Stefan had a stable Canada banking career, a good life on paper, and daily panic attacks. This interview-based story explains why he and his Indian wife moved to Bangalore, what they planned badly, and what feels better in India now.
Stefan had the kind of Canada life many people are told to protect: university, a long banking career, a stable corporate path, and a spouse with a good job. But by 2023, the version of success on paper had become panic attacks, blocked creativity, and a feeling that he could not become the father he wanted to be in that environment.
Stefan shared this experience in a May 28, 2026 Desi Return interview. Immigration, tax residency, RNOR, Canadian investment treatment, pet import rules, and permission to work in India are high-stakes topics. Use this story as a planning prompt, not as legal, immigration, tax, or financial advice.
What this story answers: Can moving to India actually make life better after burnout in Canada? For Stefan, the answer is yes for this life stage, but not because India is frictionless. The real shift is that India gives him and his wife a chance to build a business, stay closer to family, and create a support system while accepting traffic, pollution, setup pains, and bureaucracy as part of the trade.
Stefan's background is not the usual "born in India, moved abroad, then returned" story. He says his family is from Eastern Europe, he moved to Canada when he was young, grew up mostly there, lived in the US for a period, and then came back to Canada. He finished university in Canada and started working at a bank.
He spent about 14 years at that bank before leaving. That detail matters because this was not a quick frustration with a first job. This was a long corporate career that had once made sense but gradually stopped matching who he wanted to become.
The India connection began in 2019. Stefan was asked to organize a charity event by the chief operating officer of his division. At the event, a friend was playing guitar, the song was Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," and he started talking to the woman who would later become his wife. She was from India.
They met just before COVID. He says they were lucky because a few months later the relationship may never have started. They married in 2024. The delay was not lack of commitment; COVID stretched the timeline because he wanted to meet her parents and both of them wanted her parents at the wedding.
This is why the move to India was both personal and strategic. It was not only about his burnout. It was also about marriage, future children, and the support structure his wife's family could provide in Bangalore.
Stefan's burnout was unusual because he does not describe being crushed by too much work. He describes the opposite. His job involved making things better, but every idea seemed to run into another committee, another veto, and another person finding problems where he did not see any.
He calls it burnout from underwork, not overwork. The issue was not that the bank demanded too much from him. The issue was that it stopped allowing him to use his creativity. By the end, he felt unchallenged, unfulfilled, and stuck at a desk without meaningful output.
By 2023, that boredom and blocked energy had turned into anxiety. He says he was finding problems where there were none, creating anxiety over small things, and having daily panic attacks. He took a six-month leave and began seeing a social worker.
The sessions helped him see two connected problems. First, he was not being challenged and did not enjoy what he was doing. Second, he and his wife had been discussing children, and he did not want future children growing up around that version of him.
That line is the heart of the story. He did not simply want to leave Canada. He wanted to leave the environment that was producing a version of himself he no longer respected.
By the end of his six-month leave in 2023, Stefan knew he was scared but had to try building his own business. In early 2024, he left work. The practical problem arrived immediately: his wife was the only one earning, and Canada was expensive even on a single income. On no income, it felt even harder.
Both of them wanted fulfillment outside corporate work. Both knew building a business would take time. They would need years to learn skills, test ideas, fail, and eventually find something that worked. Staying in Canada while doing that did not make sense to them.
They considered other countries. Stefan mentions Costa Rica because a friend had moved there and enjoyed it. But Costa Rica did not feel cheap enough for what they wanted, and they were also thinking about starting a family. India had a stronger answer: his wife's family, lower costs, domestic help, and a family-friendly support layer.
By mid-2025, they committed. The logic was simple: they would rather give the move and business experiment a fair shot and fail than never try and regret it later. That is not risk-free thinking. It is a different definition of risk.
If your own decision is still at the country-comparison stage, separate this story from the broader checklist. Stefan's story is a real example. The broader execution plan lives in the Canada to India return planning guide and the NRI moving back to India checklist.
Bangalore was the easy choice because his wife was from Bangalore, her family was there, and she knew the city. Stefan says he assumed most people would move where family is, though he later found on return-to-India forums that many people do not.
He had visited India in 2023, near the end of COVID. The trip was about two weeks: roughly one week in Bangalore and one week in Goa. He says April in Goa was a mistake in hindsight, but Bangalore made a positive first impression. The city felt beautiful, warm, and livable. He was also tired of Canadian cold.
That visit was not an extended trial run. He did not spend months testing neighborhoods, schools, commutes, or work routines. It was a short visit that made Bangalore feel possible. The actual city choice was driven by family support more than by a spreadsheet.
In hindsight, that is both a strength and a warning. Having family nearby helped make the move emotionally and practically viable. But the short visit did not prepare him for everyday Bangalore traffic, service reliability, or the time it takes to set up a home.
For readers comparing this with other Canada-to-India stories, Lux's return after 15 years has a different profile: real estate, Delhi NCR, and family timing. Read it next if you want another Canada to India entrepreneur return story.
Stefan and his wife were both project or product manager types at the bank. She was less upset by corporate bureaucracy than he was, but she also had an itch to build her own thing. He believes he helped get her excited about that path.
AI also changed how he saw risk. In 2023 and 2024, he saw AI tools improving fast enough that staying in a job where he was not learning felt more dangerous than leaving. He did not think AI would take every job in its current form, but he did think one person could do far more with the right tools. Roles with little real work could disappear.
This matters because friends saw the move as irrational. They pointed out that both spouses had six-figure careers in Canada, could buy a house, and could live comfortably. Stefan saw the same facts differently. To him, staying where he was not learning, not challenged, and not allowed to use modern AI tools was the bigger long-term risk.
He had no background in coding, marketing, sales, or entrepreneurship. He did some coding courses in 2024 after leaving work. By the time of the interview, he was using Claude daily and felt that the tool had become strong enough to help with both code and marketing direction.
The takeaway is not "AI makes every returnee an entrepreneur." The takeaway is narrower: if your business plan depends on a long learning runway, India may reduce the cost of that runway. That is where lifestyle, family support, and business experimentation overlap.
Stefan is unusually honest about planning: he says he was terrible at it. His biggest focus was his dog, a service dog he trained himself. Getting her onto the flight and then into India became the main operational project.
They originally booked Air India because the route had fewer stops and a direct San Francisco to Bangalore leg. But the service-dog approval process became frustrating. He says he had to submit a form, but nobody clearly told him where to send it. He called at least 20 times and kept getting transferred.
They eventually cancelled that plan and flew United instead. The new route was more complicated: New York, Delhi, then Bangalore. It meant more legs and more luggage costs. The dog import process through India's animal quarantine system was also complicated, but a friend connected them with a pet relocation agency that handled it.
If you are moving with a dog or cat, do not treat this as a last-week task. Check the official Consulate General of India pet import guidance and the Department of Animal Husbandry AQCS import-clearance SOP before booking flights. Airline service-animal rules, country import rules, and transit rules can all be separate problems.
The bigger planning gaps were financial. Stefan had not fully worked through what would happen to Canadian investments, whether he should sell assets to reset cost basis, how RNOR might apply, how Canadian tax residency and Indian tax residency could overlap, and how India might tax consulting income earned through his business.
He even says he had been asking Claude about tax residency, but he did not trust AI fully on financial matters and planned to speak with a professional. That is the right instinct. For India-side status basics, use the official Income Tax Department non-resident FAQ and then get advice for your exact facts.
Do the tax, investments, visa, pet import, phone number, banking, and first-year cash-flow plan before leaving Canada. Once you land, the house setup and social adjustment will consume more time than you expect.
If your main open question is money, use the financial checklist for NRIs moving back to India. If the narrow question is tax status after return, use the RNOR status tax benefits guide for returning NRIs.
By the time of the interview, Stefan had been in India about five to six months. He expected to land and immediately start building his business. Instead, the first month went into setting everything up.
He had never moved in a way that required setting up a whole new household from scratch. Furniture, appliances, basics, repairs, and local systems took time. Then the second month became about making friends. His wife's childhood friends had moved out of India to the US or Canada, so both of them had to rebuild socially.
The practical friction was real. They would plan to visit three stores in a day for furniture, appliances, or clothes. Because traffic took longer than Google Maps suggested, they might finish only one. Once at the store, the process itself could be slower than expected.
Service reliability also surprised him. One appliance technician flooded the house twice because hoses were not fastened properly. Stefan says he naively assumed the person would learn after the first time. The second flood taught him that trusted service people matter.
But he does not conclude that India was a mistake. He describes two online camps: one saying India is terrible and people should stay in the US or Canada, and another saying India can be nice if you do not expect it to be the West. Stefan is closer to the second camp. He sees pros and cons everywhere, and for them India is the right place at this time.
This is one of the most useful parts of the interview because Stefan is not Indian. He is the spouse moving into his wife's country, city, family network, language environment, and social rhythms.
His clearest advice is to build a social network early. Even with a business to build and a long task list, he intentionally put effort into meeting people so he would have someone besides his wife to lean on. He says social isolation is a major factor for anyone in a similar situation.
That advice applies beyond mixed-nationality marriages. Many returning NRIs assume family proximity automatically solves loneliness. It helps, but it does not automatically create your own friend circle, professional community, or emotional backup. The spouse who is not from the city may need deliberate support.
Stefan also gives a decision-making rule: read other people's experiences, but make the decision for yourself. Once you choose, accept both the good and the bad. In India, he names traffic, pollution, air quality, and infrastructure friction. He also names cost of living, family, and support networks as upsides. Canada has its own upsides and downsides, especially cost.
On immigration, Stefan says he had not yet applied for OCI because he married in October 2024 and believed the spouse route required two years of marriage. The official Ministry of Home Affairs OCI brochure says a foreign-origin spouse of an Indian citizen or OCI cardholder can qualify when the marriage has been registered and has subsisted for at least two years before application, subject to other conditions and clearance. Read the MHA OCI brochure before relying on any summary.
Because his wife is an OCI holder, Stefan says he received an entry visa in the spouse category. He understood it as valid up to five years or passport validity, and because his passport expires in two years, he received a two-year entry visa. He also understood that it allowed him to stay in India but not seek employment. Treat this as his personal case, not a rule for every spouse.
Stefan's story is useful because it is not polished into a perfect return-to-India success script. He is happier with the direction, but he also admits planning gaps, traffic frustration, service problems, and early isolation.
Burnout is not always too many hours. Sometimes it is years of blocked creativity, no challenge, and no growth. If your mind has started creating anxiety because your life has no meaningful challenge, pay attention.
Stefan and his wife could have stayed in Canada, bought a house, and stayed comfortable. He felt that comfort was becoming a trap. Your decision should name what comfort is costing you.
Tax residency, investments, RNOR, bank accounts, phone numbers, health insurance, visas, and pet import documents should be settled before the flight. India setup will be noisy enough after landing.
If you are the non-Indian spouse, or if you are returning to a city where your friends have moved away, start making friends early. Social isolation can become a bigger adjustment issue than paperwork.
India will bring support, family, cost advantages, and business runway. It will also bring traffic, pollution, service variability, and infrastructure friction. Canada will bring predictability, systems, and comfort, but also high costs and possible isolation. Pick consciously.
For another Canada-focused financial story, read Santosh's view on Canada to India financial planning and housing decisions. For phone and OTP continuity, do not miss the guide on keeping your Canada phone number active after moving to India.
Stefan's story shows that stability on paper is not always the same as fulfillment. He had a long banking career in Canada, but by 2023 he felt blocked by corporate committees, was not being challenged, and began having daily panic attacks. His wife was from Bangalore, they were thinking about starting a family, and both wanted the space to build their own business. Canada felt expensive on one income and even harder with no income. India offered family support, lower operating costs, and more time to learn entrepreneurship.
The transcript's strongest planning lesson is that you should not wing the financial and legal parts. Stefan says he focused heavily on moving his service dog and figured out many other issues after landing. He had not fully planned what would happen to Canadian investments, cost basis, tax residency, RNOR timing, or consulting income after becoming India-based. His advice is to figure these items out before leaving because some deadlines can have consequences. The practical checklist should include tax residency, investments, banking, insurance, visa status, pet import documents, housing setup, and first-year cash flow.
For Stefan and his wife, Bangalore was the natural choice because her family was there, she knew the city, and they wanted to be close to support while building a new life. He had visited Bangalore for about two weeks in 2023 and felt it was a place he could live. After moving, he also saw the harder parts: traffic that made three-store shopping plans turn into one-store days, service reliability problems, and the need to find trusted local help. His conclusion is not that Bangalore is perfect, but that it is the right place for them at this time.
In Stefan's case, he had married in October 2024 and believed he needed two years of marriage before applying for OCI as a spouse. Because his wife was an OCI holder, he received an entry visa under the spouse category. He says the visa can be valid up to five years or the duration of the passport, but because his passport expired in two years, he received a two-year entry visa. He also says the entry visa lets him stay in India but does not let him seek employment, which fit his situation because he was not trying to take a job.
For Stefan, the first hard adjustment was not one dramatic event. It was the everyday setup load. The first month went into getting the house and basics arranged instead of immediately building the business. The second month went into making friends because his wife's childhood friends had moved abroad and he had no local network. Traffic, furniture and appliance shopping, unreliable service visits, and two appliance-related flooding incidents made the early phase rough. His advice is to build a social network early, especially if you are the non-Indian spouse or do not already know people in the city.
Put the decision on paper before the flight: tax residency, RNOR, investments, bank access, phone number continuity, visa status, pets, city setup, social network, and first-year cash flow.
This is most useful if you are trying to balance career burnout, family support, Canada-side assets, and the practical realities of settling in India.
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0:00 So, in 2023, I [music] had burnt out from work. I I just couldn't stand working for a corporation anymore. And it wasn't because, like a lot of people, I think when they think about burnout, they think about like being overworked. For me, it was the opposite. Like, [music] every time I had an idea, I'd be like, "Okay, let's I have I have this exciting idea to like make things [music] better." And that was part of my job. so, I'd go and I'd be like, "Okay, let's do this." And then, I'd go to a committee that has the the ultimate say, and they say, "No." So, I'm like, "Okay, let's try another committee." They say, "No," too. And it's like 20 different people telling me no all the time, finding problems where there were none. I was creating anxiety for the smallest of things. so, I started having daily panic attacks [music] in 2023. who I was at that moment in time, and I didn't want to be that person for my children. Like, I didn't want them to grow up around that version of myself. And I knew that I could be different in a different environment.
0:55 >> Thank you very much, Stefan, to be on our show. So, let's start a bit about your background. >> Sure. yeah, so I I grew up in Canada, mostly. my family's from Eastern Europe, but we moved to Canada when I was pretty young, and I lived there, and then I lived in the US a bit, and then came back to Canada. And yeah, I I finished university there, and then I started working at a bank. and I spent about 14 years there before deciding to leave. and I guess we can get into why that all happened, but a lot of it has to do with in in 20 2019 it was, I was kind of told to organize this charity event by our our chief operating officer of the division that I worked for.
1:46 And so, I organized this event, and I show up, and the band was a friend of mine playing the guitar, like they're playing Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, which is my favorite song. And like I look to the left and there's this like beautiful woman and I start talking to her and and we talk about Pink Floyd. That woman became my wife. She's from India. So that had a big part in how I I ended up here and and and leaving my job. So yeah, that's a a quick quick background on me.
2:18 >> Got it. So for how long have you both been married for and why not live in Canada and why to move to India? >> So yes, we met in 2019 like right before COVID and we got lucky cuz if it was a few months later we probably would never have started dating and then got married. And we got married in 2024. And I know like it was it's a long time between meeting and marriage and like we had been engaged for a long time but it was because like COVID and I didn't want to like go ahead and do that without her parents. So like I wanted to meet them first and I wanted like we both wanted them to come to the wedding. So COVID kind of like extended timelines but yeah, we got married in 24 and I guess the reason we decided to to come to India. Honestly like it was more my me pushing than than her. So I think it was because like I had I like by that point when So in 2023 I had burnt out from work.
3:20 I I just couldn't stand working for a corporation anymore and it wasn't because like a lot of people I think when they think about burnout they think about like being overworked. For me it was the opposite. Like every time I had an idea I'd be like okay, let's I have I have this exciting idea to like make things better and that was part of my job. So I'd go and I'd be like okay, let's do this and then I go to a committee that has the the ultimate say and they say no. So I'm like okay, let's try another committee they say no too and it's like 20 different people telling me no all the time. So like I burnt out from underwork not from overwork because I wasn't being allowed to, I guess, express my creativity. I wasn't being challenged. Like, I essentially was just like kind of like by the end of it, was just sitting at my desk and not doing much. And for me, I don't know if this applies to everyone, but for me, like, I think like the brain needs some kind of challenge to like feel fulfilled and I guess I think like going back to our hunter-gatherer roots, like I think like we we need a challenge. and there was challenge back then. And nowadays, like,
4:21 You can live this like life of comfort, which is what was happening to me. Like, I was chasing comfort. There was no challenge at work. So, like, my brain was I guess finding challenge on its own, and what that turned into for me was anxiety. I was finding problems where there were none. I was creating anxiety for the smallest of things. So, I started having daily panic attacks in 2023. And I I actually ended up taking a 6-month leave from work to kind of figure it out. I started seeing a social worker. And [music] in our sessions, what I figured out over the course of the 6 months that I was off, and I I kept seeing him until I left Canada, but what I figured out early on was the reason I was having this anxiety was partially because of what I just mentioned. Like, >> [music] >> I wasn't being challenged, and I didn't enjoy what I was doing, and my brain was finding was finding issues. But the other thing is like my wife and I had been talking about starting a family.
5:21 And like, I just looked at who I was at that moment in time, and I didn't want to be that person So, I think that was compounding [music] the problem. so, I knew like by the end of those 6 months, towards the end of 2023, I was like, "I'm really scared, but I need to start my own business." because I've been following people online for years that have started their own business like these Indie Hackers like Levels IO and others. And it was very really inspiring, but I always like told myself I can't do that. I'm not a coder. I don't know how to market. I don't know how to sell stuff. but by the end of that time I was like no matter how scary this is, even though you don't know what you're doing, like you have to. And this was beginning [music] of 2024.
6:08 And then like the question was okay, well so how's this going to [music] happen? Like my work drained me. I didn't have enough energy at the end of the day to do anything. and most of my productive hours are in the morning. So like I decided [music] for me the best thing to do was to leave. and that was in 2024. But then the problem is like one like then we're on a single income. My wife was the only one working at that time. But she also wanted to do this. And [music] even like on a single income it's tough on in Canada. On no income it's very tough cuz it's a very expensive place to live. so like we were thinking like okay, so how how's this going to work? Like we both want to find fulfillment outside of work, build our own business. But we know from people who have done it and people online that it takes years to kind of learn the skills and like try enough things for something to be successful.
7:00 So like staying in Canada didn't make sense. We looked at a few other countries like my friend had moved to Costa Rica and they enjoyed it there. But like because we are also planning to start a family and Costa Rica's actually not that cheap compared to other places. Like we're like okay, well my wife's family's in India. We can get cheap help in India. it's a very family friendly place. and we would have a lot of time to build our own thing. so we talked about it for a while, but in in 2025 like in the middle of 2025 we both kind of committed that like we're doing this and we're going to we're going to give it a fair shot. cuz we'd rather give it a shot and fail than never try and then regret it later on in life. You know, the things you don't do that you regret.
7:53 We have one life so might as well just go for it and see what happens. >> Completely makes sense. So, how did you choose where you want to move to in India? So once you made a decision India would be the place to you know raise a family to give it a shot at you are
8:11 Entrepreneurs like how did you choose the place? >> Yeah, so that was actually like not as hard for us because my wife was from Bangalore. Her family was here. She knew the city. So we just we moved closer to to her family. I know like unfortunately I did this after the fact not so much before the fact but I've been like going through the return to India subreddit and trying to get advice from people there on like some of the problems that I still have now after the move. And what surprised me actually was like a lot of people like ask that question that you just asked like how to choose where to live cuz I my assumption would be everyone would kind of go live where their family is but it seems that people don't for some reason.
8:58 And what I did find and luckily for me is the people that moved to Bangalore seem to be the happiest. We made the right choice there. >> Yeah, I mean it could be because of the career I mean if you have the perfect place it could be like where the family and close to work but sometimes you know you just have to make a compromise. So how about have you visited India before making this decision like have you been here on a visiting >> Yeah, so in 2023 like when COVID was on its tail and we finally got a chance to come meet her family. So I came to Bangalore for 2 weeks. and Yeah, we we we were about a week here and a week in Goa.
9:44 We came in April, which was a was a mistake to go to Goa in April in hindsight. But yeah, the trip like I thought the city was beautiful. Like I really enjoyed the city and and honestly wasn't as hot that year as it is this year. and I don't remember as much traffic, but maybe it's a a vacation high. but yeah, I I I thought to myself back then like this is a place I could live. Like this is a beautiful city. It's always warm. Like I was getting tired of the cold in Canada. and at the time it was just like a fleeting thought, you know, like I can do this, but like I still hadn't like figured out the plan of like how anything like that was going to happen or the fact that I needed to build a business and bet on myself. Yeah. but yeah, I I didn't do like any kind of extended stay. It was just kind of like a a brief brief thing and it looked nice.
10:34 >> Okay.
10:35 What about on the career side? I know on for you like you wanted to get into the entrepreneur side of the like what about your wife? You know, for her like in a transition wise in a career planning like how did it go? I think we were both like she didn't have as much problems with her career in Canada at the bank. Like we were both kind of like project / product managers there. I guess she wasn't as upset by kind of the corporate bureaucracy and red tape as I was. but she did also have an itch to kind of like build her own things. and I think maybe to some extent like I pushed her in this direction because I really wanted to do this. and I think I got her excited about it. And also I guess the other thing that I didn't mention that factored into our decision was like in 2023 24 like AI was really starting to like you could see it improving fast enough to the point where like
11:37 I was questioning like a lot of my friends when I made a decision to leave or when I was talking to them about the fact that I was considering leaving, they were like, "What are you doing? Like you have this good career. Both of you are making like six figures in Canada. Like You can buy a house. You'll be comfortable. Blah blah blah. But like it's a super risky thing that you're trying to do. But for me, it was it was the opposite. Like not only because I was not enjoying it and I was kind of like miserable in in that role, but also because I thought that AI would get to the point where it would I don't think I don't think it'll take all of the jobs in its current form, but I do think it empowers people to do a lot more per person. So, I think a lot of the jobs where people like had nothing to do are going to disappear. I think we've started seeing that with the layoffs that a lot of the tech companies are doing.
12:27 So, to me it felt riskier to stay in a place where I wasn't learning anything. I wasn't being challenged. I wasn't even allowed to use these AI tools that I'm now using every single day and that really have increased my productivity. so, like I think like that factored into our decision and that I think that that's also something that helped convince her and neither of us had backgrounds in in coding or in marketing or entrepreneurship at all, but like especially in the last few months, like Claude has become honestly incredible. Like I don't look at the code anymore. Like I did do some coding courses last 2 years ago in 2024 after I left work. so, like I used to check its output, but now like it knows a lot better than I do.
13:13 Now it's even getting pretty good at directing my marketing efforts, which I never thought that it could do. so, I think like it's an incredible time to be an entrepreneur with these tools at your disposal, but it also means a lot more competition cuz a lot is getting unlocked for a lot of people. so yeah, I guess there's [snorts] still there's still risk, but I think it's probably one of the best times to start a business and that's kind of why we we just went for it. >> Right, I understood. So both of you are on the entrepreneur side, makes sense. >> Yeah. >> what about I think the planning? once you made a decision, like how did you plan about moving to India? What are
13:55 The things that you thought through from a financial side, logistics side, anything that you can share? >> Yes, honestly, like I'll be 100% honest with you. I was terrible at this. I'm I'm figuring stuff out like in hindsight now. like I mentioned like I'm looking through the returns India subreddit and trying to find advice there. my biggest concern was I have a dog, like a service dog that I trained myself. And my biggest concern was getting her to come with us to to India. so like the first problem was getting her onto the flight with me. and originally we had booked Air India because it had the fewest number of stops and had direct flights. So we were going to go from Canada to San Francisco directly to Bangalore. all of our luggage would arrive with us and everything would be fine, but then their process and their customer service was so terrible that like essentially like I had to submit a form to get approval for the service dog.
14:56 But they wouldn't tell me where to send that form. I called them at least 20 times and every time they would send me to somebody else. So I just got like I I ran around in circles until it was actually my my wife's dad that was like, "Don't fly Air India. Like they just had that crash and they had like all of these I guess technical malfunctions on flights leading up to our departure." so we actually ended up canceling that and flying with United, but that was like a much more complicated flight. We had to fly to New York and then to Delhi and then to Bangalore. A lot of legs, a lot of extra costs for our luggage. So, like, my my main focus was like, what what I do with my dog? And also, like, how do I import her into India, which was another complicated process with the, animal quarantine services here. But, luckily, a friend of ours like put us on to, this pet relocation agency that like just took care of everything and that was totally fine.
15:51 But I didn't really think about like the financial aspects of like what happens to my investments in Canada, am I going to be, like, what's going to be my tax residency, am I Canadian, am I, Indian? I was actually talking to Claude about this last night and it was telling me you could actually be both because they both have different ways of determining, what your tax residency is. Like, India uses day count, Canada uses ties to the country, and I think that that part is still unclear cuz I don't trust AI 100% with financial matters. So, like, I think I'll I'll talk to a professional about that kind of stuff. but yeah, I need to kind of like figure out like, do I sell my investments and reset my cost basis for like there's this like R&OR period. I have a business that I earn some consulting income through and apparently now that I'm in India, they're going to tax me on that even though like all my other Canadian income is not getting taxed by India for a few years. but these are all things that I kind of figured out after landing rather than
16:52 Before and I think like if anyone's listening to this, like, my advice is like figure it out before it cuz there's some some like deadlines that you might miss and that's there are some consequences to missing those deadlines. >> Yeah, yeah, for sure.
17:05 >> so, how is life in India? I know like after visiting like it's just two weeks, now it's been about five to six months. So, like, how how has it been going? >> yeah, so I think honestly, like the first month was just like I expected to land and to just immediately start building my business, but again, like this is me not thinking it through and planning. The first month just went into like setting everything up. like I had never moved, I guess, to the point of like having to get everything for for a a new place that I'm living, you know, like I've always taken my stuff with me. so that was the first month, and then the second month I was like, "Okay, well, I don't know anyone here." and unfortunately, my wife so all her childhood friends have moved out of India, like to the US or Canada.
17:53 So we were both kind of in the same situation. Like the second month we were trying to make friends. and I guess adjusting to to life here. So like we would make these plans to like like go shopping for furniture, go shopping for appliances, or clothes, or whatever. And I think cuz she she left here in my So it's been like 14, 15 years ago. So like the traffic was not as bad back then. so she remembers that version of the city, whereas the city has changed a lot since then with like all the tech companies coming here, everybody moving here for jobs. The city's infrastructure, I guess, hasn't kept up with that demand. So like we had planned to go to like three stores in a day to do some shopping. We'd get maybe one done because like it was like a lot longer to get there than Google Maps estimates. Then once you get there, like trying to figure out what to do, the sales people not being super helpful.
18:50 So yeah, I think a lot of like unexpected challenges have come up like like that. Like I guess setting up the house, the reliability of some of the service people that have come to our house, like one guy who was setting up our appliances, like he flooded the house on two separate occasions. cuz he like didn't fasten some some hoses. And like I guess naively I thought like, okay, he must have learned from the first time. Like he's not going to do it again. And then he did it again. so like I guess like I I've learned that like you need to like find trusted people to do stuff around the house. and and we have found some now, luckily. But I guess like just some early moving pains that that were rough. And then it's been I guess a a challenge. I I don't like when when I talk about it on Reddit, like there's there seems to be like two camps. Some people are like, "Why would you go back to India? It's the worst. Like stay in the US." And then other people are like, "It's nice, you know, like just just like don't
19:51 Expect it to be like the US. And then you can accept it for what it is and you're going to enjoy it. And honestly, like I've I've been more towards the second camp. I think there's pros and cons to anywhere. And for us, even with whatever cons might exist here, this is the right place for us at this time. And with that mindset, it's like, okay, like you figure you figure out how how how to make it happen. >> Yeah, for sure. There is no perfect place and you just need to do >> the problem.
20:25 >> Cool. is there anything that we haven't covered that you want to bring up or any advice for people who are considering moving to India? >> I guess I would reiterate the like doing more planning before leaving than I did. I guess I'm historically not much of a planner. I just kind of like wing things. But with something this big and this important that only happens like a few times in your life, I think with the planning is is useful. I guess the other thing is for anyone that's kind of in a similar situation as me, like the non-Indian spouse or maybe doesn't have a network here, I think like social isolation is is a big factor. Like I think like humans need some social network.
21:22 I have been like even though like I have all this stuff that I need to do for my business and even though I hadn't spent so much time on it, like I was putting in extra focus on building that social network early on so that I would have I guess like yeah, I would have that whenever I needed like someone besides my wife to to lean on. >> and I think it's important like you people can read about what other people's experiences are, but they should make the decision for themselves. and once they make that decision, like I said, like I think like you just accept the good and the bad that comes with whatever decision that you make. You know, like there's obviously some downsides like pollution and air quality and traffic and whatever here. but there's also upsides like the cost of living and being near family and support network.
22:19 And Canada has its upsides and downsides too, you know, like the reason I left is it's it's it's expensive. >> One last thing I think especially as you said like a non-Indian spouse, from an immigration perspective, so you took OCI like maybe you can explain about the process like when you decided about moving to India, like how did the process go? >> Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. I actually haven't finished that because we got officially married in October of 2024. And in order to apply for OCI, I think you have to have been married for 2 years. so actually I can't till this October this coming October. But what I was able to do is because I'm married to an OCI I got an entry visa on the category of like spouse.
23:08 And that is valid up to 5 years, but like it's either 5 years or the duration of your passport. And unfortunately my passport expired in 2 years, so I got a 2-year entry visa. And hopefully by the end of that entry visa, I'll have OCI and then I won't have any trouble staying here. And I think entry visa just allows me to stay here. it just doesn't allow me to to seek employment, which is fine cuz I'm not doing that anyway. >> Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. Thanks a lot Stephen for taking the time sharing your story with us. Good luck with everything. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thanks again. >> Yeah, nice chatting.
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