that change with global knowledge and contemporary skills at hand required for the change back home. And why not?

Going overseas in search of jobs is also an old tradition of these lands. Working on railroads for the British, enlisting to fight world wars in alien nations is not new to the people of this region. The risks they have been taken in yesteryears excite the youth even today. Narratives of Kartar Singh Sarabha and Shahid Udham Singh, slipping into Britain for a purpose, eventually avenging the tyranny back home after taking the steamers across raging seas, sacrificing, and ushering freedom to the nation. Or those who went abroad to study the new, learn the latest, and bring home the spoils the nation so needed.

The globetrotters of the last century

We are today spread across the globe, from Iran to Japan, Europe to the Americas, across Asia and Britain, even Africa and down under. Historically some of these flights of fancy were transitory, but many took root, became pioneers in places like British Columbia (early 1900s), and established a rich diasporic space in many lands. It is famously documented that in November 1914, a British colonel carrying out a recruiting tour of local villages near Amritsar found himself to be one of forty-two competing regimental recruiting parties in the neighbourhood. Such was the desire of the locals for foreign shores, enterprise at cost of lives and much loneliness, thus ensuring easy pickings for the English in search for fighters and workers.

So why lament when the roads outbound were treaded upon ages ago, shipping lanes frequented by the adventurous, and the legacy of heading for greener pastures established. Let’s instead salute the Columbian urges of youth for discovery, support them and let them shine wherever they wish to go.

(Gunbir Singh is an Amritsar-based philanthropist, environmentalist and author)