No.7G, Rainbow Colony’
MG Road, Dharavi,
Mumbai - 17.
14/07/2005.
My dear Regina,
Accept
my hearty congratulations on the opportunity you have got of going to Oxford
for higher studies. With your enviable command over the English language and
wide reading in English literature, I’m sure that you’ll teach the English a bit
of good English yourself. If you distinguish yourself at Oxford, as I am sure
you will, it will be no mean feather in your cap.
I am
reminded of Najiya who, having obtained a good degree from Cambridge
University, took up a job in the States and settled there. You are aware of the
brain drain from India – how our scholars with foreign qualifications prefer to
work abroad and are lost to our country. There may be reasons for this ___ this lower scales of pay and lack of
intellectual atmosphere in this country, but it is up to people like you and
try to create suitable conditions amidst which highly qualified persons can
work. I’m sure you’ll not be one of those ‘snobbish foreign returned’
Indians who look down upon their
countrymen.
Wishing
you a bright future.
Yours loving friend,
Alfiya.
