my post to my classmates
september is proving to be a good blogging month for me. i wrote an email to my undergraduate classmates talking about my transition to India.
Disclaimer 1 - a little long email
Disclaimer 2 - probably repetitive (i've written my experience on this blog before, i guess)
Disclaimer 3 - i am not trying to run away from the idea of being original
Here goes:
all other elex-2002-vesit guys in the US, here are some experiences:
before i write about my experiences, i gotta tell you this - if you're in the US and you're in two minds whether to go back to india or stay there, i'd say, come back to india. there are a lot of lucrative job/business opportunities waiting for you in india.
my wife and i were always of the opinion that we want to go back to india soon. we had an amazing life in the US. we have a huge group of friends. we used to work hard, party harder, live life kingsize. but again, always in the back of our minds, we wanted to come back to india. emotional (family) reasons for my wife. practical (career) reasons for me. every weekend we used to meet with our friends, we would talk about all the cool things happening in india. i am sure a lot of you guys in the US end up doing that. but we all agreed that making the call to go back finally is never gonna be easy.
but it just happened. and we just did it. and when we sold that first piece of furniture, it struck us. and we were shitting bricks!!! too many apprehensions, too many fears. all our dreams were slowly turning into nightmares. we were in a lot of stress. partly because of the pressure to get rid of all the stuff that we had bought, partly with planning the trips that we had decided on before going back, and a big part of it being "will we be OK there?"
the best thing we did was taking two trips before coming back to india. though we spent a fortune in making both the trips, we will never ever regret the decision. we took trips to hawaii and nz (back - to - back) before coming to india. hawaii is a different country altogether - all those who've been to hawaii can attest to that. and nz - it could easily be the most beautiful country in the world.
that was before coming to india. let me speak a little bit about the after experience!
the biggest irony - most people go from a joint family to nuclear families. it was the other way around for us. it was a little difficult for everyone in my family to get adjusted to the idea of joint family, but after a little while, i think everyone's cool.
the same thing happened with our group of friends here in sion. the group had really shrunk after everyone graduated. but suddenly there are a lot of people in the group. our friends milap and siddhi came back a few months before we did. so there's a lot of people in our group here. thats a big blessing.
@ work - things are much better than what i had imagined. though i never had the experience of working in india, i guess i've done a pretty good job so far. there are all these apprehensions about the attitude of people in india. all talks about people being rude and hostile. thats actually not very true. it is true that it takes a little while for a normal indian to get comfortable with you. but once that happens, i guess its really good.
and i am sure most of you guys have been following the news about india. inspite of all the political jhols happening (left being an ass that it is) the growth in india is actually unstoppable. i agree that the growth is haphazard. but again, it is not right to complain since we're growing nevertheless. there are opportunities in every field. its not just about IT anymore. Infrastructure, retail, finance, banking - everything is growing well.
the best thing is that you get to hear about a lot of entreprenuership episodes everyday in India. and even better, there are people from all over the world to tap these ideas and fund them.
i'd better stop here. the bottom line - india's cool!
Disclaimer 1 - a little long email
Disclaimer 2 - probably repetitive (i've written my experience on this blog before, i guess)
Disclaimer 3 - i am not trying to run away from the idea of being original
Here goes:
all other elex-2002-vesit guys in the US, here are some experiences:
before i write about my experiences, i gotta tell you this - if you're in the US and you're in two minds whether to go back to india or stay there, i'd say, come back to india. there are a lot of lucrative job/business opportunities waiting for you in india.
my wife and i were always of the opinion that we want to go back to india soon. we had an amazing life in the US. we have a huge group of friends. we used to work hard, party harder, live life kingsize. but again, always in the back of our minds, we wanted to come back to india. emotional (family) reasons for my wife. practical (career) reasons for me. every weekend we used to meet with our friends, we would talk about all the cool things happening in india. i am sure a lot of you guys in the US end up doing that. but we all agreed that making the call to go back finally is never gonna be easy.
but it just happened. and we just did it. and when we sold that first piece of furniture, it struck us. and we were shitting bricks!!! too many apprehensions, too many fears. all our dreams were slowly turning into nightmares. we were in a lot of stress. partly because of the pressure to get rid of all the stuff that we had bought, partly with planning the trips that we had decided on before going back, and a big part of it being "will we be OK there?"
the best thing we did was taking two trips before coming back to india. though we spent a fortune in making both the trips, we will never ever regret the decision. we took trips to hawaii and nz (back - to - back) before coming to india. hawaii is a different country altogether - all those who've been to hawaii can attest to that. and nz - it could easily be the most beautiful country in the world.
that was before coming to india. let me speak a little bit about the after experience!
the biggest irony - most people go from a joint family to nuclear families. it was the other way around for us. it was a little difficult for everyone in my family to get adjusted to the idea of joint family, but after a little while, i think everyone's cool.
the same thing happened with our group of friends here in sion. the group had really shrunk after everyone graduated. but suddenly there are a lot of people in the group. our friends milap and siddhi came back a few months before we did. so there's a lot of people in our group here. thats a big blessing.
@ work - things are much better than what i had imagined. though i never had the experience of working in india, i guess i've done a pretty good job so far. there are all these apprehensions about the attitude of people in india. all talks about people being rude and hostile. thats actually not very true. it is true that it takes a little while for a normal indian to get comfortable with you. but once that happens, i guess its really good.
and i am sure most of you guys have been following the news about india. inspite of all the political jhols happening (left being an ass that it is) the growth in india is actually unstoppable. i agree that the growth is haphazard. but again, it is not right to complain since we're growing nevertheless. there are opportunities in every field. its not just about IT anymore. Infrastructure, retail, finance, banking - everything is growing well.
the best thing is that you get to hear about a lot of entreprenuership episodes everyday in India. and even better, there are people from all over the world to tap these ideas and fund them.
i'd better stop here. the bottom line - india's cool!
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