Talks and Discussions - Bhushan

I invited Bhushan Shah for writing this post, he's the B dude I mentioned in the previous post who recently visited me from Chicago. He has taken forward the discussion of conversations and has elaborated his views on his migration process to the US as a student and asked me to take this post further as a discussion. So I urge all of you to write about your experiences if you ever stayed away from your home country, families as students or on work. People who've never gone through this process can give their views (if any) on what stopped them or what they think about the process. I've been a passive reader (without putting my comments) to many blogs, but this discussion would kind of give me a reality check on how many people actually visit my blog (not that it's important).
So for discussing it further write in your comments. Bhushan would surely appreciate it. Thanks!

For clarification, I'm the 'PJ' in the post and those are my initials. Some of my friends from SAKEC have given me that nick and it's one of my many nick names.

So after much nudging from PJ I am sending the following for his blog.

First of all let me thank him for his great hospitality and I do hope to return the great treatment. I feel the same about meeting old friends or new acquaintances. The interesting thing about meeting old friends is that the conversation begins where one left off, the time passes but the bonds remain as strong as ever. Not particularly sure about being more or less mature, but one thing does remain constant and that is “change”. I believe our reaction and adaptation to change shape our experiences and eventually who we are.

We had an opportunity to talk about myriad of topics and it could have been a broader discussion had time permitted. The interesting thing about it all is that PJ and I were addressing all of them with the perspective of “FOBs” (I don’t consider us Fresh of the Boat, but for lack of a better term for people in our shoes). Now as I write this note I wonder how the whole discussion would have shaped had we been in India, or even if the same topics would have been discussed.

Five years back the decision to come to the US was a no brainer, all of us pretty much were swept by the euphoria. Now students considering coming to the US have much higher stakes to evaluate. All of us are risk takers and the differentiating factor is our appetite for risk, some take the plunge and others keep wondering “what if”. The challenges of surviving in the US have been far from subtle but with every struggle there is a sense of achievement and the satisfaction of being fit enough to have survived it. Not sure how everybody else feels about the whole migration process but I would surely like to hear about it. I constantly struggle with the fact that no amount of success or monetary remuneration can compensate for the time we spend away from our families.

Someone once told me that “Life isn’t simple”, my instant retort was that “Life is as simple as we want it to be”. Have we all then added more variables to the equation of life?

Knowing that PJ and I are from traditional Gujarati families had we both decided not to come to the US, we would have met over a Sunday dinner in Mumbai with our respective spouses and the discussion would have been completely different. I also wouldn’t be distracting you with this blog :).

Saludos!

These were excellent thoughts and was very well written. Thanks Bhushan for writing this one for me. This exercise will foster good exchange of individual perspectives and views and hope it encourages you to write your own blog. I'm sure it would be a very good read.


Here's the last day (late night at Dunkin Donuts) picture with Bhushan during his recent visit.