The Pursuit of Better
The seductive promise of America
While celebrating Father’s Day with my own children this past weekend, I couldn’t help but think about my own father. He’s an amazing individual who embodies the adventurous spirit and can-do attitude that drives America. He came here with little, worked hard to build financial stability, and eventually started a family. He’s never felt the need to hyphenate his identity and continues to believe America is that shining city on the hill that drew him (and millions like him) to this land of opportunity. One of his proudest days continues to be the day he took an oath to America and became an American citizen. He exudes wisdom that comes from a life filled with character-building experiences. He is an inspiration to me and has been a caring and dedicated father to me and my sister and devoted husband to my mother. I cherish our regular phone calls and our holiday gatherings!
In honor of Father’s Day, I am posting an excerpt from my recent book, The Making of a Generalist, about his decision to come to the United States. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.
- Vikram
“The Pursuit of Better”
Mansharamani, Vikram. The Making of a Generalist, Outfox Publishing: 2024, p 4-7.
My father arrived in America in the mid-1960s as a student seeking an automotive technical education. Armed with an associate of applied science degree that he had earned in India in 1957, he enrolled in Roberts’ Technical and Trade Schools in Manhattan and began his journey toward acquiring a skill, some know-how, that might enable a better life. Unsurprisingly, there were struggles along the way. He ran out of tuition money. To secure room and board, he lived in a hotel and worked as the overnight front-desk clerk. He made money driving a cab. Throughout it all, he never wavered. He knew America was where he wanted to stay, where he intended to set down roots.
After his stint in Manhattan and now armed with his technical certification from Roberts, a job, and a green card, he returned to India to inform his family that America was going to become his home. When he returned to the United States, this time married, he settled in Queens, New York, among that borough’s large community of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. Finding a cultural network in a new country can be very helpful to immigrants. But for my dad, it was always a beachhead to something grander, not an enclave within which to preserve things left behind. He wasn’t content in Queens. He hadn’t left India to remain so exclusively among his fellow expatriates. Immigrant, yes, but his migrant mindset made him aware that there was far, far more to America than Queens, including, not insignificantly, towns of green grass, open spaces, and more varied neighbors. And that is where he took his young family when I was nearly five years old.
The choice of rural-suburban Landing, New Jersey, can obscure the fact that my dad is guided by a real spirit of adventure. To a man who had navigated Bombay (Mumbai) as a child, some of the roughest parts of West Africa as a young adult, and then Manhattan and Queens as a budding professional, Landing, a town of just a few thousand, was another thoughtful roll of the dice. Later in life, I learned it was useful to think of people on a spectrum between explorers and exploiters. Explorers take risks and try new things. Exploiters, on the other hand, thrive within what already exists, using (sometimes using up) what they find there. On that spectrum, my father was definitely an explorer.
He was born outside of Karachi in 1937, in what was then part of British-occupied India. In 1947, when he was just over ten years old, his life was upended after the British left and India was partitioned into independent India and Pakistan, which resulted in the Hindus of Pakistan being exiled from their homes. As my father later noted in his journal, “Every day, there were riots, looting, murders and beatings/killings in the streets . . . so one evening, we all walked to the seaport where cargo ships were taking Hindus to India.” For the next few days, my young father lived on a few slices of bread (on occasion with butter or jam) and was eventually deposited in Bombay. His journal continues: “We stayed in tents for a couple of weeks” before his family was able to secure employment and begin life anew.
A few years later, after a bit of formal education in India, his adventurous spirit drove him to West Africa, where he secured an opportunity to work with Indian entrepreneurs involved in the automotive business. As his journal notes, “I was offered a job (which I had found through a local Sindhi newspaper) in Freetown, Sierra Leone, as an auto parts salesman. The conditions were as follows: a 2- to 2.5-year commitment, salary sent to your parents in rupees monthly, and you’ll be provided lodging, boarding, and all necessary requirements, including to and fro airfares to be paid by the company.”
My father recalls Freetown as not very comfortable: “No tar roads, limited running water, occasional electricity . . . no TV, radio for a limited time each day.” Given that, it is unsurprising that he also recalled, “We all used to drink a lot every evening.” After some time, he was transferred to the Gold Coast, known today as Ghana. After finishing that contract, he returned to India to see family before seeking another contract in Africa. He noted, “This time, luckily, I was asked to go to Lagos, Nigeria . . . where I was happy. Lagos is more advanced than Freetown and Accra. Most of the people in Nigeria were educated, cultured, and good-mannered.” Despite the calls from colleagues to drink every evening, my father enrolled in a correspondent’s course at the British Institute of Engineering Technology: “It kept me busy from evening to midnight and all day and nights on the weekends.” He earned a certificate in automobile engineering during his eighteen-month stint in Lagos before returning to India again. While at home with family, my father proposed Hong Kongas the destination for his next work adventure. His parents did not approve—Hong Kong seemed too distant, too foreign—so he returned to Nigeria.
Which is where he listened to stories about America.
After hearing of a country in which your status was determined by your efforts, where anything was possible for anyone, and where protections in law and property assured the fruits of success were enjoyed by those who created them, my father simply had to learn more. He went to the US embassy in Lagos and gathered all the brochures and papers that were available. He remembered one that had a profound influence on him: “How to Study in America with Little Funds.” America was seductive. He simply had to find a way to get there. After applying to several schools, he recalls, “I got a favourable reply from Roberts Technical and Trade School on 57th Street [in] New York—it said admission was available every six months, including student visa guaranteed if enrolled.” He broke his contract with his employer, reclaimed his passport, and delivered all documentation to the US embassy in Lagos. Within a week, he had what he today calls the golden ticket: a student visa to come to the United States.
Upon reaching America, he knew his life as an immigrant was over. He had landed on the shores of a country he wished to make his home. However, he also understood that his years as a migrant pursuing ever-better opportunities would continue. Both understandings were soon reflected in his becoming an American citizen, something he recalls with fondness and pride.
VIKRAM MANSHARAMANI is an entrepreneur, consultant, scholar, neighbor, husband, father, volunteer, and professional generalist who thinks in multiple-dimensions and looks beyond the short-term. Self-taught to think around corners and connect original dots, he spends his time speaking with global leaders in business, government, academia, and journalism. LinkedIn has twice listed him as its #1 Top Voice in Money & Finance, and Worth profiled him as one of the 100 Most Powerful People in Global Finance. Vikram earned a PhD From MIT, has taught at Yale and Harvard, and is the author of three books, The Making of a Generalist: An Independent Thinker Finds Unconventional Success in an Uncertain World, Think for Yourself: Restoring Common Sense in an Age of Experts and Artificial Intelligence and Boombustology: Spotting Financial Bubbles Before They Burst. Vikram lives in Lincoln, New Hampshire with his wife and two children, where they can usually be found hiking or skiing.