NRI followed opportunity
to the United States and decided to move back
A reversal of the tide in India
Tech workers flow home to more success
MADRAS, India, Feb. 28, 2006
The Washinton Post
By S. Mitra Kalita
In 1997, Dutt Kalluri left India to work for a Canadian software
company, hoping the overseas experience would do his résumé
good. A year later, he was promoted to head U.S. operations
from Rockville. But as he returned to India for business and
to visit his elderly mother, he marveled at the changes sweeping
his homeland: new stores, more cars, enthusiasm for technology.
In 2001, not wanting to miss out on this transformation,
Kalluri gave up a six-figure salary and the family's townhouse
in Gaithersburg for a job here with an Indian conglomerate.
His wife, Uma, gave up her daily syndicated dose of "Seinfeld."
Daughter Lakshmi said goodbye to her Montessori preschool
classmates.
These return migrations have become increasingly common; Indian
expatriates such as the Kalluris are finding that, at times,
the best way to move up is to move back.
They bought a beachfront house here, arranging the contents
from their former home just as they were in Gaithersburg.
But other transitions were not as simple.
They do not drive anymore; chauffeurs do that. Dutt Kalluri
is one of the few executives arriving at meetings on time;
his colleagues follow "IST" -- Indian Standard Time,
which is to say, late. A wistful Uma Kalluri longs to make
Folgers coffee instead of a sugar-and-spice-laden South Indian
java, and is adjusting to living with her mother-in-law.
Yet the Kalluris brush off the cultural disconnects, saying
they have simply followed opportunity to the United States
and back. "If you want to be in the latest trends, you
have to be in India," said Dutt Kalluri, who heads data
warehousing and business intelligence at the information-technology
division of Larsen & Toubro Ltd., India's largest construction
and engineering company. "Technology development happens
in India. Technology consumption happens in the U.S."
President Bush travels to India this week with an ambitious
agenda that includes boosting U.S.-Indian commercial ties.
Such ties have strengthened in recent years as Indian workers
have migrated back and forth between the two nations. Largely
over the last five decades, that migration has been outward
as millions of Indians left their homeland to seek riches
abroad, from the United Arab Emirates to the United Kingdom
to the United States. They earned graduate degrees, launched
careers in medicine and engineering, or took jobs as gas-station
attendants and hotel clerks. They sent money back to their
villages and delighted relatives with gifts such as Nike sneakers
and Pringles potato chips during visits home. But since 1991,
as foreign firms have poured billions of dollars into a more
open and deregulated Indian economy, some expatriates have
found the best thing they can give back is themselves.
"In the IT industry, there's significant value for people
coming back," said Prakash Grama, an Indian native turned
U.S. citizen who now lives in Bangalore and runs an association
linking returning Indians with volunteer work. "And here
you are not just accepted into society, you're recognized
at the top."
Other countries are experiencing mass returns as well. The
1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown spurred some of China's most
entrepreneurial minds to flee, but with a thriving and more
open Chinese economy, they are going back. Immigrants from
Africa and Latin America, too, are starting businesses that
allow them to divide their time between multiple homes and
countries.
Here, members of India's diaspora are known as NRIs, or non-resident
Indians. They are a revered lot, presumed to be successful
due to their international experience. Those who return to
India -- known as returned NRIs, or RNRIs -- tend to fill
jobs on the higher rungs of the corporate ladder. They are
the country's new elite, living in gated communities, networking
in golf clubs, celebrating holidays such as Halloween and
Thanksgiving -- transplanting their foreign lives in Indian
soil.
Tens of thousands of India's best and brightest have made
these multiple migrations, helping businesses on both sides
of the ocean navigate East and West and providing a big boost
to India's development.
The cultural impact on their nation is visible and visceral.
The New Delhi suburb of Noida boasts a collection of luxury
homes known as an "NRI Colony." Meanwhile, returning
stay-at-home spouses confess they miss the freedom and distance
of America, far from the prying eyes of in-laws and nosy neighbors.
"I learned how to drive there . . . a minivan,"
Uma Kalluri said proudly about her three years in Gaithersburg.
"Outings, shopping. There I could go and do it all myself.
Here, I have a driver."
She knows that sounds luxurious, but between the driver,
other servants, her 75-year-old mother-in-law, and extended
family in her home, Uma Kalluri is rarely alone. "In
India, it's just how it is," she said.
Asked about living with his mother, Dutt Kalluri's business-speak
does not miss a beat. She "adds a lot of value to the
household," he said, because the children speak fluent
Tamil and have ready access to the family history.
In India, his employer is a household name, a conglomerate
that makes everything from cement to software. His office
is located in this thriving coastal city of Chennai. Companies
here seek managers with U.S. experience such as Dutt Kalluri
to connect American customers with Indian workforces. In a
tech sector relying on cheap labor, these hires are often
the priciest. Dutt Kalluri would not elaborate on his compensation
except to say it was in the "top 5 percent of Indians."
His management approach strives to be American, he said.
"I want a systematic approach to anything we do,"
he said. "It's like the new blood mixing with the old
blood. We are the change agents."
Beyond his official job description, Kalluri's tasks range
from emphasizing the importance of time management and punctuality
to making sure the Indians do not mispronounce Rockville (it
sometimes comes out ROKE-vill-ee) or San Jose (San JOE-zee).
Indians tend to overpromise, Kalluri said, and he tries to
get a new generation of young software engineers to be honest
with clients, committing only to what they truly can deliver.
"Working in India and working in the U.S. is entirely
different," said Kalluri. "I used to get a little
ticked off by the commitment system."
Besides new workplace dynamics, Indian families find themselves
adjusting to other facets of life.
With their husbands at work and children at school, RNRI
women devise activities to stay busy. On a recent morning
at the DLF Golf and Country Club in the New Delhi suburb of
Gurgaon, women filled the gym to capacity by 9 a.m. They were
there to exercise, but another attraction had lured them:
Oprah.
Women cluster around the gym's lone television to watch every
morning, then resume jogging, walking or biking -- and dissecting
the show.
"Almost 98 percent of the people here are NRIs,"
the gym's trainer Surinder Sharma said. "I didn't ever
see the U.S. but from what I know, this is what it's like."
"This" could be considered a paradise. He gestured
at a bastion of manicured lawns, swimming pools and fountains,
trimmed bushes that rise and fall like the humps on a camel's
back. There are caddies, guards and masseuses.
After her workout, Nazneen Modak collapsed into a wicker
chair on the veranda. It sounds odd, she said, but returning
to India has made her feel even more American.
"It is a very Westernized life here," said Modak,
who was born and raised in Bombay, then lived in New York,
New Jersey and Hong Kong. She moved back to India six years
ago because her husband transferred to General Electric Co.'s
India office. "If you have money, you can live quite
comfortably."
That can pose a challenge to raising well-adjusted, grounded
children, she said. Her three boys have been instructed to
call the driver and the cook "uncle" and to treat
them like elder relatives, Modak said.
The RNRI Association estimates that between 30,000 and 40,000
expatriates have returned to Bangalore, India's largest technology
hub, in the last decade alone. Their boomerang migration exists
alongside two seemingly opposite trends: a rapidly Westernizing
India and an ethnically diversifying United States where immigrants
form tight networks to retain cultural ties.
In the United States, "we used to go the temple every
week for a half day on Sundays. We drove 60 miles," Grama,
president of the RNRI Association, said laughing. "Here,
it's right across the street and I haven't gone there for
six months." Religion in India is "in the air, so
I just pick it up," said Grama, who spent a decade working
in the United States but returned to India in 1998 to become
chief executive of Span Systems Corp., a company he co-founded.
Five years after returning to India, the Kalluri children
have picked up an Indian accent when they speak English. Lakshmi,
9, lists the names of several friends and brags that she can
already divide decimals -- ahead of where would have been
in Montgomery County schools, her father points out.
Perhaps, Lakshmi said, but that does not outweigh what she
misses most from the States: her cousin Anita. She lives in
the Maryland suburb of Laurel -- and is still an NRI.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
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