Came to US of A, with no dreams of mine, but as a result of a chain of events which propelled me to University of South Carolina, Columbia. But I do believe that everything happens with a reason, some we understand immediately, some takes years to make sense.
In the cold evening of Jan 26, 2001, I found myself in Columbia, South Carolina, pursuing my PhD in Electrical Engineering, and with a dream to become a professor and go back to India and become a fabulous teacher. Dreams do change course, will write in a different posting. United States of America become my pseudo home for 6.5 years from that day onwards.
Listing the amazing aspects of these place:
- It welcomes all with the most amazing equal rights, maybe because it is a place made by immigrants to start with. You smile at me and I smile back at you.
- It offers average life style to all, you have everything you need to survive from electricity, Internet, water, food and money.
- Job prospects for all fields are plenty.
- Amazing greenery, abundant natural beauty
- Best roads I have seen so far, connecting such a huge country from north to south, and from east to west. Even country side has road network and all the basic necessities.
- Research: top grade work in all fields, specially in the field of nanotechnology and material science, which I am associated with.
- Harvard, MIT are not places of worship but within reach, it is brick and mortar, and achieveable
- You can own a home, open your own business, get citizenship, and this country can almost make you one of its own...but again I say "almost"
- You can buy the most expensive car, get the house of your dreams, start a venture of a lifetime, visit exotic places, make tons of money..in a few words "life your material dream"
So, what would be the one and only motivating factor to move from developed US of A to developing India. My reasons:
- Every venture I dream of is in India, by default
- Every time I hear the national anthem, it fills me up with pride, and sadness in my heart
- Every time I think of the future, I see myself there...and nowhere else
- My family, I want to chat to my mother on local phone lines instead of once or twice a week on international calling. I want to be part of their daily life, they don't have to live with me, but I want to go meet them whenever I wish.
- I want to know my grand parents, be there for them, know their life, learn from them, hear their life stories.
- When I start a family, I want them to speak to me in Hindi, know their land, feel for it, know their relationships and live a full life experiencing it.
- My husband and me, we love each other too much, we are each other's best company, but we miss home. We have a house which we could never make our home, and do not see a future for us here. We are so lonely, although there is no weekend we do not have company. We do short term planning from buying a house to buying a car, and also living our lives. We DREAM, and the dream is India for us...HOME...a sense of completion, coming the full circle, sense of belonging.
- We want the milkman to leave milk at your doorsteps, we want the newspaper delivered in the morning, we want to buy vegetables from stalls, we want to gossip with our neighbours, we want our parents/grandparents/extended family to be part of our daily lives, we want to live the "Indian Dream"
- We want to give back to our community, we want to be a part of making Developing India to Developed India.
Are these too futile a dream to pursue at the risk of not having a Green card or US citizenship for our kids? I for one, do not think so. Hence, moving back to India on Sept 2007.
I am going to live my dream, make new dreams, and hope to turn them to reality.
