NRIs moving back to India — ask yourself if the move is love, live-in or arranged?

The key question — Is it love, live-in or arranged?

Many Indians who live abroad as immigrants often experience a very common syndrome — they deeply and honestly want to return back to India, but they find it hard to make a decision of packing their bags and actually moving to India. I will be lying if I said that making this decision is the hardest part — because executing it is equally hard.

You could make this decision with the spontaneity of a love marriage OR with the objectivity of a modern-day arranged marriage OR with the non-committal nature of a live-in relationship. Love marriages are often plagued with overly ambitious expectations without the maturity that arranged marriages provide towards acceptance of flaws. And live-ins just create a make-believe world. But you don’t want to be in a forced arranged marriage either — just to appease family. So it’s important that you consider arranging your love with India.

Before you buy that one-way ticket and donate all your belongings to Goodwill (I have done both! twice!) here is a re-cap of my love, live-in and arranged relationship with India.

The beginning of my love-story with India

The first time I moved back to India, I just wanted to, umm, move to India! So I networked my way into an international assignment with the Indian office of my US employer. This assured me a US income for at least the first 2 years after moving — with the possibility of further extension. My intent was to permanently transfer to the Indian office either a) when I was finally sure about moving to India or b) when my employer refused to extend my international assignment — whichever happened later.

In the first year of my assignment, my professional life was politically charged, emotionally challenging, physically stressful but intellectually stimulating and financially rewarding. Overall I learned and accomplished a lot and I never regret the decision of taking that assignment. But it was not something that I wanted to do for the longer term. I was located in a city that was not my top preference, I was not located as close to family & friends as I wanted, and my work had become very repetitive and boring. So I exercised the option of returning back to the US office of my employer and broke-up with my plan of moving to India while still being in love with it.

No — bad roads, mosquitoes, load shedding, bureaucracy, population or dust, never figured into this decision. I accept that they are a nuisance but they were not news to me! Remember, I had lived in India for more than half my life.

In hindsight, I had not planned my move objectively enough. I had just fallen in love with the idea of moving to India and took the most convenient route rather than the most effective one. Almost akin to a love-struck guy dropping out of college to get married to his sweetheart — without thinking about the bigger picture.

Taking it to the next level — my live-in relationship with India

After returning back to the US, I started my live-in relationship with India. I made short-term commitments in the US (such as signed 3 to 6 months long apartment leases, leased a car for the shortest duration possible), constantly assigned probability on specific relocation dates that were 3 months, 1 year and 3 years away, visited India on every opportunity that I got, started making financial decisions that leaned towards moving to India soon — but also obtained permanent residency in the US and tried to buy a house in the US. I guess this sounds more like an extra-marital affair rather than a live-in relationship :)

When things got serious — I started planning my arranged marriage with India

So I have heard — second time’s the charm. After some deep introspection, I identified the real reasons due to which I even wanted to move to India in the first place — rather than obsessively wanting to move to India. This time I set my priorities right to ensure that the move back to India is much more gratifying.

I reduced my focus to the following three factors:

• Family — I had lived away from extended family for far too long. So I wanted to be geographically located at a place where I could see my family (and perhaps friends) often.
• Work — I wanted to ensure that my professional life is gratifying rather than choosing a job that just facilitates my move to India.
• Overall quality of life — I would ideally not want to compromise on the little things in life that make me feel happy (weekend getaways, nice weather, short-commutes — preferably on foot, gourmet Indian food, south Indian breakfast on weekends, etc)

Rubber hit the road — when I moved to India

Armed with this self-realization, I moved to Pune, where most of my extended family lives or visits often. I rented an apartment in the heart of the city so that I could enjoy the little things in life. And as they say, never waste a crisis :) I started my own company — which was a long-awaited dream. (By the way we are hiring for multiple roles.) Overall things are going pretty well so far and looks like I have successfully arranged my love with India. I agree that it has not been too many days past the honeymoon period — and I have already experienced a few nuanced nuisances of a new relationship. But you know we don’t divorce easily in India.

And I turned into a self-proclaimed advisor to wanna-movers to India

So here are a few tips to help you make a decision of moving to India — or at least ease the pain from your unattainable wish of moving to India:

• You don’t want to end up feeling that you moved to India too soon once you have relocated back OR that it’s too late to move to India because you never did. Or worst yet, live like a gypsy forever with the hope of moving to India someday.
• So identify your true reasons for wanting-to-move-to-India. Weigh those perceived reasons against perceived downsides. It will help you determine if the reasons (or downsides) are strong and real enough. After all one person’s perceptions are another’s reality.
• Understand and accept realities. Realities of challenges in India, realities of comforts of living abroad, realities of simple pleasures in India, realities of living the life of an alien in a foreign land. Once you accept realities, your wishes would sub-consciously conform to these realities and eliminate reasons that cause heart-ache in your reality.
• If factors such as right time, equivalent pay, right job, etc are factors that will influence your decision, then define that factor in greater detail, but remain honest about the ground reality. Next, draft an executable plan. Remember to iterate through this draft often, based on any new facts you learn about yourself and your situation.
• Don’t expect the challenges in India to disappear magically. Either be willing to become a part of the system or be willing to change it or perhaps, avoid the system when you can.
• Always remember that you are the one who can pick and choose the realities that matter to you, even if you cannot change those realities.

My inspiration for this decision making process

After writing the above points, I suddenly realized that these are loosely inspired by the player vs victim mindset widely philosophised by Fred Kofman of Axialent. I have had the fortune of taking this session with Fred Kofman himself and have also heard Sheryl Sandberg speak about these concepts on multiple occasions, while she was at Google. Here is one concept nicely summarized by Sheryl Sandberg in this 5 minute YouTube video

Now is the time to ask yourself these questions

Well, so is your relationship with India going to be that of love, live-in or arranged? Majority of over a billion Indians are empirical evidence on the phenomenal success rate of arranged marriages — which in the modern day often begins with love, transitions quickly through a live-in period (if any) and soon converts into a successful arranged relationship.

I will post more on this relationship-cycle later — And perhaps continue to update this blog with my experience in India. But I would really like to hear feedback, thoughts, questions from others who have an interest in this topic. Please leave comments below.

Update: If you have read thus far, you may be interested in this post that I wrote after completing my first year in India since returning back from the US.

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