Indian students at home in America

At the Manas grocery store and restaurant near the University of Southern California, graduate students from Mumbai and New Delhi stop by late at night to pick up a batch of malai kofta (vegetable dumplings) to fuel their engineering study sessions.

Or they may sit down for a dinner of tandoori chicken and discuss their latest cricket matches. "If they miss home, they can always come here," said Manas co-owner Kumar Venkata. Increasingly, more University of Southern California (USC) students do.

With its enormous freezers stocked with microwaveable curries and garlic naan (breads) of India, Manas is a busy off-campus canteen of sorts for what is said to be the largest group of Indian students in the United States and a culinary symbol of an academic tidal wave from the Indian Ocean.

With a rising middle class better able to finance American university degrees and schools such as USC actively recruiting them, Indians have doubled their presence at US campuses in the last decade. Numbering more than 83,000 last year, they are the largest group of international students in the country, overtaking the Chinese in 2002, surveys show.

USC has had the largest number of foreign students of any campus in the United States for six years; last year it enrolled about 7,100 from across the globe, including those on extended internships, according to the nonprofit Institute of International Education.

More than 1,500 Indian citizens are full-time students at USC, only about 100 fewer than the number of black students there.

The large contingent of Indian students runs popular Friday-night cricket games under the lights at Cromwell Field, with squads named Trojan Tigers and Leavy Lions. (Some Pakistanis and Australians also play.) Forget about the formal white uniforms; here, cardinal-and-gold T-shirts are the norm and cricketers end their huddles by shouting the USC slogan, "Fight on!"

"It's a big, very big Indian community. It's pretty amazing," said Gaurav Kumar, a master's student from Kolkata, who is president of USC's Association of Indian Students.

About 9 per cent of all graduate and professional-school students at USC are Indian citizens, heavily concentrated in engineering and its computer-related classes. Kumar, who is studying signal processing and sound systems, said the engineering school's status - eighth in US News & World Report's ranking of graduate programmes - and its proximity to so many West Coast high-tech companies make it a desirable brand name among ambitious Indian families.

For the last five years, the engineering school has sponsored recruiting trips to India and hosted crowds of potential applicants at hotel receptions in Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore. The school has also hired a consultant in India to boost the USC name there. The resulting tuition income - without much financial aid spending - helps USC pay for research and professors' salaries, officials said.

Sound investment

"It's very clear that Indian students and Indian parents are willing to invest a lot of money into their education since that's the path to success. And now more of them have that money," said Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president of the Institute for International Education.

The increased enrolment from India at US universities also reflects a shortage of space in graduate programmes in India, as well as the relaxation of some of the strict procedures to obtain a student visa imposed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Indians enrol at US schools for the expected rewards. "We come here and pay for a rather expensive master's and hopefully get placed in a better job. It's a gamble and a trade-off," said Kumar, 24, who wants to work in the sound side of electronics and possibly do management consulting.

Parag Salve, who grew up in the central Indian city of Nagpur, briefly attended the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and transferred to USC because it is closer to the computer-chip industry he wants to enter. Plus, he enjoys Los Angeles, which like India is a multiethnic, multilingual society. "It really makes you feel at home. The temperature, the sun, everything," said Salve, who is 23 and active in USC cricket games.

Indian students have organised an internet welcome wagon that helps newcomers find housing.

Students from India recently gathered at beaches to celebrate the giddy spring festival of Holi, following the tradition of throwing coloured powder on one another until their skin, hair and clothes looked like they had just been through a sticky rainbow.

Whatever their regional language at home, students from India speak English well, albeit sometimes with strong accents. They must, however, adjust to a less formal style of teaching and learning, said USC professor Cauligi Raghavendra.

Still, he said, Indians students today cope with classroom practices and California culture more easily than his generation did. "Even before they come here, these kids already have one foot in the US. They see the internet, the social networks, the movies," said Raghavendra, who teaches electrical engineering and helps with recruiting in India.

The path after graduation is changing too. It was common in the previous generation for Indian students to seek to stay in the US after school. Now, many say they want to burnish their resumes in the US for a few years, then return home to partake in the high-tech boom that is transforming parts of their homeland.

"I would definitely like going back because the scene back at home is amazing, as good as it is over here," said Urvi Savla, 24, who came to USC from Mumbai last fall to study engineering management. "With all the dot-coms, the job market is huge, and if you have a USC degree, it does make a difference. The name counts. It's a brand name."