Working in India Vis-à-vis Abroad

Well first and foremost I will put a disclaimer.
“ I am not one of those guys who have worked abroad (well as in worked in real sense), but having spent a considerable time there I feel I have the license to write about it.

Having parents who think that the best thing in the world is to work in the US (or abroad as it is for them), I am constantly coaxed into trying my luck abroad. Having a sister who is living there and doing extremely well doest help my cause either.

Well some thoughts:

1) Opportunities:
Well one of the things that people generally talk about is the long overused buzz word called “opportunities!!”

Well if that is a synonym for money then it’s a totally different matter all together. This is because no one will come to you and give you everything on the platter. You still have you work hard or prolly work a lot harder to make it big there.
Well but I do agree that the competition there is slightly less than that here. This is because the number of pople involved in the rat race there are less. But if it is less, then it is a lot more complex. There the people pull you down not just on the basis of your wrk but also on the basis of your colour and nationality.

2) Money:
As we spoke before that many many people equate money with opportunities. We always tend to convert currencies and because of the fact that we have a weaker currency we tend to feel a lot deprived. I mean we see in the newspapers about the hugely high salaries of our counterparts and thus feel a lot cheated. Well the term cheap labor used by a lot of foreign companies for their pet work of outsourcing sure causes a lot of heated emotions. But having been an admirer of economics I like to put everything in perspective of PPP or the purchasing power parity. This for non knower is the purchasing power of people at a particular place. Like 1 kg of apples cost about Rs75 in India but would cost about 4 pounds in UK. I think that will put us amongst the highest pay getters in the world.

3) Stature:
Well this is one area where everything goes a little weird and a little out of hand. Being an IIM graduate and not getting a foreign offer is like coming last in a marathon when the organizers have even packed up. The stature of peoples having foreign offers is that of angels and thus highly regarded in the eyes of not just elders but of peers and juniors as well. I still think and laugh about the fact that in my campus KPMG offering Middle East as posting got the Slot zero! It is ridiculous when we think about our colonial mentality of the west’s superiority.
When I was in UK recently for a month’s training I was hounded with questions from friend and people I knew about the length of my program. They were half expecting me to say that I will there for a year or more and were truly disappointed at the fact that I was there ONLY for a month!!!