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The American Dream & India News

Its been rather slow all through the winter with no new developments happening on the personal and professional fronts. Sure, Kirti made a trip here and we stayed at home for the best part of 2.5 days.

Except for gaining weight steadily, I have not made any progress in gaining any additional knowledge about anything else. The keyword here being 'gaining'.

The IPL has moved its base to South Africa for this year and God only knows how successful this time around the event's going to be. Knowing BCCI and all the money that's on the line, this year is going to be bigger and better. It probably would not have mattered to the BCCI if the IPL were to have happened in the Arctic Circle. BCCI will get richer by a few thousand crores and all franchise owners will recover their initial investments.

Such a sorry state for the ICL which was a big flop this year. I did not hear any buzz from them (don't even know if it happened this season). I think its the economy that hit Subhash Chandra's pet project. Expect fireworks, though, from Lalit Modi and co. for sure.

Talking about fireworks, Varun Gandhi sure knows to start something incendiary. With BJP or NDA playing the religion-card, I hope they don't come to power this summer. Hoping better sense prevails and the development of the country is put forward and not the development of a Hindutva country as BJP or NDA wants it projected as.

Whoever wins should ensure Afzal Guru is hanged and there is some action from the Indian government on the Nov 26 terrorist attacks. By the looks of it, as the time for election nears, the case and subsequent justice to the victims both are going to get delayed. And Pakistan will get some time to relax and make foolish & irresponsible comments.

All those H1B visa and American dreams are evaporating with many or most desi consultancies backing off from filing fresh H1Bs this year or ordering people to move on to dependent visas (subsequently canceling their H1 visas in fear of an audit from the INS/USCIS). What happens to people with no one to fall back on. Going back to his or her home country becomes the major option, the other being going back to a student visa. Times are tough and the bad economy is sparing no one. Mine and Kirti's positions are also dicey and we are not immune to the problems that hundreds and thousands of us are facing. Post after post on sites like immihelp.com and path2usa.com are based on questions regarding H1 visa cancellation from non-paying employers and how to escape from a bad situation. These sites are a God-send and the advice of senior members provide great relief to some and terrible agony to others who don't seem to have much options.

Seems like there is no escaping the truth and sooner or later we all are going to be victims of our own choices that we made either out of desperation or riding our chances on embarking on an American dream that is hellbent on proving itself as being the biggest nightmare of my generation.

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