WASHINGTON: Bobby Jindal's parents might have come to the United States to realize the "American Dream," but Sanjay Shah has no doubt he was chasing the "Indian-American Dream."The Mumbai-born, Chicago-based technology entrepreneur's first call last month after he purchased the 15,000 square feet, 89th floor penthouse in Trump Tower for $ 17 million — the priciest residential real estate transaction in Chicago's history — was to his parents in Mumbai, where he grew up in a 1200-square foot apartment."That's really big. What do you plan to do with it?" his father asked, knowing that Shah's current digs in Chicago's South Barrington, where he lives with his wife and two daughters, is itself a sprawling 10,000 square feet.Shah had only a foggy idea, befitting an apartment that provides a panoramic, but often-misty 360-degree vista of the Windy City . He's sure he is not going to move from his current residence, which is two minutes from his work place, compared to the 45-minute drive through Chicago rush hour to the penthouse.He airily told the local media, which breathlessly chronicled his purchase (The Chicago Tribune recorded it as the "second highest residence in the western hemisphere"), that he may use it as second home -- or a guest house to host his friends and clients. And as a hotspot for fundraisers and philanthropic activities.Asked in an interview this weekend if at the end of it all it was a vanity purchase, Shah told ToI, "I can imagine it being perceived so…but I also think it was a good deal. It was originally priced at $ 32 million." It took "two years and a lot of patience to 'work with' the Trump," he said, referring to the real estate mogul who had held on to the apartment intending it to be his own pad.Such deal-making comes naturally to Shah, a self-made man whose software company Vistex is personally bootstrapped and privately held. He came to the United States in 1988 to get his MBA at Pennsylvania's Lehigh University after graduating from Mumbai's Sydenham College. Dissatisfied with his job as an accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, he joined General Motors in Canada, before moving to Germany software giant SAP, eventually becoming an independent provider and collaborator with the company.Now racking up more than $ 200 million in revenue, Shah regards both himself and his company as a perfect Indian-American blend, happily embracing the term Bobby Jindal has disdained."I'm an Indian at heart, an American in my mind, and an internationalist at work," says Shah, describing company operations that employs 400 workers in North America, and 300 each in Europe and India. "The United States allows this and that is what makes it such a great country…a melting pot that can blend so many cultures together."It's the day after Jindal's remarks scorning the term Indian-American has been reported, and Shah is not thrilled about it. He talks of his four to five trips to India each year and his belief in karma, the cycle of life and death.Beyond all the headlines and newsmaking, the apartment purchase, he says, was "just meant to happen." What comes of it - he'll just let it happen.Read this in Gujarati