The Great Indian On-Site Dream

I know him, and so do you. We all know him, and some of us are him.

He grew up living the IIT dream. He knew he could make it. They all did.
Out of college, he got placed a big – big, in terms of the labour force, and not the impact - Indian IT company which does back-office work for the West. They call it consulting.
His mother is happy. She can tell her friends her son got placed in *******. She is content with life, now that her son has good prospects in the Marriage Market.

His house is a mess right now. Beer bottles adorn every flat surface in the apartment; the fridge stinks of stale food, which he isn’t planning to eat anytime soon, but doesn’t have the heart to throw it; water bottles, remote controls, mobiles are covered in a layer of oil. Someone will clean it up. There are so many people living in the apartment. On weekends, you can find him watching cricket in his torn vest. Later that evening, you can hear him whine.

He’s a manager now. They all are. He has people working under him, reporting to him. They all do.

He heard that his company is stocking up labour for an on-site project in one of the whitefolk-countries. He is trying to persuade his manager to get him one of those. He will be paid multiple times his Indian income (and less-than-average local wage). He will live frugally, share the apartment with as many people as they can stuff in; he will bring back the riches, and live the luxurious life he has always wanted, and finally buy that i10 without having to take a loan or ask Daddy for money. More likely, he will think of a way to stay there.