Returning to India After 30+ Years in the US: What Actually Changes

Key Takeaways

• Even after 34 years abroad, the desire to return can persist - it's never too late
• The 45X retirement corpus formula: 45 times your annual expenses at age 53
• COVID was a wake-up call - watching neighbors pass away while parents survived
• Social network is highly underrated - at 53, it's very difficult to make new friends
• UPI and instant delivery (Blinkit) have blown away this long-term NRI
• The 80/20 rule: 80% time with parents, 20% with friends
• Have realistic expectations - a phone call to the bank doesn't solve everything

The Beginning: Tea Gardens to Darjeeling

Sumit's story begins in the tea gardens of Assam, where his father worked in the tea industry:

"I was born in Kolkata. We have our ancestral family home here. However, my dad was in the tea industry, so we grew up in Assam - lower Assam, upper Assam, and the Dooars area."

Back then, Assam lacked good schools, so "tea kids" were sent to boarding schools in hill stations:

"For the most part back in the day, the place that everyone sent their kids to was in some hill station - Dehradun or Darjeeling. It was boarding school. My dad decided on Darjeeling, so I spent essentially from the first grade all the way to the 12th grade there."

The routine: nine months in school, then back to Assam during winters when it got too cold (no heating in the schools).

The Move to America: Following the Crowd

In 1990, Sumit went to the US - not necessarily because he wanted to:

"I don't even think I really wanted to go to the US. I just went because it was a family thing. My brother was there - he was four years older than me. My parents felt like, well, the elder son is there, the younger son's about to go too. So I just kind of did that. I followed in his footsteps."

This honest admission resonates with many NRIs who followed the well-worn path to America without deeply questioning if it was right for them.

"In those days, there was this huge glut of people kind of going to the US - whether it's to further their education or their career. If you were halfway decent in academics, that was kind of what you did."

A Non-Traditional Career Path: 4 Jobs in 30 Years

Unlike most Indians who pursued engineering, medicine, or IT, Sumit took a different route:

"In our time, kids that were going to the US were going to become a doctor or an engineer. Later on, everyone was going to some form of IT, software development, coding. Mine was relatively non-traditional. I was not necessarily big into academics. I was more of a liberal arts kind of a guy."

Four jobs in 30 years - a remarkably stable career in non-traditional fields.

The Vanilla Ice Cream Analogy

Sumit's most memorable insight is his comparison of American life to vanilla ice cream:

"I equate the American experience to vanilla ice cream. Who doesn't like vanilla ice cream? Everyone loves vanilla ice cream. And if you have a hankering for vanilla ice cream, you'll probably love vanilla ice cream. But it's vanilla ice cream - there's nothing special about it. It's predictable."

What the US offered:

"The education was very solid. The big advantage in the US is things are very organized, very structured, very disciplined. You learn how to conduct yourself and comport yourself professionally. You learn interpersonal skills, the soft skills. I learned a lot, met a lot of really talented people."

What was missing:

"I was never really - call it intellectually, spiritually, morally - really stimulating. I found it quite boring."

The Corporate Climb: A Double-Edged Sword

As Sumit rose in his career, he encountered challenges that many senior professionals face:

"As you climb in your career and get a little bit higher up, the corporate side tends to become really political. There's a lot of administrative work, HR-related work. You're spending less time on what you like to do and more time on administrative things."

The hardest part? Making decisions that conflicted with his values:

"You have to make some hard decisions - terminating people that you necessarily don't want to terminate because of bottom line requirements. As you go up, those things start weighing on you. You want to kind of get away from that."

The Pull of Home: Always There

Despite 34 years abroad, Sumit always wanted to return:

"I pretty much always wanted to move back. It was always kind of in the back of my mind. Looking back retrospectively, I don't even think I really wanted to go to the US."

The thought of returning kept moving forward:

"There is always a reason to not leave the US, right? Whether it's a personal thing, whether it's a professional thing, there's always a reason. But it started out back here and then every subsequent year started coming a little bit further ahead."

COVID: The Tipping Point

The pandemic became the catalyst that turned intention into action:

"What really tipped it over the edge was COVID. I have older parents - my dad is almost 90, he's going to turn 90 in August. My mom is almost 80. When COVID hit and was devastating pretty much all over the world, especially among older people..."

The wake-up call:

"Somehow or other my parents survived - they didn't get a single COVID issue. My brother actually came and he ended up getting COVID, but my parents never did. When my parents survived and everyone around them - in our neighborhood, some family and friends - started passing away, it really made me consciously think of spending time with them. How many other years they have - I wanted to come back and spend time with them."

The decision crystallized:

"Once COVID happened, I said okay, I am going to now put this on turbo and figure out a way to go back. I drew a date - this is going to be the date. Obviously there are financial considerations, you want to get to a certain nest egg. I said, once I hit that on that date, I'm done."

The 45X Retirement Corpus Formula

Sumit shares his practical approach to financial planning:

"You can go down a rabbit hole here that you can never get out of. You can start trying to itemize things and what is it going to cost. There's so much information out there on YouTube that you could just get wrapped up in the details. You can't see the forest from the trees."

The Three Key Factors

"For me it was: 53, I'm moving to Kolkata where I have a family home, and I want to live comfortably but I don't want to live ostentatiously. I'm not going to just spend money for the sake of spending money, but I want to live comfortably. I want to be able to make trips - a couple trips domestically a year, an international trip if not every year, certainly every other year."

The Formula

"I came up with a multiplier which was essentially 45 times my annual expenses. That's the math that I came up with. At 53, if I have 45 times my annual expenses, that's enough to cover me comfortably all the way through."

The Investment Strategy

"I have my investments in the US in very simple index mutual funds. The S&P has historically since its inception returned about 10.5% a year, and inflation adjusted is about 6.5% - about 6.5% real."

On the India inflation concern:

"People will say 'but the inflation in India living in India is higher.' True, but historically also the US dollar has significantly appreciated over the Indian rupee. It has its ups and downs, so it kind of offsets it. All said and done, you're still getting about 6.5-7% pretty consistently."

Life in Kolkata: What Blew Him Away

Sumit returned to Kolkata in April 2024. Here's what surprised him:

UPI: The Game Changer

"I am just amazed at the fintech sector, specifically UPI. The ability to pay for a 10 rupee cup of tea to the local vendor outside my house all the way up to buying a car via your cell phone without ever taking out cash, without ever taking out a credit card is absolutely unbelievable to me."

"In the US, we have something like Apple Pay, but Apple Pay is certainly not utilized everywhere. Not everyone accepts it. So you're always pulling out a credit card or cash or swiping. The whole UPI sector is just absolutely amazing - how essentially money has come a little bit overground and every little vendor, the guy selling fish, the guy selling tea, everyone takes UPI."

Instant Delivery: Blinkit Magic

"This instant delivery of products - the Blinkit culture of being able to get things so quickly is just amazing to me. You order whatever you need, in 10 minutes, sometimes less than that, it's here. It's here in like five minutes."

"My mom, the girl that's working in the house says 'Oh, we need onions or potatoes' and she Blinkit's it - in five minutes it's here. I'm amazed. I have Amazon Prime in the US and that takes like a day or 36 hours to come!"

What Drives Him Crazy: WhatsApp Culture & News

Sumit is refreshingly honest about what bothers him:

The WhatsApp Forwarding Epidemic

"The WhatsApp culture and how everyone forwards videos all day long to you. I get a hundred of these videos - whether it's a political video, now it's India-Pakistan, before that it's cricket. All day. And you might be on multiple groups, so your mom sends it to you and then she forwards it to the same WhatsApp group - now you get it twice."

"This whole culture of sharing - it's like we're all watching the same cricket match, we're all watching the same India-Pakistan thing. I don't need like 500 of these things showing up on my WhatsApp. I've actually told people - guys, I hate to say it, I just don't watch this stuff, so please don't send it."

The Screaming News Channels

"The television news - everyone on the news is screaming and yelling. The anchor is screaming. He'll have a panel of seven or eight people. They're all screaming. I don't know what to hear. I don't know what to listen to."

"My dad listens to all of this stuff - it's running nonstop. All of these channels have these highly provocative guys, over-the-top personalities, very loud and abrasive. The minute that stuff comes on, I just put on my earbuds. I'm done. I'm out."

His solution:

"The minute I came to India, I had to silence all the notifications. That was driving me bananas. But in the grand scheme of things, these are not big issues. I found ways around it."

Time with Parents: The 80/20 Rule

Sumit has found a balance that works:

"My dad, who by the way is turning 90, says my coming back has given him 10 years more of life. He's going to be 100 now! They're doing very well, in great health. My mom is overall in great health - she has some arm issues, but cognitively they're very solid and quite active."

The practical impact:

"Anytime my dad would go out to the bazaar, my mom would be pacing. She knows that him to the bazaar and back is like 45 minutes. On the 46th minute, she's going to be standing outside looking. On the 47th minute, if he's not here, she's going to call him. If he doesn't pick up the phone, now she's panicking."

"Now I go to the bazaar with my dad. I don't let him go anywhere. He's still driving by the way - he's 89 years old, turning 90, and he's still driving around. I've had to reduce the perimeter of his driving - now it's just kind of Salt Lake to airport and back, this side. And nothing at night."

The Balance Formula

"I use a variation of the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule basically says 20% of people do 80% of the work. Well, I use a variant of this: I spend 80% of my time at home and 20% of my time with my friends. That's the 80/20 rule for me."

The Social Network Warning

Sumit's most important advice for returning NRIs:

"One of the most underrated parts of the move back to India, if you are moving back on a full-time basis, is the importance of a social network. I think this is highly underrated."

"If you are a person that is moving back to India after 20 years and you just decide - because of whatever reasons, financial, so on and so forth - that I'm moving to Bangalore, and you don't have a built-in social network, whether it's friends, whether it's family, it's going to be very difficult for you."

The reality at 53:

"A - you're going to get bored very quickly. B - you are going to struggle to make friends. Specifically at my age, at 53, it's very difficult to make new friends. And the friends that you make are going to be more acquaintances. The relationships are going to be a lot more cosmetic."

Sumit's advantage:

"I have very close friends. My core group of friends that I went to school with have done different things and gone different places, but they're all still here - they've come back. So my core group of boys that I grew up with in school are still here. We meet once a week, sometimes twice a week."

What He Loves About India

"I love everything about India. Specifically Kolkata - I love Kolkata. I kind of grew up here. My grandparents were here. I have an emotional connection with the city."

Realistic Expectations: The Key to Success

"Have realistic expectations. The reason for disappointment in life is because we have expectations. We plan and we're all excited and jazzed up about going to Paris. For six months, we were thinking about Paris and Eiffel Tower and Parisian food. You go to Paris and you're like 'Okay, it's not all that it's cracked up to be.' Well, it's not all that because you built this up in your head."

The romantic vs. realistic view:

"A lot of people will say 'Oh, life in India is so easy - you can have help, you can get stuff delivered, you don't have to cook, you don't have to clean.' Those are all true, but it's not that easy. Life in India is not as easy as people make it out to be, specifically for someone who's coming back."

"If you think that a phone call to the bank takes care of all your banking concerns - that doesn't occur. Have realistic expectations."

The Final Verdict

"It was a hard call, but honestly I just couldn't be happier. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Certainly the best thing that's happened in a long time."

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