He is not the first one to think this way. Over 50,000 doctors have made their way to the US from India, in the last thirty years. In the last year alone, three more of my colleagues have left for the US. One, forty-five years old, fifteen years in private practice, doing well. Another, thirty-eight years old, a bright star in our professional circles. The third, a junior colleague, doing pretty well for himself otherwise in practice. And they have all left because of the "dark future" that India seems to have as against the bright future that the US promises. All of them will make upwards of 100,000$ in the US, ensuring that their children will not have to struggle through college and University and will lead a privileged life, even by American standards. Three of these four couples are dual earners and will make around 200,000$, which I think is a hell of a lot of money, even for the US.

We stayed a year in the US and came back. Not that we didn't examine the option of staying back in the US, but we thought that even though things were better and easier in the US, we probably had more to contribute to society in India. Maybe this is too idealistic for today's world, considering that most people wouldn't think twice of jumping ship given better living conditions and money. Most people think that we are fools. People give an arm and a foot to get to the US and there we were, coming back even though we could have easily stayed. The attitude is best summed up by the answer that a colleague gave me when I asked him why he was going to the US. He said, "Because I can."

More of my friends are in the US than in India. And they have all left for a better future, despite the fact that for them the future wasn't going to be all that bad in India anyway. Not like my grandfather's six brothers who migrated to Kenya, from their small village near Jamnagar in Gujarat, escaping poverty and the drudgery of a poor farmer's life. Anita talks about the revenge of the colonials; I see it as the revenge of the browns, considering the rate at which the brown South Asian population is proliferating in England. It feels nice to know that Indians have made it to the top 100 earners in the UK or feature among the first 100 Silicon Valley billionaires. And yet, when my friends and colleagues talk of leaving the country, a sense of despair and sadness strikes me. These are talented people, people who could have made a difference here, but who prefer to lead a life of relative anonymity in an adopted country, earning good money and comfort, but having lost the satisfaction of contributing something unique to the country that has made them what they are.

Yet, there are still days, especially after friends come here for visits or during detailed email discussions, when I am assailed by self-doubts. Did we make a mistake by not staying back in the US? Between the two of us, we would have earned around 300,000$ and our children would have had the best the country has to offer. We would have been true world citizens. I sometimes think that US citizens just don't understand the significance of their being American. That just by being who they are, the doors of virtually all countries in the world are open to them, inviting them, nay imploring them to visit, no questions asked. As an Indian, each time I want to travel to any place except Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, I have to fill out visa application forms in triplicate, with my income-tax returns to prove that I have money for my ten-day trip and sometimes even submit to humiliating interviews by the concerned consulate personnel. My children wouldn't have had to bother about all this if they were American citizens.

A friend of mine has worked out a brilliant plan. She delivered both her children in the US, traveling when she was six months pregnant, thus ensuring that her children have the option of becoming US citizens if they want to, when they are eighteen years old.

There are so many other issues. Medical and higher post-graduate education in India till now has been very cheap. It cost me all of 100$ in fees to finish my medical education, apart from the expenditure on books and other associated paraphernalia. No, I wasn't on a scholarship; this was the actual cost, a measly 15$ every six months, the rest of the expenses being borne by the Municipal corporation which ran the medical college. Thus, the cost of 3000$ a year for my training was borne by the taxpayers. Even if 20% of the people migrate after graduating, the loss incurred by the country is tremendous. The counter-argument of course, is that these people may eventually do much more for the country in the future by sending back foreign exchange for investment in projects here, or by helping out their alma-maters with equipment and funding. I don't know. But what I do know is that we are so democratic, that we don't even have adequate checks and balances to prevent people leaving the country without payback. Things have changed a bit now and the fees are higher and there is a bond that needs to be discharged, but these are still insignificant.

And maybe, all this is irrelevant. With the world become smaller and words like "global village" doing the rounds, it probably does not matter where you live. Communication and travel are so easy that keeping in touch is a matter of hours or a few clicks. But I don't buy this. The world may be getting smaller, but it is not freer. Will the US allow anyone and everyone entry into the country without a visa? Will the rest of the world allow free migration to even-out the population densities? Will Mike like it if New Zealand is suddenly swamped by 1 million Indians? Will Nancy accept an exodus of Mexicans and other South Americans suddenly swarming around Venice? The global village concept is unidirectional, allowing free movement for the privileged classes - the under-privileged remain where they are. Though my standard of education is not particularly different from an American's, I cannot practice medicine freely anywhere in the world, except in the South Asian and Middle-East countries, whereas an American or an Englishman is welcome in virtually any country in the world.

Nancy and I had decided to write about the millenium, especially since I have to fulfil the punishment that Mike levied on me. But Anita's and Mike's articles and the return of my colleague have suddenly changed my thought processes for this week. And there is still time to write about the millenium and Y2K and all those damned things that the rest of the world has been so fixated about incessantly for the past one year.

Home. Many of my colleagues here at World View have been talking about travel, and how it broadens one or reminds one of where their true home really is. My partner, Man from Matunga, has enlarged the subject this week to talk about a more permanent form of travel, a one-way ticket to the United States. Prominent in all these discussions is the delicate topic of home.

Another silly sentiment, and one that people often cross-stitch and hang in their kitchens, is "Home is where the heart is." Maybe New York's Mayor Guilliani is still working on his sampler this season. He's been pretty busy lately trying to teach those without a roof over their heads that there's something worse than not having a home -- not having a heart.

I live on the other side of the country, a world away from New York and its homeless population, but that particular city is where one piece of my heart remains. Other pieces are in several other states scattered across this very big country. My "home" in California is just a house, especially at this time of the year. It's a tough truth to face sometimes.

I have a house, and it's as comfy and cozy as I can possibly make it. It's just not really a home. I live in a fabulous city and I know lots of people here, but I can't really call Venice my home. I love, love, love the monotonous climate and myriad cultures of California, but this is certainly not my home state. I'm as proud to be an Ammuricun as anybody who reads the newspapers can be, but ...

Now I haven't worked out any of the details and I certainly take for granted that travel out of this country is permitted, encouraged, and subsidized, but believe me, I have big plans for myself. I want to see the world. I don't have any particular country in mind, either -- I'm going to have to wait for an invitation, or an assignment before I travel anywhere.

If I had lots of money, it might be different. I'd probably start with England, since I was an English major in college. Plus, I've heard they speak our language. Then, all of Europe. All of it. Then the Orient Express, then -- the Orient, of course. If I had money, I would go any place that would have me and I believe I'd be very wise as a result.

Instead, I read a lot and I make elaborate plans and I plot. I've had plenty of practice -- I was drawing up my itinerary before I could properly recite the Pledge of Allegiance. My own allegiances have always been more broad and far-reaching than those of my neighbors, so it's no wonder than I want to wander.

Certain kinds of people will always leave their little hometowns and go off to seek their fame and fortunes in glittering cities on the hill. Places far away; places where legend takes hold of your imagination and lures you to abandon the familiar streets of your childhood and then dooms you to look back and long for them forever after.

I am one of those people. I think I would have left the little hamlet of Chester, Pa. no matter what. I've always wanted to speak to a worldwide audience, to work in the worldwide marketplace of ideas. To do that, it used to be that you would have to travel to the big cities ... and for a writer in southern Pennsylvania, that trip was laid out almost a century ago: the Philadelphia Bulletin, the New York Times, the world.

If my individual kite hadn't gotten all tangled up in the power lines and trees, my takeoff would have been more successful and I would, indeed, have become a citizen of the world as per my youthful plan. Instead I got married and merely moved to another state. And then another, and another -- until I feel as far from home as a person can be. And I still don't even have a passport.

But would I leave this country and live and work in another, as many have discussed this week? Yup. In a New York minute. Would I miss this country and wish I were back home? I have no idea. I mercilessly quiz people about this very thing the second I learn that they've been privileged to stay in another part of the world for any length of time.

Certainly, I would like to not fear for my life if I settled in a new place. I might not be a happy camper if I were hated and despised for the color of my skin or the cut of my jib, but other than that, I really think my curiosity would win out over most other factors. I would like to see a building older than 200 years, for example. I like the sound of foreign languages swirling all around, words unknown, thoughts my own. I like to try new foods, see different outfits, street signs I can't decipher.

I would like to be, in the immortal words of Paul Bowls, "a traveler -- not a tourist." Maybe one of these days I'll go and get a passport, just in case