The story of an immigrant

Jan 11, 2020 Editorial

The immigrant story never ceases to amaze. And such is the inspiring saga of Sundar Pichai of the US, by way of India. It is a sterling example for our traveler, workers, and our young, who struggle with challenges to overcome limitations and environmental challenges.
Mr. Pichai’s achievements are many: slept in living room but earned a graduate degree from prestigious Stanford. He secured one successful high-profile role after another with Fortune 100 companies, even while turning down ranking jobs from competitors.
Now he is king of the castle at Alphabet Inc. the parent of Google.
This is what made America great. It is what makes poorer East Indians, West Indians, Orientals, Africans, Latin Americans, and (Europeans, too) make something of themselves. It is where hungry and humble men and women can rise to the top, if only given the opportunity, a champion, and the challenge to demonstrate what they are made of.
Many wretched Guyanese and Jamaicans and Mexicans have done so.
Sundar Pichai now extends his winning streak, and adds to his already storied business record. He is a family man, with no gimmicks about matrimony, and a roots man, who is hailed as a hero in his native India: the boy next door who made good and who has come to represent the dreams of millions globally. It can be done, and only in America so spectacularly.
The rushing marvelous world of technology has numerous minorities–Chinese, Jews, Indians–toiling away in its highly competitive trenches, but most do not rise to experience the light at the top. Sundar Pichai does so now and stands as an exemplary figure for all of us.
Our STEM stalwarts brimming with creativity and dreaming big dreams must similarly challenge themselves to compete against the best and be the best. Our poor and disillusioned left behind by politics and an environment that is about flourishing of the slickest and barren of the truly industrious and conscientious, are dragged down by the weights that impede the spirit.
They, too, will go at some time, for the oil has revealed the worst in us, and with more still to come.
They must go like Sundar Pichai to those places beyond the horizon, where their rainbow may be waiting.
If it is not here, which looks dismally unlikely, then it must be somewhere else, anywhere else that offers that opening, which could lead to rising, through others recognizing the packaging and thinking and delivering that has long characterized the strength and soul of the fleeing, arriving migrant.
There will be obstacles in the way: the need for an entry permit and a work permit, even a study permit. There will be politicians here, who will play with the mind, in an effort to retain their base for their own purposes; while the leaders over there, who hold the future in the hand are sure to continue to play the same sleazy games that politicians play with peoples lives.
It is the usual deceits that result in the usual dividing of people and which sets them against one another.
The ordinary man and woman have to put down his head and keep moving, as in moving away from those whose promises mean naught, and whose selfish visions bring trouble for all, except those making the promises.
Guyanese citizens will end up being pushed and pulled in this direction and that, which means they have to make choices. Those choices come down to this: to where and with whom and for what purpose? The past is the promise of the future, which does not look like a good one, given all the calculations in the mix, the ambitions at work, the plans being refined for implementation.
The Sundar Pichai(s) of this world of ours, relay to us, how so much could be achieved, if only we work at it, and are given the grounds on which to operate.
It is of the ultimate minority: those that stand out, those that make it all the way.

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