13 years later…

13 years after we moved to India from the US, I think about how life in India has been for us…

There have been many who have moved to the US after 2010 and many who have returned to India after that too…But still it is nice to look back on the life from 2010 onwards. Contrary, to what many people believed, and many who said “You will definitely not be able to live in India after living in the US. You will definitely move back to the US in 2-3 years time”, life back in India has been good. I don’t think many would have imagined that life could be good too.

I for one thought that life in India was just plain and simple(of course, cities like Bangalore have another idea of “simplicity” and they are more extravagant 🙂 but the tier 2 and tier 3 cities are just simple with no frills and fancies)

My son did take a while to adjust back (he was almost 9) but my daughter had no clue she was ever in the US!(poor girl, she was only 4 when we stepped back into India!! :))

Schooling has been extremely good and my son has decently managed college in India too. Traffic and infrastructure woes are always there, but we do learn to take it in our stride after a while.

On the housing front, there are big, clean, gated and secure communities that will help you keep safe and secure (many styled like US homes!! :))

While India always tries to ape the West, it has been nice and not confuse the children about Western and Eastern culture simultaneously.

Travel:

It is just so simple to travel short or long distances in India. With an unparalleled public transportation service, it is very easy to travel all around. There are autos, Ola, Uber, public buses for short distances. For long distances, there are flights, buses and train services(We will not get into the complexities of each of them! 🙂 – for now, it just exists!! :)) The fares for all the services are also decently cheap when compared to their Western counterparts.

Social life:

Social life has been an interesting observance. While we were in the US, we used to go and talk with anybody and everybody and everybody used to come and talk to freely with us as well 🙂 Yes…we become so starved of a proper social life particularly in frozen places like Detroit!! 🙁

In India, social life is amazing. We have friends all around. We have family all around and everybody is at the maximum only a few hours away. There are numerous functions to attend to and a lot of social gatherings as well. The only problem though is we have to measure and talk to every one occasionally…..;)

Climate:

Climate is awesome particularly in Bangalore. As soon as the mercury touches 31 or 32 deg C, in the summer, we are already feeling the heat and the rain gods come down immediately!! 🙂 Winters are not too bad either…though I hardly felt any winter in the first 2 years that I returned to India…(effects of staying in a brutally cold place like Detroit!)

Work:

I have been putting my Master’s degree in Information Security(from the US) to the best use by writing about nothing but Information Security on the technical side(I love that field :)) It is good that the InfoSec space is a dynamically changing space and I can blog about new topics all the time!

Parents:

Finally, I was happy to be with my parents during their last days when they needed me the most.

Overall, it did take a while for us to get adjusted back to India but I think we did very well in the last 13 years. We do miss the US every now and then and think about how things could be done in a better way.

If you do decide to move to India after a long stay in the US or any foreign country, just know that each person’s journey will be different. It is also better to move when the kids are young. Adjusting times will vary and stay in any place where you are happy! 🙂

This post is for alphabet ‘L’ for #BlogchatterA2Z by @blogchatter!

PS: We returned to India in 2010 after spending 14 – 19 years in US! The return saga continues… 🙂