Aap Amrika Main Hotay Hain?? (Do You Live In America)

Dear Ali Hashmi + y`all

There are really two sides to what you say. To start with, I sometimes feel like beating Iblees (before he went rebel) in terms of bowing to Allah for making me a British citizen as I will be given the chance to fulfil all my capacities and dreams. If I had stayed/ been born in Pakistan, I would have probably been cleaning Rickshaws, been taken from behind and fixing bikes due to my family status. It then makes sense that everyone wants to come to Amrika because it really is the land of milk and honey and it is your effort and sheer determination which chiefly dictates your result, not rishwat, family name, or connections.

The other side to this is that many Pakistanis simply do not have the brains or the humility to understand how harsh life can be here. The attitude amongst the uneducated (not illiterate but primitive) minds is that you come to the country and the government hands you gold coins. There`s a hell of a lot of work involved and buying a house in UK for example is one of the major missions that any British Pakistani will come across. Every native Pakistani has the luxury of buying a house, no matter how good or bad it is. With the advent of satellite dishes everywhere in Pakistan, people, especially boys (alas, girls are more mature than boys) are constantly day dreaming about the good life.

Because Pakistan is a poor country, everyone is constantly thinking about money. Here in America and Western Europe, many Pakistanis don`t face that problem. They have in essence moved onto the next set of problems; that which relate to their culture and religion. Though I am only 21, I am in essence a representative of my culture and religion to all the rest of the people. It is extremely hard to maintain a spiritual and moral structure when everything good and bad is available to you. In Pakistan, you are spoon fed goodness because it`s a Muslim country, you hear the prayer 5 times a day. This doesn`t happen here. The pain that goes through me when I have to reject a beautiful woman`s proposals…ah, you wouldn`t believe. ;-) Yes people, I`m a 180 pound virgin.

In my opinion, it is far more painful to see your younger generation succumb to bad influences that may not be so common in Pakistan, to not take your religion seriously, to not respect your culture and to have your religion and culture ridiculed. Many Pakistanis give up. Those that stand up face a lot of harsh realities. It’s the law of the jungle everywhere.

Take care and best wishes,

Omar Phoenix

Didn`t you get the ``larka doctor hai amrika main, humari beti kay liye acha rahay ga`` phenomenon?

There`s always a line of Aunties waiting to snatch them up. It`s no wonder that most Pakistani doctors have ego problems. And heaven forbid, they live in ``pyara amrika,`` their noses grow from their heads.

No offense to you mister, but I don`t believe in doctors spending their five years in Pakland, no student loans, and coming here to take residency positions away from US graduated medical students who spend an arm and a leg for eight years of school.

You wouldn`t know what a $150,000 student loan feels like.

You should have stayed in Pakistan, the poor need you there.

Unfortunately, Pakistanis are more interested in accumulating wealth individually by going abroad and settling there. It`s all about ``main`` not ``hum,`` thus creating the current situation in Pakistan.

Hashmi Sahab! You are in a profession which is respected even in America. Thanks to American Medical Association. I did not have a chance to go back to Pakistan, but I hear very often, someone coming to America or Canada. (New Dubai Chalo)

But it is true that some repent after coming to America and some are happy.(But nobody leaves after coming here with few exceptions)

One of my friend in New York a shopkeeper, somehow managed to come to Canada. Petition denied. Came to America. Became Qadiani to get his green card and later reverted to Islam. He was away from his family for 8 years.

When he sponsored his family, his eldest son fifteen years old was suffering from T.B. His son died within two months after arriving in America.

Another friend is away from his family for 8 years and does not know what he would do if he goes back. According to him, his family is respected because he is in America. A lot of tragedy has happened to his family in his absense.

The third friend from Hafizabad, married back home. Not very literate, but young. Married for green card. Found a lady doctor for real marriage. Once his green card is approved will marry that lady doctor from some Arab country.

This article could very well have been written about Indians too - the fixation about America is really shameful and makes for depressing reading. The author left out one thing - the way your `stock` rises in the eyes of the parents of potential brides, if you work in the US.

Dear Scout, #2

You mention certain points that I find interesting:

``You should have stayed in Pakistan, the poor need you there.`` Sorry to break it to you, as long as we remain nationalists, we`ll always be Pakis and isn`t that the attitude every person adopts, that I`m a Pakistani first and then a Muslim. Everybody has the right to make something out of themselves. We cannot pass judgements on someone else`s livelihood because it would make our status or life a bit more comfortable. A rich cousin of mine (A certain clock company in Pakistan) once said that poor Pakistanis shouldn`t have the right to educate themselves. Those included the one`s that resided in the West :-( I wanted to get a cheese grater and shred his Uble Ande (boiled eggs) there and then.

`Unfortunately, Pakistanis are more interested in accumulating wealth individually by going abroad and settling there. It`s all about ``main`` not ``hum,`` thus creating the current situation in Pakistan.`

Aren`t you, aren`t I. Name me one Western Pakistani who has spent his life for the good of others. Are you telling me that you are doing your degree so that you will spread the benefits of your intelligence without any pay back? We`re all in the same boat. Perhaps you and I are cultural hybrids. Hopefully we are taking the best of both cultures. That means you queue and not just jump in front `cos the guy on the till is your uncle`s son. But are we beginning to think that British Pakistanis or American Pakistanis rule UK or USA? Hardly. We are surrounded by white natives who are governing the country, not the reformed Pakistanis. If you were to hand the reigns of USA or UK to the western Pakistanis, the countries would collapse.

Please forgive me if you think I was taking this out on you. I`m not, as many people including I are in the same boat of thinking. But it`s interesting to see that you and I and many others pretend that we are reformed Pakistanis, the new generation, the Pepsi generation, best of both cultures and yet we say the same things, but in a different wording to what any Pakistani believing in a class system would have said.

Take care,

Omar Phoenix.

OPTIONS,

FRom dawn of today,

US visa applications

ALL the applications relating to immigrant and visit visas are sent to the American Embassy (Islamabad) from Karachi through Gerry/Fedex courier service. This courier service is charging an exorbitant fee of Rs 616 per person. They are charging separately even for the infants whose endorsements are in the parents` passports.

Despite the substantial amount being charged for mailing the visa application the American Embassy officer posted at Gerry/Fedex office does not even bother to check the documents, whether any document is missing or is not in order. As a result many cases are returned to Karachi with instruction to re-submit the application with documents, as some of them are missing. And when an applicant submits the document to Gerry/Fedex office he has to pay the fees again!

All this is because of the carelessness of US Embassy`s representative at Gerry/Fedex. I therefore request the American Embassy`s representative to at least ensure that the applications are in order and are not likely to be returned and to reduce the fees for children below the age of 10.

I hope that the US Embassy will take corrective measures to eliminate such problems.

FAIZA SHAFIQ

Karachi

///If the embassy fails to take any corrective action, I have the only other option, join a madrassa, become a jihadist, take the express route to heaven through kashmir. So please clinton, help me, may be you can run me over as you like to drive on the wrong side of the road in pakistan.

Ali,

As you catch the next flight, remeber with fondness the country you are leaving behind, from nation of today,

``But the General on the one hand denies that there was anything extraordinary about the people going out and on the other appeals to them to stay in the country. Can people be really faulted for a distorted perception? General Pervez Musharraf says that he has cut down the defence expenditure and wants the people also to believe that his transferring 7 billion rupees from the defence kitty to the Poverty Alleviation Fund was a proof of it. But the reality is that the defence expenditure has increased by over 22 per cent. Revised defence expenditure last year was Rs 134 billion. This year it is 164 billion (138 billion in the defence budget and 26 billion pensions shifted to the government expenditure). If the people do not perceive jugglery of figures as a reality are they to blame? General Musharraf bemoans the perception that Pakistan is isolated. But it is the age of mass communication and the people know the realities. Of India Karl Inderfurth says `` It is an increasingly important partner for the US on a whole range of crucial issues``. President Clinton terms the new Indo-Us relations as a ``qualitatively new relationship``. Contrast this with the admonition served on Pakistan by Karl Inderfurth: Respect the ``Rs`` namely, ``restraint``, ``respect for the line of control``, and ``rejection of violence``.

Clearly pointing his finger at Pakistan, President Putin during his visit to India says ``the same people are organising terrorist attacks from the Phillipines to Khosovo, including Kashmir, Afghanistan and Russia`s northern Caucasus``. Even our best friends China or Palestine have abandoned the position of seeking a resolution of Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN resolutions. They are now asking for a resolution through bilateral dialogue. At a time when Pakistanis are leaving in droves along with their dollars Bill Gates of Microsoft and Jack Welch of General Electric visit India for investments in software and energy businesses. Can people be faulted for a perception of increasing international isolation?.

If the diagnosis is wrong can the prescription be right?

//As a good doctor what do you think of euthenesia, for a nation that has suffered for so long, born brain dead, on life support machines operated by the US, Chinese and now the saudis, who will pull the plug. 3NT could be a good medicine, ask Dr Atlf Hussain.

RE: Dr Hashmi

`This oddly discrepant way of looking at life and career appears to be quite the norm in Pakistan, at least among the educated middle and upper middle class`

If people like Dr Hashmi (or ME for that matter) are not prapared to go back to India/Pakistan inspite of the first hand experience of living in an alien culture, social and other losses Dr Hashmi mentions, then why should we expect people back at home to take these things into consideration. People know firstly that their lives are by and large miserable and secondly any body who goes `phoren` does not want to go back so `phoren` must be good. If for the majority it is a question of survival for middle classes there are other considerations. I do not want to go back because I am not sure whether I would be able to provide my children with the same educational, job etc. opportunities that they may have here ( where ever it is) and my children do not want to go because India/Pakistan is not their `home`. Middle classes in India/Pakistan have similar concerns for their chidren`s future. And then there is the all powerful media. No body can escape it. The other day someone was writing (on chowk) in praise of the grass root democracy in the US, about the election conferences, primaries and so on. The same US has vetoed against an international enquiry into human rights violations in the Palestine. A truely democratic society would not have let such double standards go unchallanged. If the media were really independent somebody in the CNN, ABC or somewhere would have said ` hey! this is not right` But every one goes on as if nothing has happened. And yet we go on singing praises of the democratic system and the independence of media and so on. Can we then blame those back home being taken in by all those rosy pictures of `land of hope and glory` beamed at them day in day out.

You write: ``Nobody wants to hear about the heartache and toil that goes into living in an alien culture far away from friends and family. ``

I would understand if you were to have moved back to Pakistan to be with your friends and family, and then written this article. As it is, you are being merely hypocritical, with shades of self-importance (with your friends looking up to the ``Amreeka-returned`` in awe and trying to speak Amreekan English with gora-sahib who indulgently notes their poor grasp of the language that he speaks oh-so-fluently) and self-pity (per above words). Your article demonstrates why Pakistan is such a mess - lack of depth and character among too many of our middle-class types.

Re Scout

What gives you the right to make career prescriptions for others? If the author wants to stay here in the US, it is his prerogative and his only. The reason I am making this point is that someone else [not me] can turn around and ask you, why are you staying here?

In today`s economy, one has to be true and loyal first to one`s own interests, whatever they may be. Everything else takes the back seat. If you`re down and out, who`s going to feed you? Certainly not your country or your local embassy! Maybe your friends or family, but for how long?

The bottom line is that people migrate for opportunities [or interests] that were not available to them in their native area.

RE: Krashid, your case points out to a glaring difference between pakistani and Indian immigrants. Indians came here in the 60s for education and stayed behind doing well--which is why they are the single most affluent immigrant group. Most come for education and have the skills to suceed. However, there are the trader types who manage to do well...and yes, there are the usual store-workers, gas station attendants and cab drivers--but you have am overwhelming numerical superiority in this last segment. But for those from the lower-economic section of society, most Indians have an easier time over there which is why bogus marriages are a rarity among Indians and are more prevalent among Arabs and Pakistanis.

Again, in contrast to krashid`s postings, there is a reverse brain drain going on with Indians. I have friends and relatives who have actually gone back. Yes, some of them are techies who opened offices or started their own companies back in Madras and Bangalore so they can be with their families...and doctors who are doing just as well back home. And a few more friends are in the process of moving back by the next summer so their kids can start the school year on time.

Cheers

not every middle class, english speaking pakistani dreams of making it big in what you describe to be the land of opportunitys. neither are we in awe of those who have `made it` or `escaped.`

Ali:

TOP TEN REASONS FOR NOT READING MY PRÉCIS


10: I need to impress my date this evening.
9: Have nothing better to do.
8: Care for the Prophet’s relations.
7: Deter you from making a career change (if you were thinking about it..)
6: I am mad at that Thackeray clone, mysterious lover, the weather, bina because cannot open her mail, Shandy for being so cryptic, the other two for not being so cryptic, Bilal for being so meticulous and unruffled, the Powerful One for being silent, the Sweet One for being Sweet, and not rightfully mad.
5: It is Monday.
4: Have a bad hangover.
3: Have run out of Cuban cigars.
2: ----self censured---- (have to protect my self-respect)
1: Am sober.

_______________________________________

And if you must....
........Welcome to Chowk.

You article had 1089 words, 4893 characters, 9 paragraphs and said this:


“Expatriate Pakistani living in America are envied and held in awe when they revisit Pakistan occasionally: and with skepticism when they express any desires of returning back to Pakistan.

Many horror stories circulate about Pakistanis, mostly economic migrants and students desperate to come to America. Most have unrealistic expectations about life in the US of A.”


Have reduced it to 56 words without changing the thrust and essence.. I can delete some more words and still convey the same thought. The Point?

You don’t have anything worthwhile to say. Nor do I. I apologize, though.

regards,

temporal

Ref: Layman #4

Actually layman, having some knowledge about the marriage market in India, let me assure you that the ``foreign`` premium has seriously declined as domestic salaries have risen among a section of the middle-class. Parents now prefer a local ``well-settled`` boy to a foreign groom since they can keep an eye on him and their daughter. With starting salaries at home approaching 1.5-2 lakh per annum and rising very fast with experience, people who choose to remain back in India are not necessarily doing too bad.

-narain

Rdesikan: Are the ``glaring differences`` you point out based on some statistical study or based on your imagination? My own impression is different - there are many affluent Pakistani professionals in the West that I know, although I make no claims to that proving the moral or intellectual superiority of Pakistanis over Indians or anyone else.

The writer of this article represents a type of self-absorbed individual who could be from any country. On the other hand, there are many other people, including Pakistanis who, having achieved economic security, are dedicated to higher goals like contributing time and resources for what is perhaps the most important challenge of our times - providing reasonable economic security for all.

Get off your high horse ``sir``...your ``celebrity status`` is one of imagined self-importance...Stop your navel-gazing and do something worthwhile for your country...arghhh!

Actually I think there are two separate levels at which someone migrates. First is the highly educated people, like yourself, that generally do incredibly well (generally better than 99% of the indigenous population)and are much much better off financially than they would ever be back home. Remember that these are salaried people and regardless of what one makes here, you cannot compare the salaries of MBAs and MDs to back home. Even if you did a cost of living analysis, you would be better off here. Period. Socially ofcourse you will always be second or third class, and one has to bite the bullet and accept that. I think that is what I find affects the elite desis here tremendously. They go overboard to show their status, thus revealing the alienation of their life here.

Let me give you an example of the second category. I met a taxi driver from Karachi here in Chicago at Gharib Nawaz and I tell you I could not tell if he was better off here or back home. This is where we do need to keep finances at arms length when making an analysis. He was lonely. He said that he had been here for a year and for the first time that weekend he had actually cooked a meal at home. It was incredibly sad. Here you have the promise of what you dont have back home (security, law and order)but you dont have what you did have back home (a family, friends). I think these people though do not have the same recourse as the desi elites here. They dont have the resources to entertain themselves by buying that BMW or Armani suit. Rather the depression that their lonliness causes can lead to things like alcoholism etc. that it would indeed have been better for them to have stayed back in Pakistan with its limitations. I think migration is probably the most traumatic thing to undergo but being on the higher end of the education/income scale makes it easier (for some at least). I`ll stop blabbing now....