By Paddy Rangappa

HERE'S a familiar scene from India in the 1980s and '90s: A smartly dressed Non Resident Indian (NRI) exits the airport pushing a trolley with three monstrously large suitcases; his waiting parents, siblings and their children greet him somewhat awkwardly after 18 months of separation; they all miraculously squeeze into a white Ambassador car; and onlookers watch with undisguised curiosity and comment about their prosperity.

In a country where life was largely a struggle - tight salaries, expensive housing, power cuts and rising prices - NRIs had "made it".

They were easily recognised, and admired, as they roamed around in Bermuda shorts, talked to their children in English and spent rupees with casual ease.

With foreign brands mostly inaccessible, people relied on family NRIs to bring them Sony Walkmans, Nikon cameras and Toblerone chocolates.

NRIs have grown into a sizeable population: Globally there are about 30 million people of Indian origin today.

In Singapore alone there are around 400,000 which include NRIs and Indian Singaporeans.

But they no longer stand out as creatures of adulation.

In fact, they don't stand out... period.

Urban Indians wear Western outfits with panache.

They speak to their children in English automatically.

Above all, they spend rupees with careless abandon... and buy all the branded music players, cameras and chocolates they need in their own brightly-lit shopping malls.

Mr Rohit Sharma returned to India in 2001 after a stint in Singapore.

He says salaries have grown rapidly in the last five years.

Today, as general manager in a multinational company in India, he draws over US$300,000 a year, about the same his counterpart would earn abroad.

Happy with his job and its prospects, he has declined two offers to be posted overseas. I ask Mr Sharma about quality of life.

He replies that it's great - excellent schools and clubs nearby, an active social life and a mere 15-minute commute between work and home in Gurgaon.

In this respect, he is the exception; most people complain about painfully long commutes.

I myself took an hour to make this appointment, often inching along a road jammed with cars, auto-rickshaws, buses, motorcycles and the occasional bullock cart.

Finally, I ask Mr Sharma about the work culture.

He tells me it's very professional, much like a multinational anywhere.

But Mr Vaibhav Patel, head of the supply chain of an Indian company, disagrees.

"My colleagues and I rarely put in less than 10 hours a day, often more.

I worked briefly in the US; there, people seemed to achieve more, working fewer hours. Meetings started and ended on time.

Issues were resolved outside. Here, meetings start late - to avoid twiddling my thumbs, I myself no longer arrive on time - and drag on forever.

Issues are debated at length; 10-minute breaks extend to half an hour; everything is relaxed. Chalta Hai (it's okay) sums up the attitude."

However, Mr Patel does not regret returning to India. His wife couldn't practise medicine in the US without getting another degree there.

They may have stayed if she could have worked, but they are now happy with their careers in India. And they have reliable domestic help, something impossible in the US.

Every day some economist writes about India's progress (and of course, how it compares with China) and its upwardly mobile middle class.

Talking to Mr Sharma and Mr Patel gives me an inkling about the velocity of that upward movement.

Till the early 1990s, Indians rarely travelled abroad. When they did, they converted all prices into rupees (effortlessly in their head) and gasped: "Rs10 for one banana " my God!"

Today, they fly overseas frequently (Mumbai airport alone handles seven million international passengers a year) and spend dollars without feeling any need to calculate the rupee equivalent.

On the other hand, NRIs in the 1990s would smugly convert Indian prices to dollars ("Just US$2 " can you believe it?!").

Today, they don't. I was passing a vegetable hawker in Mumbai a few months ago when I heard a loud, indignant cry: "40 rupees for a kilo of tomatoes!?"

As the shopper, a dapper-looking lady in her 40s, walked away, the vendor noticed my curious look and said, with a smile: "They recently returned from the US after 10 years.

She will soon get used to Indian prices."

Paddy Rangappa has been living in Singapore for nine years and writes in his spare time, outside his marketing profession.

IIM grads prefer to stay in India

DURING placement exercises at the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), jobs abroad pay almost three times what domestic ones offer (on average US$87,000 now).

"However, most students want to make a long-term career in India," says Mr Joseph Ike, student placement coordinator at IIM Kolkata.

"Even if they start abroad, many want to come back in a few years with sizeable savings, knowing they can then earn good money in India... and be near their family.

Some " I know five in my senior batch who did this " reject lucrative offers abroad for a job in India."

So, for the brightest in India today, the desire to become an NRI is not universal nor permanent .

Appetite for the good life

DINING at Kebabs and Kurries restaurant at the elegant ITC Grand in Mumbai, I thought I understood why it was empty at 7pm... when I looked at the prices.

My vegetarian thali cost about Rs2,000 (US$50), making me grateful for my expense account.

But the restaurant began filling up. And with shameless curiosity I observed the orders by the Indian group at the next table - an elderly gentleman, his wife, four young couples and seven children - and covertly referred to the prices.

I estimated that they racked up a bill of about Rs50,000 (US$1,200), equal to India's GDP per capita.