Many of the descendants of the earliest immigrants who sailed away to faraway destinations such as Demerara (presently Guyana), Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Fiji, Mauritius, Reunion Islands, Guadeloupe, South Africa, Malaysia, East Africa (now divided between Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) have done quite well. They participated in freedom movements and have risen not only to positions of Presidents and Prime Ministers, but have also now become part of the economic growth story in their adopted lands.

At the other end of the cinematic spectrum are stories of great fortitude and valour, of great breakthroughs in science and research, of accumulation of fabulous wealth by the modern immigrant who mostly left India post 1960 with few dollars in his pocket. Asian Indians are by far the most prosperous ethnic group in the USA. The richest man in the U.K. is an Indian. Punjabi is the fourth-most spoken language in Canada, Tamil an official one in Singapore, and one hopes Bhojpuri will acquire an official status in Mauritius, some day.