Migration is a Scam
- Madhukar Dama
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
How families abandoned self-reliance, health, and heritage in search of imagined success
INTRODUCTION: A PROMISE NEVER DELIVERED
For decades, Indians from villages and small towns have migrated to cities under one belief: “Life will be better there.”
More money. More opportunity. Better education. Better health. Better homes. A better future.
But decades later, the reality is clear:
> Cities rarely satisfy the wants they promise. Instead, they strip people of what they already had — land, identity, rootedness, peace, and resilience.
This is not just the story of the poor or unskilled. It is the story of:
Educated youth who abandoned ancestral wisdom for office cabins.
Skilled farmers who became delivery boys.
Rich landowners who lost everything to EMIs.
Village entrepreneurs who thought scale only meant cities.
It is a multi-generational dismantling of India’s self-reliance.
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I. MULTI-GENERATIONAL IDENTITY LOSS
First Generation (Migrants)
Believe cities are the only path to progress.
Leave village to join corporations, factories, startups, or service sectors.
Start earning but live in disconnected, cramped spaces.
Miss village wisdom, food, rituals, and relationships.
Second Generation (Urban Born)
Speak more English than mother tongue.
Know no soil, no cows, no grandparents.
Learn ambition without anchoring.
Become addicted to screens, noise, brands.
Third Generation
Urban without wealth.
Highly educated but spiritually hollow.
Lacking life skills, resilience, peace.
Neither belonging to village nor rooted in city.
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II. THE ILLUSION OF MONEY AND INCOME
The Promise:
> “Urban jobs pay more."
The Reality:
Incomes rise, but expenses explode: rent, transport, food, fees.
Taxes, loans, insurance, apps, EMIs — consume the extra pay.
Skilled farmers who fed ten now serve coffee to two.
MBAs earning 1 lakh/month can’t save 1 rupee.
People who once ate organic food for free now buy toxic food in packets.
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III. THE BROKEN EDUCATION PROMISE
Villagers believe city schools mean better education.
But real learning is replaced by brands, stress, exams.
Children memorize facts without context or wisdom.
Village kids knew 100 uses of a tree. Urban kids know 100 YouTubers.
Even higher education becomes a trap:
Engineers doing BPO jobs.
Graduates still dependent on parents.
PhDs doing freelance side gigs.
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IV. HEALTH: THE COST OF ASPIRATION
Rural bodies walked barefoot, climbed trees, digested coarse food.
City bodies sit 12 hours, binge on screens, eat sugar and pills.
Rich or poor, disease is rampant: PCOD, diabetes, IBS, depression.
Stress is normalized.
Even well-earning professionals are:
Always tired.
Addicted to caffeine.
On pills by 30.
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V. FOOD: FROM SACRED TO SICKENING
Rural food: hand-grown, sun-dried, fermented, shared.
Urban food: packaged, frozen, processed, isolated.
Rich urbanites order quinoa while their grandparents grew millets.
Homemade pickles replaced by ketchup.
Food becomes:
A transaction.
A status symbol.
A trigger for lifestyle diseases.
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VI. SHELTER: HOUSES WITHOUT HOMES
In Villages:
Courtyards, verandahs, trees, mud, and air.
Everyone belongs. Everything breathes.
In Cities:
Gated boxes in the sky.
Rent, EMIs, property tax.
Strangers living next door.
3BHKs that feel like cages.
Even the rich are restless inside these glass towers.
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VII. FAMILY AND COMMUNITY DISINTEGRATION
In villages: everyone knows your name. Community raises your child.
In cities: neighbors don’t speak. Children grow up alone with devices.
Elders are abandoned. Cousins are forgotten. Marriages break under urban strain.
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VIII. SPIRITUAL AND EMOTIONAL DISLOCATION
The village temple was a daily grounding space.
Urban religion becomes event-based, performative.
Silence is rare. Gratitude is absent.
No sacredness. Only scheduling.
Even the highly educated feel:
Lost.
Burned out.
Hungry for something they can't name.
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IX. WOMEN, SAFETY, AND ROLE DISTORTION
Rural women managed land, grain, herbs, and family with dignity.
In cities: isolated, overworked, exposed to harassment, judged by appearance.
Housewives become depressed.
Working women burn out or break down.
Children grow up:
With hired maids.
Without value systems.
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X. SELF-RELIANCE TO TOTAL DEPENDENCE
Villagers fixed tools, healed sickness, saved seeds.
City dwellers can’t live 3 days without money, electricity, phone.
Even rich professionals can’t:
Grow one tomato.
Stitch a torn cloth.
Survive without Google.
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CONCLUSION: A TRAGIC TRADE
> In chasing what they never needed, most Indians gave up everything they actually had.
Cities did not improve their lives.
They only changed the packaging of suffering.
And now, 3 generations later, both rich and poor:
Can’t breathe.
Can’t rest.
Can’t remember who they were.
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FINAL QUOTE:
> "They went to the city to fulfill their desires. The city multiplied their desires and destroyed their ability to fulfill even their needs."
—--
Title: “Let’s Go Home” — A Healing Dialogue on Returning to the Village
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Characters:
Dinesh (58) – Retired bank officer, father
Savita (55) – Homemaker, mother
Rohit (33) – MBA, mid-level manager, son
Riya (31) – Software engineer, daughter-in-law
Vedika (10) – Their daughter
Meera (28) – Dinesh’s daughter, unmarried, marketing executive
Madhukar – The Hermit, visiting their home in Bengaluru
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Scene:
A compact, tastefully done 3BHK apartment in Whitefield, Bengaluru. It’s a Sunday afternoon. The family has hosted Madhukar for lunch. They are seated in the living room with filter coffee and unease in the air.
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Rohit: (sighing) I’ve worked 11 years. Still feel like I’m starting over every Monday.
Riya: And for what?
A car EMI, school fees, Zomato bills, and a therapist.
Dinesh: (softly) We thought city life would give you everything we never had.
Meera: And now we have everything… except life.
Savita: I saw a rat in the kitchen yesterday. That’s the third time. And we live in a gated society!
Vedika: (eyes on phone) Dada, what does a real mango tree look like?
(Everyone falls silent.)
Madhukar:
Your body is in a flat.
Your soul is looking for soil.
---
Rohit: We visited the village during lockdown.
Felt something.
But we returned… to this.
Meera: Why did we leave anyway?
Was it really so bad?
Dinesh: We were made to believe the village had nothing.
But maybe it had everything we truly needed.
Madhukar:
You didn’t leave the village.
You were uprooted.
By dreams planted by others.
By comparison, fear, and television.
Riya: I was the first engineer in my family.
Now I work for an app that tracks people’s bowel movements.
Meera: We’re all just doing pretend work.
Shouting in meetings, clicking on nothing.
Madhukar:
The land still waits.
She does not insult your return.
She only asks that you kneel and place your hands in her again.
---
Savita: But can we go back?
After all this?
Dinesh: I have pension. We can sell this flat.
Rohit: I’ve saved nothing.
But I’ll work. I’ll learn.
Riya: Even if I code part-time, I want to grow tomatoes.
I want Vedika to see the sky.
Meera: I can teach marketing to villagers.
Or maybe never say “target group” again.
Vedika: Will we have cows?
Madhukar:
Yes.
And you’ll learn their language.
Not just programming languages.
---
Dinesh: We go back, not because we failed in the city.
We go back because we’re ready to succeed as humans.
Madhukar:
Your ancestors are smiling.
You will not become the fourth rootless generation.
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(Everyone rises. Madhukar hands them a small mud lamp.)
Madhukar:
Take this.
Light it when you plant your first seed.
And remember…
You didn’t lose years in the city.
You just gathered enough hunger to value your home.
---
Charles Bukowski-Styled Poem
“the mango tree she forgot”
they left
with bags full of borrowed dreams
packed in nylon
zipped with shame.
“go get a job, son.”
“go be something, daughter.”
“go where the money flows.”
“go where wifi rains and rice is ordered.”
and they went.
to the vertical cages.
where men eat standing.
where sleep comes in pills.
where tomatoes are more expensive than therapy.
they left the well,
the gossiping trees,
the stubborn cows,
the mother who knew every medicine by smell.
they gained…
apps, banks, watches that count steps but not regrets.
and when the body bloated,
when the child forgot what mud feels like,
when dreams started to taste like plastic,
they called it life.
but one day
some mad man walked into their gated zoo,
with a beard full of dust
and eyes full of sunsets.
he didn’t promise a better job.
he promised soil.
they laughed, cried, screamed, hugged —
and then packed again.
not for progress.
for return.
and when the train passed mango groves,
the little girl pointed and said,
“is that a real mango tree?”
yes, child.
and it remembers you.
so they went back.
they placed their city sorrow under the soil
and planted seed after seed after seed.
and this time,
no one told them to grow up.
they just grew.
—
