Wednesday, November 14, 2007

On the move...

Hi guys,

I know many of you are eagerly awaiting an update from me regarding the move, and more than anything else, for the past month or so,sitting at a desk and in front of the computer was not really on my agenda. But now I've settled in to my new apartment, have bought cars, hired a driver, got phones, etc. Diwali is also over along with its distractions, so daily life is less of surprises and more about a routine.

I don't really have a clear verdict, so you might be disappointed if you're looking to find out whether India has been / is "better" for me and my family than the US was. Of course, our decision to move was based on a picture about how life will be in India and how our future might develop, so I can talk about the surprises / disappointments regarding that.

The first thing that I should mention is that in no circumstance can I imagine the move to be a "light" one. It's a huge commitment and a radical step that alters almost every aspect of your life. One can perhaps argue it's really not even the same person that was living in the US before, since so much about him / her has changed as a direct consequence of the radically different environment the person is in when in India. Buying things here and selling off your belongings in the US is an expensive exercise and it's really hard to let go of things there that you've so carefully selected over the years. So if you're considering moving, you better be very sure about it.

At a personal level, things are better for me so far. Life is more"connected", there are a lot of things that I like about being here -and I haven't even started socializing yet. The initial shock of pollution, crowding, traffic, etc. has subsided so given a choice again, I'd quite likely do this again. The same is true for my wife. My younger son (7) has adjusted very well and is quite happy here, but my elder one (10) is still squarely in the "why the hell are we here" camp. He's managing his outlook and emotions very well, but I'm quite sure that deep inside he isn't yet happy with the move.

At a work / career level, I haven't really decided what I'm going to do next. I'm continuing my Internet startup (web2rank) as of now, and it's doing quite well, but it seems somewhat removed from the reality here,so it gives me a little less pleasure than in the US. One thing to note here is that I can definitely feel that the reform oriented nature of the government seems to be unraveling somewhat and parts of government are going back to the "stop everything" mode. IT is still not affected as much, but levels of corruption seem to be rising alarmingly overall (after perhaps some improvement a few years back). This affects the optimism that you see all around and the ultimate"where will my career be 10 years from now" question.

At a social level, I feel very pessimistic and depressed. The kinds of politics, corruption, use of force, media control, education control that the ruling congress party is engaging in is really depressing. It has for the most part probably been the same in India, but now I understand it better I guess. It raises a lot of questions about the future for our kids, and our extended families, etc. I've not paid a lot of attention to all this yet, but knowing that my future is now in India makes me really worried about all this. Ultimately I think about it this way - I've tried moving out of it and in the US I have found myself sitting on the distant sidelines of a vast and rich social playing field. Here, I'm in the thick of a losing battle for almost everything I like, but at least I'm a small part of it and there are a lot of people like me to share the joys and sorrows of it all.

All in all, India is right now in a state of massive change. Right down to personal decisions about what is right and wrong, everything seems to be in question - and the younger generation is at the bleeding edge (our kids being a part of it). It was amazing that while we received a lot of warm welcomes upon our arrival here, very few said "welcome back home" - people mostly said "welcome to India". I wondered why, and I concluded that the place has changed so much it doesn't feel like home to anyone here either!

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