The election is over and Obama continues to be President. I am happy that he gets more time to continue the good things he has done in the last few years and also reflect to change his strategy on accomplishing the things he said he would but failed.
My parents were not watching the election on TV as the only TV that plays local channels is in our bedroom. The TV in the living room has only south Indian Tamil Channels. So they got to watch the election result as covered by the Tamil channels a good 12 hours after they happened.
When I came home their first comment was "We saw the details of the US Election and how Obama won by ~300 to Romney's ~200 and we are surprised that you said last night it was a close election. How is 300 to 200 a close election?"
Also they are saying "Obama is anti-Indian and this is not good for India! So why did you vote for him?"
Surely, readers of this blog know my Political leaning on Internet based tests show me to be a "Liberal Democrat" and my lifes experiences in India and in the US which is going to cross the 50% mark soon have got me to this point (yes, came to this country when I was 20 and now I am going to be 40!).
Still how does one answer the "Obama being anti-Indian" question? Where are they getting that from? Guess the IT corridor in India is not happy with Obama's tirade against "American jobs going overseas" and the media picks up on it.
As for me, it is great to live the American dream. Really! Came to this country with ~1000$ of borrowed money..
$1050 to be precise and was shocked to learn that opening a bank account cost me ~25$. Almost cried at the bank. The USA was as capitalist as Capitalism was allowed to get but one realized pretty quickly that if you worked you got rewarded. There were no gotchas or at least that was the perception. Didn't realize that there were a lot of Americans who were less fortunate than me at that point who did not have access to what I had!
At the end of the day, all said and done, it was my late Grandpa who made me a democrat without realizing what he was doing..
He taught me "Lokah samastha sukhino bhavantu" which crudely translates to "everywhere everything be happy so it be"!
It was basically a "live and let live" philosophy that he came to after what he went through in his life which somehow made me associate with the "we are all in this together" statement that is a cornerstone of the Democratic party.
We as a family make good money. We are both educated and we live in Cupertino which is not cheap. We live in an expensive house which comes with a high mortgage and property tax, not to mention our income tax, sales tax, gasoline tax, etc. etc. Most of our friends, especially desi's ask me "dude, you vote for Obama knowing he is going to take money from you and give it away to folks who don't deserve it? Your taxes are going to go up? Why do you want to work so hard for a bunch of folks who don't work so hard?" and that usually makes me go on a long winded speech which goes like this..
I have worked very hard to make a lot of people above me richer. Don't think those people exactly deserved my hard work considering the compensation wasn't fair. So the whole deserve thing is moot! I associate with folks who work hard and get shafted by the system.
Yes, my taxes are going to go up, but will take that gladly if it is a short term thing that will help solve the long term problems in the country. Have put 10% of my paycheck in a 401k retirement account over the last 15 years only to see that it is value is not anywhere close to what it should be because some unknown hedge fund manager is gambling with that money and is getting richer at my expense and all my smartness is not enough to stop that or track that!
As for the people who don't work hard, it is probably a very small minority that takes advantage of the system. It is true that me and my roommate in Philadelphia walked 7 blocks to the nearest supermarket after what was our "first snow storm" (both of us were from Chennai and had never been in snow before and that happiness quickly wore off when we realized that going to the grocery store by foot and having to haul milk was very painful in snow) and we saw a big 6'6" guy who must have been at least 300 lbs with rippling muscles carried a cartful of groceries and he paid for it with food stamps. We didn't know what food stamps were till that day. He hauled it into his car and drove off. Why an able bodied guy like that had to use stamps was beyond us! One cannot use exceptions to make rules. For every instance of stamp use like that I have observed in those days, have seen hard working single parents and grandmas trying to raise good kids in that same neighborhood with stamps.
There will be exceptions to everything, but to quote my grandfather "when one finger in the hand grows too long, you either have to cut the finger off or you have to lose your hand as it loses its functionality!". That was his way of saying "grow.. but let others grow with you as you grow and prosper!"
Do I do enough for people around me? Probably not! Do I try? Definitely yes!
In a country where you can work hard and prosper and one can pursue their own happiness as their only goal, there are a large group of people who believe that wellness for all is the path to wellness for oneself and that is reassuring!
To all my desi friends and relatives here and in India who wonder why a high tax bracket Desi is voting democrat that is my long winded answer..
A party that has a diverse crowd of young and old, straight or gay, red, white, black, yellow, brown and beige people that watches a president give a speech at 12:30 AM in Chicago that stands together as a true representation of the melting pot these United States are, appeals to me.
As a technologist who spends a lot of time explaining complicated things to folks in layman terms, the fact that there are folks who believe the earth is not flat and is much older than 9000 years who will be in charge of our technological future appeals to me.
The short of it is "live and let live" appeals to me!
Now it is time to hope that the President goes through with his promised immigration reform!
