Life Between Cultures: An Indian IT Professional's Story

Introduction: Background and Early Life

My friend is an information technology consultant who was born and raised in India. He spent ten years in a Catholic seminary in India before leaving and pursuing a career in IT. He had always been good at mathematics, and after leaving the seminary he enrolled in IT courses. Upon completing his coursework, he was recruited by American headhunters who were in Chennai — where he lived — looking for Indian IT workers. The headhunters asked whether he would come to work for a major banking firm in America.

His father insisted that he take the job, and he complied with his father's wishes. His father's reasoning was that he would earn good money in America and would be able to provide financial support for his family back home in Chennai. This was especially important because his father could not depend on his other sons, who were unreliable. His father owned a small grocery store, but his sons were not good at managing the business, and his father saw the American recruiters as a God-given opportunity to ensure that the family did not lose everything in the coming years. The decision, in other words, was not primarily about career ambition — it was about filial duty and family survival.

Coming to America: Culture Shock and Adaptation

He traveled to America — to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to be exact. He began his career as an IT worker there, but he was quite miserable. He felt alone and was very sensitive about his appearance and the way he sounded. Like many Indians, he had learned English at school, but his accent was thick and the American environment was nothing like life in Chennai. After several months he was deeply homesick and told his recruiters that he wanted to go home. They tried to understand what the problem was, and he told them that Ann Arbor was too quiet — he felt as though he were suffocating. He asked at the very least for a change of location, so he was sent to New York City.

He instantly felt at home as soon as he stepped off the subway in New York City. It was noisy, crowded, and chaotic — and he felt right at home. The experience is a striking illustration of how culture shock is not simply about being in a foreign country, but about the specific sensory and social environment one inhabits within that country. The urban energy of New York City resonated with his experience of life in Chennai in a way that the quiet streets of Ann Arbor never could.

Family Obligation, Career, and Marriage

He worked in New York City for several years during the 1990s. Every month he sent most of his paycheck home to support his family in Chennai. What remained he used for rent, food, and clothing. After a few years, however, he was again drained and anxious. He went to his bosses and told them he could not keep working there. He was a good, hard worker, and his bosses did not want to lose him, so they asked what the problem was. He explained that he had almost no money left because of his financial situation and was unable to save anything for himself. His bosses were astounded — he was receiving a solid paycheck at the time — but he explained that he saw only a fraction of that because his recruiters took a large cut of his pay. His bosses realized they needed to extricate him from his contract with the headhunters. They hired him directly and gave him a significant raise, and he was happy once again.

Then, in 2001, he received a call from his father telling him that he had to return home to Chennai. His father had found a wife for him, and he was to be married. He agreed and returned home for the wedding. The first time he ever saw his wife was on his wedding day. This was not unusual to him, because that is the custom in India for many people even today: one's parents choose one's spouse. The practice of arranged marriage in India remains widespread, and for him it was simply the expected and accepted way of things.

Part of the wedding gift that he and his new wife received was a large collection of spices that her family had spent weeks assembling. However, the September 11 attacks occurred while the newlyweds were waiting to board their flight back to New York. Everything shut down. Security went into overdrive. When they were finally able to board a flight to New York City, all of the spices that her family had packed were confiscated and thrown away — not permitted under the new rules of air travel in the wake of the attacks.

He returned to his apartment in New York City, but his job was no longer accessible. His office building had been located just blocks from Ground Zero, and no one was getting in or out of that area. His company relocated him to its offices in St. Louis. While in St. Louis, he began looking for a new job to advance his career. Now that he was married, he wanted to start planning for the future of his own family. He was hired by another company, and then, after a few more years, another unexpected development arose: the company wanted him to manage a team back in India. By this time, he had two young children. He discussed it with his wife, and they decided to make the move back to India. His wife and children were not entirely enthusiastic about giving up American life, but they all came on board, and he believed it would be good for his career to have the experience on his résumé.