And they get two weeks of vacation a year, maybe. The sacrifice is far too great for immigrants.
They wake up a little after dawn, spend an hour in traffic, half an hour of which is at a drive thru for a bagel and a coffee, slave away for 8 hours with a cold sandwich for lunch, spend another hour returning to a pizza for dinner at home.
That kind of life is not to be envied, chasing hours after dollars and dollars after hours. It's cold, isolated, and lifeless. In my opinion, the money isn't worth it.
We have one life to live, and not a very long one. I want mine filled with memories and experiences, and I'm okay with not having bank account balances that reassemble phone numbers.
Some of my cousins have parents that are in their 80s and they haven't seen them in years. They spent crores on educating my nieces and nephews and even more on property, but they can't share a cup of evening chai with their own parents or siblings.
And there's no exception — it's the same for doctors, software developers and civil engineers, whether in California, Texas, Florida, New York or even Virginia. This is the life they all chose for themselves and I want none of it.
India is advancing at a tremendous pace and it's very exciting to be in the middle of it all. We used to run around barefoot on dirt roads as toddlers and now we have groceries delivered in minutes with contactless payments.