I recently met Ashish Reddy in Virginia. A 30-year-old techie from South India, he works in a lab owned by a Virginia-based telecom company. He joined this company when he was 24 and since then made it a point to visit his home town in Andhra Pradesh every other year to spend at least three weeks with his parents. But this time he is not going to India. Reddy fears that with the current recession in the US forcing many large companies to lay off thousands of employees, he may not find his job when he returns.
The economic downturn in the US is beginning to hit everyone and it is visible. We were four Indian journalists visiting the US and we travelled across New York, Virginia and California - easily among the most affluent American states. Even in this short time one could see the impact of the economic downturn.
On my arrival at the JFK Airport in New York, I happened to take a cab driven by a Sikh. The 42- year-old garrulous man, with his family in Amritsar (and a girlfriend in New York), has been chasing the great American dream in his cab for the past 10 years. But now, unable to raise enough income to repay his loans and support his family, he wants to apply the brake and go back to India.
As I was being driven to a hotel, the Sardarji, instead of showing me the sights and sounds of the Big Apple, was pointing out at the beggars on the street and young men with cards around their necks which read "Willing to work - Want a job". Coming from India, where such sights are common, I did not give it a second thought.
But when I reached the hotel, a reputed international chain near Times Square, I was quite surprised to find the absence of basic services, usually associated with a top notch hotel. The toothpaste, brush and a shaving kit were a part of the mini-bar, priced at $5 each! I was lucky to have packed a full toilet kit but my fellow journalists had to trudge to Times Square to buy toothpaste in the middle of the night.
A hotel employee said the management had decided to offer a no-frills service given the increasing costs and declining visitors as a result of the economic slowdown. There were other stronger signals too. Near-empty malls even on the eve of Thanksgiving Day, newspapers with depressing stories, shops giving massive discounts as they were going out of business and people like Reddy are bracing themselves for tough times ahead. Take the case of Shailesh, a Gujarati, who sells premium range shoes in a mall located in the upmarket Santa Clara area. In normal times, his clients included top executives of the Silicon Valley. But sales were dipping over the past few months. He expected business to pick up during the Thanksgiving week but I saw just a few guys hanging around.
When a fellow journalist walked in to buy a pair of shoes, the Gujarati man was so desperate to get a sale done that he offered a 40 per cent discount. Tony, the owner of a cab agency who drove us around San Francisco, said his business had declined by 30 per cent over the past four months. "People are travelling less these days. I haven't seen some of my regular clients for many months now," he said.
The last time I was in New York was right after the 9/11 attacks. I really don't know what was more depressing - the sight where the twin towers once stood or the grim look on the faces of executives as I walked down Wall Street.
But what stood out then, as also now, are the determination and hope that Americans harbour as they go about making sense of the latest crisis. It is this hope that has given the newly elected President Barack Obama a superman- like status. So one could see Obama caps, Obama T-shirts, Obama posters being sold on New York streets. People like Tony are betting huge on the next US President. You ask anyone about their opinion on Obama, especially the youngsters, and their eyes light up.
And to be fair, things are not all that bad. Not when compared with Indian lifestyle. Yes, Americans may not be buying SUVs or yachts, but we had to wait for an hour before we could find a seat at Sarabeth's - the hugely popular restaurant near the Central Park in New York. The hotels may be offering no-frill service, but we were being driven around in a stretch limousine through San Francisco. Well, recession is a relative term.
Flying back home, I thought of Reddy and sent up a fervent prayer that he'll be able to visit his parents soon.
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