No brownies in Boston

The disclosure this month by the US Census Bureau that minorities in California, the USA8217;s most populous state, now constitute the majority did not, therefore, surprise me. The non-Hispanic Whites have been overtaken by Asians, Latinos, Blacks and others. Just a hundred years ago, the US sought to exclude Asian immigrants including Chinese and Indians.

My mental picture of the Indian immigrant to the USA has changed. The Indians abroad in my student days wore saris, kurtas or blue jeans, cooked curries or ate at cheap Mexican joints and looked slightly downtrodden and unsure of themselves. They shopped frugally at stores like Filenes8217;s bargain basement or Zayre which advertised their rock-bottom, slashed prices rather than the style and quality of their merchandise. Intimidated by the occasional news item about an Indian being accused of shoplifting, some timidIndians were even nervous about touching goods for fear the store detective would accuse them of stealing.

On my trip this time, I encounter a very different breed of expatriates who exude confidence. With elegant homes in exclusive suburbs like Belmont and Cambridge, they dress in Liz Claiborne and Calvin Klein originals, drive BMWs and Lincolns and dine at trendy restaurants. Their conversations on the cell phone are dotted with such buzz words as start-ups, incubators, capital squeeze, dot.com, digital, NASDAQ and Desh short for Gururaj Desh Deshpande, the idol of the dotcom generation and not hamara desh8217;. America is clearly the land of opportunity for bright Indians who came to study and have ended up living out the American dream. Indians are rated the most prosperous ethnic minority in the USA today. There are some 30,000 Indian doctors, 10,000 academics, countless engineers and financial whiz-kids. Their prosperity is reflected in the fact that 10 new firms owned or operated by Indian-Americans made it to the Forbes list of the top 500 companies this year.

At a party in New York I meet two young lady lawyers, graduates from the Delhi University, who typify this new, ethnic, yuppie generation. They studied at American universities, took their New York Bar Association exam and set up their own companies which offer legal and financial advice to investors as far apart as Rio and Romania. They are in their early thirties and clearly prospering in their new environment. If they had practised in the conservative Delhi High Court, they would probably still be struggling to get a few briefs. Or take the case of the hillbilly from Andhra Pradesh in his mid-twenties who came to the MIT for research a few years back and has earned millions by setting up his own company to market the computer software invention which he has patented. His American investors and his high-priced managerial staff look up to him with awe, despite his accent and his unsophisticated ways.

The average American no longer associates snake-charmers and the Taj Mahal with an Indian. 8220;If you are an Indian you must be a doctor or an engineer, you Indians are so clever8221;, gushes the toll collector on the highway. The Empire State building in New York is illuminated twice a year with special colours in honour of St Patrick8217;s day and America8217;s Independence day. This year, on August 15, as a special tribute to India and thanks to the efforts of our diplomats in New York, the building was illuminated in saffron, white and green. India is the flavour of the moment, even in the fashion accessories one sees on the subway such as dopati rubber chappals, payals, coloured rakhee threads on wrists, pashmina shawls, dangling silver earrings and printed skirts. True, Indian exports are minimal when compared to China. Just about everything one sees from furniture to women8217;s wear to telephone instruments and even the mementos at American heritage tourist shops carry a Made in China8217; label.

On my way home from Washington, I have a stopover in London and drive through the city8217;s little Punjab, Southall. Here one discovers a very different breed of immigrant for whom time seems to have stood still since they left India decades back. Women are dressed in shiny Punjabi suits with styles which date back almost to Partition. The goods in the stores all look very desi8217; and more old-fashioned than what you see in the bigger markets in Delhi. Even the dresses and rubber sandals for the little girls seem to have been imported from Ajmal Khan Road, which is rather ironic considering that one of the Indian tourists8217; main delights in England is shopping in London8217;s Oxford Circus though, thanks to the high rate of exchange for the pound, many have now shifted loyalties to American stores.

Apart from Indian migrants of the working-class background, here too there is an upwardly mobile, prosperous breed of ethnic Indians somewhat comparable to their counterparts in the USA. The second generation8217;s accent is entirely British, varying from Cockney to Oxbridge depending on their circumstances, and so is their dress and outlook. I notice at the London School of Economics graduation ceremony that every third new law graduate seems to be a Patel, a Shah, a Singh or a Khan.

In India, we joke that the overseas Indian8217;s love for the country of his forefathers is confined to clicking approval for the most jingoistic responseto the ubiquitous Internet polls. Unlike the Chinese expatriates who have contributed about 70 per cent of China8217;s huge foreign investment, the NRI investment in India has been minimal. But that is a shortsighted way of looking at things. The real strength of the Indian diaspora is the changing world perceptions about our country, something that is bound to benefit Prime Minister Vajpayee during his visit to the USA.

The average American no longer associates snake-charmers with India but sees it as a country of clever people, like so many of our successful expatriates