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.
5 comments:
All the best buddy.There are humungus number of people/things which might be not in your favour. With your passion you can overcome them.
there are million dumb$#@^ who will say they love India blah blah and we will return there someday blah blah....and another million dumb #$%@ who will say why dont u stay here and go later and that they will be doing the same blah blah more....
all of these are just people who want to pull u back so that they feel comfortable....these are spineless people who dont recognize the fact that its a huge change in life and something they cant do themselves....
I hope ur home there is fun.....i will be there to see the milkman and the subziwala
Very passionate and indeed inspiring....hope many more of us are motivated to have the courage and determination to do what you are doing...follow our dreams....i guess everybody can be a dreamer but it takes something more to be able to pursue it and see it come alive....and we are sure you will do it! :)
Wish u the best of luck taniya..I hope u guys havea fun filled life and actually get to enjoy life in india instead of getting involved in work all the time..
Although i must say..u have a very optmistic/rosy view of the life back there..but the life there isnt too much different from here..especially with the IT boom and the work culture..
especially in the metros, and places like B'lore n hyd..there are no more doodhwallas and the subzi guys..pple are getting into soy milk,tropicana and frozen veggies..
but it is nice to go back..a feeling that u belong to some thing..which u will never get here...
First thanks to Nandan and Taniya for creating such a nice blog.
Here I leave my two cents of thoughts to you blog "Moving to India".
It's definitely a bold step and although it appears to be little bit early move some where I feel u guys r making right move. There is no doubt that US is great place, people are nice but it's more like a stepping stone I guess. Most of us need that push, inspiration and after that living in our land and contributing to our community fullfills our life I think. No matter how long we live here or how much comfort life we lead here, we all are unhappy at some level and obviously feel disconnecetd most of the times. I believe with the right attitude and hard work, India can be another land of opportunities. It feels great to struggle for life in our own land where we can meet/greet with our families often rather struggling for life on a land that doesn't belong to us and not being able to share our life with our family members/relatives.
My best wishes are always with both of you and please be in touch and may be you guys can guide us in future.
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