1. What Indians dream in
Canada?
…
I let my neighbour know beyond the
hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen
to each.
…
These
are the lines from Robert Frost’s poem ‘Mending Wall’ that was written in 1914.
It involves two rural neighbours who meet one spring day
to walk along the wall that separates their landed properties. They are about
to repair the wall.
The speaker in the poem is a progressive individual who
starts to question the need for such a wall in the first place. The neighbour
beyond the hill is a traditionalist and has, it seems, little time for such
nonsense of caring for the wall.
No doubt the setting of the event must be somewhere in
North American continent. Most surely, the US.
But after I journeyed the provinces of Ontario and
Montreal and the cities of Toronto and Ottawa, I believe that the setting best
suits to Canada, than the US. There in Canada, front yard of the houses, if
there is anything like that, is open and unprotected without any wall, fencing
or gate as one sees in Kerala and elsewhere in India. This unprotected or uncontrolled
welcome to homes or apartments was something new which I couldn’t believe when I
observed them first. Only a few houses or buildings have wall or fencing at the
fringe of the green-carpeted backyard, that too is weaker, with some ornamental
plants or wooden planks. The four sides of the apartments, schools, government
offices, hotels or supermarkets were open from any side, without compound walls.
“The person who makes walls is an introvert or greedy”. Once
a friend of mine had told me. The natives of Canada may also think the axiom true,
that is why they don’t make walls or mark and fortify the entrance with a gate
or arch.
This openness is reflected in the immigration policy of
Canada, which has become an attraction of lakhs of aspirants from different
parts of the globe to reach the dreamland at the earliest, beating the hurdles
of immigration. Several youngsters in India, especially from Delhi, Haryana,
Maharahtra, Karnataka and Tamilnadu cherish the dream of migrating to Canada,
either for higher education or employment. Ask any ten of the fresh graduates and
post-graduates in Kerala about their future plan, at least two will say “… planning
to Canada.”
It is
against this background I thought of writing this first segment of my travel
book, illustrating the real picture of the Canadian economic and social life,
than the vagaries that may embarrass the prospective immigrants.
I visited
Canada in May - June 2019. It was thanks
to the invitation of my two nieces and their husbands, who had been settled in Toronto
seeking their fortunes there. One of the nieces was well settled in Bangalore with
her IT job, and the husband of the next was one migrated to Canada four years ago
for doing a course in Management Science after his BTech in India.
The reason
for the Canadian policy of welcoming efficient, qualified and English speaking
immigrants to their land is easily comprehensible;
Canada is
three times bigger than India. While India has 3,287,263 km2 of land, Canada has 9,984,670 km2 of land.
But the population is just 40 lakhs more than that of Kerala, i.e. 37,602,103
only. If this 9,984,670 km2 of land was equally divided for
37,602,103, 0.266 km2 would be the share of each citizen. Indian
citizen’s average share of land in their homeland is 0.002 km2.This
is one of the reasons for their welcoming efficient, qualified and English speaking
immigrants to their country. The fertile land, fields, land locked lakes,
rivers, forests, prairies and unlimited natural resources tempt the people from
all over the world to reach there and live a happy and prosperous life. The
liberal immigration policy has become the hook of fish-line that appeases many
to reach this ‘land where honey and milk flow…’
No doubt that among the 163 countries, Canada ranks sixth in the
year 2019 and continues its sixth position from 2015 onward in the list of
Global Peace Index (GPI). This rating of the GPI has been produced by the Institute
for Economics and Peace (IEP), Sydney,
Australia. The GPI methodology of 2019 considered 23
indicators like; internal and external conflicts, intensity of conflicts,
criminality in the society, political instability and impact of terrorism. In 2019 India slipped 5 places to 141 on
Global Peace Index while Iceland topped first.
Afghanistan which has 158th
rank is now a least peaceful country in the world, sometimes better than Iraq,
Yemen, Syria, South Sudan and Somalia.
Yet another
reason for promoting immigration to the country might be the dull increase in
the rate of growth of population, which is calculated to 0.73% with 140th
rank among the world nations, while India’s position is 95 with 1.17% growth. No
way, this rate of growth of population is hopeful to get manpower to be spread
over the land in the coming decades.
A fourth
reason for the liberal immigration is the mind of Canada that had been formed
to welcome population from other nations. The present natives are mainly the
descendants of the immigrants who came from France and Britain for permanent
settlement in 18th and 19th century, which had already
been turned Canada into ‘a paradise of immigrants.’ The Chinese immigration
started in 1850, where their share is 5.1% of the population of Canada, while
Indian share is 4%. The mind of Canada for immigration had been formulated
positive through the Europeans, Chinese and the Afro-American communities. So a
country, whose culture, language and day-today-life had been formulated on the
platform of global immigration, be welcoming the rest of the world to enjoy the
nature and natural resources available there. Thus the ‘sons of the soil’
argument shall not be emerged easily there in Canada.
I happened
to see several immigrants from India doing their educational programmes in
different institutions in Toronto and nearby places. The diploma and degree
programmes take: one, one and a half years or three years for completion. I
don’t know whether there is any programme, whose expenditure is below rupees,
fifteen lakhs. In order to meet the two ends, almost all these immigrant
students from India work in different places.
There in
Canada, the migrant Indian students shake off their delusion on the ‘dignity of
job’. What is their delusion on the dignity of job? An average Indian in his/her
homeland believes and behaves that any job that demands physical effort is of
lower standard and wretched, especially household responsibilities of cooking,
washing plates, washing clothes or cleaning floors. In their homeland they
won’t wash even a kerchief or clean the wash basin even in any emergency. They
sometimes, throw away the plates when mother asks them to wash them in the kitchen,
or protest by wearing un-ironed dress when mother seeks out help for ironing. Requests
of mothers for cleaning the living-room using a broom or cleaning the toilet
using a brush by an adolescent may result in ‘mishap’ in relationship. Parents
also inculcate misconception on degrading manual labour on the pretext that
those jobs were reserved for women and the ‘weaker sections’ of the society.
But when
they reach a foreign country for existence they get rid of their basic approach
of considering manual labour as a disgrace. Except a few unlike the one Indian youth
I saw near ‘Food Land’ in Toronto, almost all Indian students are somewhat
happy with the part-time job they have to raise some ‘fund’ for their education
in Canada.
Near the
‘Food Land’ he was cleaning the side path of the road after someone had cut the
grass using light machines. This Indian youth looked dull and uninterested in
his work and was scanning several times whether he had been observed by others.
While his native co-workers had proceeded their task with much interest and
attentiveness, this young man from India, seemed dissatisfied with his piece of
work.
The minimum wage rate for labour
is around 20 CAD for one hour. An Indian youth from Kodanad in Kerala, a
salesman in a supermarket in Don Mills, another one from Ernakulam who works in
a coffee shop in the Down Town, Toronto, and yet another two girls from
Angamaly, who serve Biriyani in a food stall in Scarborough were seemed
extremely happy with their part-time jobs that fetched handsome income to
support their living and education in Canada.
With three or four hours of work
per day or 20 hours of work in a week, their life in Canada become busier to
busier including attending classes on working days in the college or
university. Why do they take such a sacrifice is understandable, it is for
making a footing in Canada during the course of study or term of stay-back, to
experiment with their fortune. Part-time jobs awaiting immigrant-students go like;
grass cutting, cleaning floor, cleaning the toilets in public places, serving
at the counter of outlets, working in coffee shops. Attendants in supermarkets,
volunteers in tourist places and so on are general category jobs for which no experience
or no special training is necessary. Opticians, teachers and drivers are the highly
demanded jobs now, for which license or a sort of authentication from Canadian
government is necessary. So, such jobs could be attained by those who had been
educated in Canada for these jobs, through which they become eligible for these
professions.
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