Book Review: Guy on the Sidewalk
‘Guy on the sidewalk’, as the name suggests, this book is about a guy name ‘Jaywardhan’ aka Jay living his life in the USA and still feels like outsider decide to take the drastic step, which many NRI talk about it but never do, of shifting back to India. The title and short description of the book sounded very interesting and I was totally inclined to read ‘Guy on the sidewalk by Bharath Krishna. I somewhat felt the story as recently I shifted my base from one city to another and how you feel disconnected with the city and crave to be where your heart’s desire.
The story starts with Jay spending his last 2 days in the USA and finally coming closer to his most daring step of shifting to India after spending 6 years in the country. All his NRI friends are saying their final farewell, but also contradicting on Jay’s decision with their own opinion of their motherland – India. As Jay sits in his flight to India, he flashes back to all those 6 years in the USA – decisions he made, the struggles he went through, successes and how all things positive or negative always raised a voice inside his head to be where he can be with his own people rather than being an outsider in some else’s home.
After completing his Engineering, Jay decides to pursue MBA, whereas his best friend, Venkat opts for IT career in the USA despite the fact that he is not an IT person or have IT education. Jay decides not to follow the crowd who is moving to the USA and create his own path in Sale & Marketing in India. Post 2-3 years of working, he wants to get the international perspective and decide to invest a huge amount in his second master’s degree in International Trade from USA. To everyone’s surprise, Jay decides to go to USA and study something different and not the usual like other Indian who have careers in IT. The very step in the USA leads to financial struggle because Jay is pursuing the education without any support of scholarship or campus job. The course is about 2 years, but within 1 year, Jay gets discouraged as his expectations from the course and what he is studying is totally different. Though this pressure was somewhat manageable, another pressure added to his contemplating the decision was VISA obligation. As commonly known to many of the Indians, a person can go to USA on a student visa, but that visa expires once you are done with your studies plus a year or so of job finding. To stay longer in the USA, a person has to get a job, then only he can apply for H1 visa where he can work in the USA for another 2-3 years. Either employer pays for the visa or the employee have to shed from his own pocket. Since this amount is high, many employees try to look for a job where employer sponsors the visa. After completing one year of the Master, Jay takes yet another tough decision of moving out of the course and pursue career in IT as this will not just help him get a job but also visa. He opts for part time course at another university and the rest of the time he is getting trained in IT by Desi company (aka Indian company). This Desi company gets people from India who are looking for a job in the USA, train them and whenever there is any requirement for IT assistance, they hire them as a consultant on a project basis. Jay despite disliking the IT profile and his initial statement of not getting involved in the craze of IT jobs in the USA, he goes into the system for the sake of money and visa. In the beginning he struggles with the understanding and fundamental of IT that’s when he meet Siri, his tutor, his best friend, his love interest, his closest relative in the USA. With the help of Siri, he gets project for 2 years, extendable up to 3 years. Siri becomes an important part of Jay’s life and his support who helps him survive the cut throat job market.
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The struggle, the financial crunches, the relationship, the connection to USA, routes of India, the lifestyle, Jay experiences all this in his 6 years in the States. The book is nicely written, explaining the person’s anxiety, worries and happiness. Staying in another country is not as simple as it appears and this book sheds light on some point which most of the NRI tries to hide it. No one wants to share the struggle they go through and each person staying in different countries at some point have faced this difficulty. Jay was no different to the situation. It was a simple read. Those who seek story on the life of NRI, should give a try to ‘Guy on the sidewalk’. The story is what makes a book a good read and this book was a definitely a break from love story book or book on IIT/IIM from many Indian authors.
I liked the book, as I said earlier, in many places, I can associate with Jay’s character and his mind contemplating the decision at each step. The only part I didn’t enjoy much was too much focus on Jay and Siri’s love story in the second half of the book. Maybe that’s because from the start I was expecting some outburst of Jay when he finally shift to India and him seeing India after 6 years which was missing. Hopefully, Mr. Bharath Krishna will write part 2 of this book talking about life in India after shifting from USA.
Really Good attempt to write a story on the life of NRI and I hope all NRI will get a chance to read this book.
