The Hindu Business Line : <I>India calling </I>

It's India Calling. Not quite the call from the call-centre depicted by the popular soap on telly, but more of a clarion call, from Mother India, and quite a few seem to be responding to it.

And the response is coming from many quarters. It is reflected in the steely resolve of Lakshmi Mittal, when he says he feels proud to be an Indian, Arcelor or not. Then there is Asim Ghosh of Hutchison-Essar, who recently took the plunge from being a mere Canadian citizen. Thus, the Patiala-born, Mumbai-made and Kerala-rooted are coming home in ever larger numbers.

Post Bush visit, there is talk of further freeing of the H1B and other US visas. Soon, other European countries may follow suit, given their tendency to follow American policy. But even as people still leave India, seeking fortunes abroad, a clutch of `born-again' Indians are coming back to roost.

No better than India

Thus, coming across Dom Fernandes in a Bandra bar, sipping wine, and getting emotional about being back in good old India, was a truly moving experience. Dom, who migrated to Hamilton, Canada, in 1995, is back scouting what was once home terrain for "a decent break". Once he gets it, he hopes to bring his wife and children back to India.

Dom is now convinced that Canada is no better than India. Or, put differently, India is no worse than Canada. "Yeah there is corruption in India, but who says there is no corruption in Canada... Only, there is no racial discrimination in India," says Dom, who got his hard-earned Canadian citizenship in 2000."Citizenship hardly makes any difference to the racial taunts you face in Canada," says Dom.

There are many like him in Canada, who have sold their property in India and have hardly anything to come back to and, so, pretend everything is hunky-dory, he adds.

Perfect arrangement

There are also those, like Mrs George, of Kerala's Kottayam district, who successfully follows an unbeatable twin lifestyle. Taking a lesson from migratory birds, she spends the winter months of the UK in the cosy warmth of God's Own Country.

A British citizen of 40 years, Mrs George has built a small house on a plot of land next to her sister's house near Ayemenem, the idyllic village described in Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things. She flies down in October and stays till February. England is not a bad place to live in between March and September, she admits. Not a bad deal, considering the comparably low cost of living in India.

Mrs George earns the equivalent of a couple of lakhs of Indian rupees a month in pension, something clearly beyond the ken of her sister's `successful' children who are busy building their careers in Mumbai and Delhi. Last heard, they were working up courage to turn down Mrs George's offer — of a return visit to the UK. Apparently, the current exchange rate does not show their meagre savings in very good light.

Vinod Mathew