2020

"America is certainly the land of opportunity". An Indian gentleman I met at a restaurant in America, told me on the first day I set foot there. This IIT  graduate was a middle aged person who had settled down in the States with a firang wife and self owned booming software outsourcing company.

Since then, more people have said the same things to me. A Pakistani who owns a fledging cab service. A cab driver with ambitions to start a country wide chain of veterinary centers. 

You then think why can't India be the same? People say that the infrastructure, the job oppurtunities, the easier life all are the main reasons that make America a land of opportunity. 

But I think it is something beyond these things.

The thing that I noticed most among people here was that they all have  a dream. A dream to be better. To lead a better life. 

The dream that makes a 52 year old mother to learn about a new software so that she can get a better job. The same dream that makes a Help Desk person in my company to attend evening classes at a university. 

I think this is the key difference. In India, people work to survive. The bar for people in India is much lower. The enemy is within.

Why is this so? Lack of role models? Maybe. America was after all built by people who wanted change. In the earlier times, you could only get into this country if you had complimentary skills. Even now, the stringent Visa policy ensures that they don't take in parasites.

But the winds of change are slowly but steadly changing the course of India. New age entrepreneurs are teaching us to dream big. 

It is probably for good reason that I keep hearing on the radio in the USA that India will be the next big thing in 20 years.

UPDATE: My cousin pointed out that 2009 + 20 != 2020. I was aware of this and the title of the post is a reference to APJ Abdul Kalam's dream of Vision 2020.