Asok, the brilliant Indian trainee, turns out to be an IIT graduate who has managed an entire project single-handedly even though no one responded to his e-mail. When Wally—the strip’s original IT jock—asks him, “Are you tired?” Asok replies: “I am trained to only sleep during National Holidays.” It doesn’t end there. Asok continues demonstrating his superiority as an IIT graduate, declaring that he tries not to frighten ordinary people with any gratuitous display of mental superiority. Proof? He no longer reheats his tea by imagining fire while holding the cup to his forehead.

Behind this spoofy portrayal of the Indian techie in the U.S. —the work maniac IIT-ian who has inhuman abilities to slog and thus outpace his American counterparts—lies the growing negativity towards this breed among Americans who feel they’re losing their jobs to Indians. Counters an IIT graduate who works in the U.S., “We have several naive and unsuspecting Asoks in the West, who are taken advantage of, exploited, and used unmercifully by mediocre Caucasian engineers for their survival in this competitive market.”

Till Dilbert struck, it was hosannahs all the way. A researcher at UC Berkeley estimates that fully 20 percent of startups in Silicon Valley are IITian-owned. Amazon.com CEO and founder Jeff Bezos has described the Indian IIT-ian as a “world treasure.” Bill Gates says the computer industry has benefited greatly from them. A co-anchor on CBS 60 Minutes had gone on to describe IIT Mumbai thus: “Put Harvard, MIT and Princeton together, and you begin to get an idea of the status of this school in India.” Says IIT graduate Amit Pande, “I love it that the IITs have created so much panic.”
Source: Times Of India