HYDERABAD: Even as the US government is likely to restrict the right to work of spouses of H-1B visa holders, city-based IT professional Rajesh V Kuppa has come out with a book detailing his life and experiences as an H-1B and student visa holder during his 14-year-long stay in the US.
The book, Dark Side of H-1B, was released here on Thursday. “Many students have wrong notion that once they go to US, they can easily settle down and send money back home. For this, they take education loans that are more than their parents’ income. In the process, they often get stuck in a debt trap,” the 47-year-old techie explained.
Rajesh’s book is a freewheeling account of his time spent in Maryland, Virginia, Texas, Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio during the period 1995-2009 which coincided with the Internet boom in the US. That was also the time when the annual cap on H-1B visas grew from 65,000 to 195,000, paving way for technology companies to hire skilled Indian workers, albeit at a lesser pay package.
“This gave Indian consultancies an opportunity to lure students. And after spending huge sums of money, they would get admitted to low-grade schools that fail to fetch them jobs. Then they would fudge CVs and even indulge in proxy interviews — something that I also resorted to after I lost my job and remained jobless for nine months. Indian consultancies are a fraud,” he cautioned.
Talking about racism, he said heavy influx of Indians during tech boom changed perception of Americans and made Indians look like they were grabbing their jobs. “Racism has always been there. Initially it was discreet, now it’s out in the open.”