A 30-something yuppie from Kashmir, a computer geek and a digital nomad, makes money that his parents could not even imagine earning. 

In the domain of cyberspace, he is an equal to his peers. The “only” inequality is the skill differential. 

Our fellow works hard and achieves parity with the best. In chatrooms, he dons the avatar of a muscular white guy. Females, whether virtual, real, or bots, swarm around him. The money he makes allows discretionary spending. He travels and goes on vacations to exotic places.

But reality collides with his self-perception here. 

The white guys he wants to be an equal of do not see him as one of their tribe. Western women listen politely to his philosophizing and so on in exotic locales, but soon lose interest. 

Only in nightclub spaces, in a drunken frenzy, does he “get lucky” with older Western women. 

The techniques he attempts with Westerners, he tries at home. Some are awed, others don’t understand.

A female physician from New Delhi pursues the “American Dream”, sits for the USMLE, makes it to the United States, completes her residency, and “does well” in America. 

After spending time in the country, she learns the “social skills” necessary for career advancement, maintains fidelity to some of her values, but picks up social and psychological techniques. 

She then uses these with abandon and aggressively when she returns home. Everyone is in awe of her. She can manipulate people at will, and she enjoys this.

A Muslim woman from Lahore follows the same route to the United States. 

Her expertise is in psychology. The woman’s professional life entails a deeper dive into the psychological and social makeup of American culture and society. Her patients include traumatized individuals, alcoholics, victims of drug abuse seeking to wean themselves off drugs, divorcees seeking closure and healing, and so on. 

Empowered by her education and by her status as a modern healer in Western society, and by her status as a sought-after female professional, she revels in this. But at the same time, she is distraught by the problems of........

© Kashmir Observer