NRI and India.

Next to me standing in line in the Airport was a couple who was tavelling back to Dallas like me. The discussions with them were ranging from US Elections to Infrastructure in India to Food items to taste in India. Cost of living discussion did take place and having born and brought up in US, they could not relate to the changes in cost of living index in india in the last 10+ years. Wait a minute, born and brought up in US - Yes, they are American couple who have been living in US last 4 generations having moved from Germany and now for the first time moved the family to India on the Job. - Yes, during the last 8 trips to india in the last year or so, I have been seeing more and more Americans moved to India and taken up Jobs in india. In the Restaurants, in the Airports, and in shopping malls, I see more and more of Americans (and may be some Europeans too) in India. The term that we used to hear - NRI - Non-Resident Indians is now slowly fading away and a new term is getting coined - RNI - Resident Non-Indians. Here and there in the news paper, I am reading articles on American male getting married to Indian woman. If you are an NRI - you are not any more crowd puller of Autos and Taxis. You have to be a RNI!!

The profile of India is changing. Changing so rapidly, that it is difficult to gauge whether for good or for bad. It is encouraging to see the economics and hopefully the good changes are there to stay.

One thing that RNIs are yet to figure out though is, why is that all Indians crowd around the Gate before boarding despite the fact that they annouce seat numbers and board them only in that order? This is happening in all Airports. I remember when we board the train, we need to rush to the Door to get in before train leaves the station. May be that we still live in those memories !!

Money has no value now in India. NRIs once thought that the dollars that we earn here are much more to cover and then to have a lot in the bank to settle down in India. That is not true anymore. I met with several NRIs who moved back to India recently and many are feeling the pressure. (see my next blog "Is Money everything in india" for different perspective on this).