Prometheus 6

"Let me put it this way -- after living 20 years in the Bay Area I had 80 telephone numbers in my cellphone and after living here two years I have 200," said Gandi. "Life in the US can get a bit lonely, but here there is something happening all the time. People don't wait until the weekend to party."

Indian immigrants enticed to go home
Stronger economy, old ties beckon
By Jehangir S. Pocha, Globe Correspondent  |  February 5, 2007

MUMBAI -- Lured by the booming Indian economy and fed up with living as outsiders in a foreign society, many Indian and other South Asian immigrants in the United States are returning to their homeland -- and bringing with them cutting-edge American skills.

"This is a happening place," said Ader Gandi, 49, a Pakistani-American mortgage broker from San Francisco who decided to become an art photography dealer in Mumbai, India's chaotic commercial capital, after arriving as a tourist two years ago. "Everywhere you look there are things coming up and happening that just weren't there two years ago -- there's just so much growth."

Spurred by market reforms and a dynamic entrepreneurial class, India's once-sluggish economy has been growing by about 7 percent a year for the last decade, faster than every country in the world except China. Many salaries have almost doubled since 2005, as has the country's stock market index.

This has opened vast new opportunities in multiple fields and infused much of urban India with a tremendous sense of possibility and optimism. Coupled with India's traditionally rich social life that's been made all the more rambunctious by prosperity, this offers returnees an intoxicating mix of professional and personal satisfaction.

"Let me put it this way -- after living 20 years in the Bay Area I had 80 telephone numbers in my cellphone and after living here two years I have 200," said Gandi. "Life in the US can get a bit lonely, but here there is something happening all the time. People don't wait until the weekend to party."

New Delhi is acutely conscious of the money and expertise that returning Indians bring to local businesses, nonprofit organizations, and universities, and has been welcoming its dispersed children back home with open arms. A Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs has been created and a number of incentives for returnees have recently been announced, including permitting them to hold dual citizenship for the first time. Various programs to attract Indian-origin intellectuals and professors to Indian universities have also been launched.