Guest post: The job search story of a soon-to-be new prof - I

A friend and regular reader of this blog, who will soon be starting a faculty position in India, has graciously agreed to write a few guest posts about his job search.  Here comes the first instalment : 

She repeated her question 3 times and each time I shook my head miserably.

"What?"... I kept asking in return. It seemed like yesterday that I stood before 

the American visa officer, straining to understand her accent.  She gave up 

soon after, but stamped my passport nevertheless. A month later, I stepped 

off the plane bravely into the land of the free. 

Like cars rolling off an assembly line, I am the standard Indian geek. Driven

by hormones and ego, I went through the four years of madness in high school, 

on to prestigious Indian institute and finally to middling American university for

my PhD. I had a desk of my own, an adviser and even some undergraduate

minions to lord over as a TA. All that remained was to get down to the business

of making stunning discoveries.

This last one turned out to be harder than I thought. I learned to recalibrate

my expectations and soon enough, life was good again. It was about this

time that I discovered my travel bug and also that I had a thing for schmoozing.

I had found myself the perfect profession to combine the two. My first time

in Europe was a dream; the continent beckoned with its shady roads, its

lazy lunches and exotic languages. I worked hard on perfecting the art of taking 

myself seriously. I cultivated fake hobbies such as a taste for fine wines and

even classical music... Western classical of course!

It was time to get older and wiser. Soon enough, they printed out a degree

for me and I was handed a postdoc with one of my adviser's collaborators.

With a little more cash in my pocket, I was beginning to appreciate America

more. And while I definitely appreciated the meaty pizzas and the free 

customer service, I was beginning to connect with America on a deeper level:

freedom.

Freedom: this was what I craved all along when I instinctively rejected all the

opinions of pushy parents and bossy teachers. I wanted to live it. Of course,

this is anything but easy when trying to build a publication record and 

faced with the tyranny of referees. But, I learned to keep my chin up. Once

again, not taking myself too seriously helped. 

I will stick my neck out and say here that everyone who goes abroad (except

in some extreme cases, perhaps) dreams of returning at some point. Like

so many other dreams... winning a Nobel prize, becoming a billionaire

or dating a supermodel, often these dreams don't come true. But for Indians

of my generation, who saw Saurav Ganguly waving his shirt around in the

balcony at Lord's as a signal to arms, the dream was easier to attain. India

was open for business and the possibilities seemed endless. I decided

to pick up my suitcase and jetset my way back home. But, older and

wiser that I was, I made a few prior arrangements. If Newprof so desires, you

folks will hear about it in another post :)