Watch: Are NRIs Moving Back to India? 52 Real Stories
Desi Return year-in-review video covering 52 NRI return stories, why families move back to India, kids' adjustment, spouse alignment, aging parents, financial planning, and 2026 return-to-India reality checks.
The full write-up, with the numbers and the links.
Chapters
- 0:00 Introduction
- 1:10 Story behind starting Desi Return
- 4:10 Initial challenges
- 5:17 Highlights and memorable moments
- 8:22 Desi Return community
- 9:15 Different perspectives
- 10:18 Looking ahead
Transcript
Auto-generated captions, lightly cleaned
0:00 Hey everyone. Welcome back to Desi Ringtones. Can you believe it? It's been a whole year since we started this journey together. We are incredibly grateful for your support, engagement, and all the love you have shown us over the past year. Your comments, shares, and likes have meant the world to us, and we couldn't have done it without you. Every view, every comment, and every share has helped build this amazing community. Thank you for being part of the Desi Ringtones family. And here's to many more years of sharing stories, learning together, and supporting one another. Today's video is going to be a bit different. I want to talk about few things. The story behind Desi Ringtones, initial struggles, highlights during the last 1 year, the community that we built around this, and our future plans.
1:02 Now, let's take a trip down the memory lane and revisit why we started Desi Ringtones in the first place.
1:10 Actually, the inspiration behind Desi Ringtones comes from my own personal journey. After my engineering, I went to US from doing masters in 20 2002. Spending 20 years in US opened up a whole new perspective on life. I had the opportunity to work with diverse group, had built a successful career, and I'm incredibly grateful for the life I had in the US, the career progression, the life-long friends that I have made, and the countless opportunities that came along the way. The idea of moving back wasn't even on the cards until much later.
1:56 It wasn't until 2018, later in 2018, that we started thinking about long-term picture of our life. Where do we want to be when we retire? And what's the best thing for our kids as they growing up and many more. From that initial idea to actually making the move, it was a four-year journey. And in 2022, we finally made the move to Hyderabad. As a part of this transition, I realized that a lot of information was scattered. There were a few WhatsApp groups, but nothing comprehensive that could guide the families through this major decision. After moving, I found myself having some free time after leaving the corporate world, and I wanted to try something out outside my comfort zone.
Read the full transcript (14 more sections)
2:48 The idea of capturing the stories of families moving back to India felt incredibly important. The decision to return is deeply emotional and requires a lot of thought. When I looked around, I noticed there wasn't anything like this, a platform that shares these candid conversational stories. So, I started Desi Return to fill this gap to help families with the decision-making process by providing real and relatable experiences. I committed myself to release at least one story a week for the next one year. I'm happy to say that we we have did it and proud to bring more than 52 impactful stories on the platform.
3:39 Overall, our goal is to bring you these stories, expert advice, and informative videos, all aimed to giving you the information you need to make the best decision for your family. We want these discussions to be genuine and heartfelt, reflecting the real challenges and successes of returning to India. Let's talk about some of the challenges we had with launching the Desi Return. Starting the Desi Return
4:11 Wasn't without its hurdles. I personally had never recorded or uploaded a video on YouTube before. But as they say, it's never too late to start. One of the most significant challenges was finding the guests willing to share their impactful stories. We aim to feature families with diverse backgrounds moving from different countries and who are at various stages in their life. In addition to finding the guest, I also need to learn and find someone who could help with video editing, designing thumbnails, managing podcast pages, and more. It was a learning curve, but it was fun to start this new journey.
4:56 I want to take a moment to thank my team for all their help in getting this started. Without their support, none of this would have been possible. Every challenge taught us something new and made us more determined to succeed, and your support has been the driving force behind all the efforts.
5:17 Let's talk about some highlights and memorable moments in the last 1 year. Over the past year, we have had the privilege of featuring some incredible guests on Desi Return, each with unique and inspiring stories. Our guests have moved to India from all over the world, US, Canada, UK, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Singapore, and many more. People have returned for different reasons to start their own startups, be close with the family, take care of family business, raise their kids in Indian culture, and avoid loneliness in the Western world, and much more. Some of the most memorable are like some unique stories that we have covered in the last 1 year.
6:09 For example, Gautam, who has left the corporate world to join a non-profit and start a spiritual world spending time in the mountains. Mr. and Mrs. Ramakrishnan, who are in their 80s, retired in India, moved here 16 years ago and have been running a non-profit to help the senior citizens. My first episode with Anish and Swati, where we both were trying to figure it out how to capture the story and it's all good old times. We also have shared a very beautiful story of Mr. Nagesh and Mrs. Ranjan, who spent 17 years in India after living in US and now they're currently in US right now. We also had Deva, whose story was not that successful, but he was courageous and provided valuable lessons that could help anyone who was thinking about moving to India.
7:06 We have guests like Ajay, Malvika, whose journey of raising the kids in Indian schools, who left the great careers to start their own startups. We have Prashant, who also moved to India to do his own startup, and many more. By the way, Rajiv and Meena's episode is our first episode that really took off and put us on people's feeds. Their story set the stage for many more to come. We have had experts in financial career planning on our shows, where we ask them the frequently asked questions to provide you with a practical advice and insights. These highlights are just a glimpse of these amazing stories that we have shared.
7:52 Each one has left a lasting impact and contributed to this rich information from Desi Ritam. Thank you all to our guest for sharing the journey and to our audience for being part of this incredible experience. Their story resonated with so many of you and the positive feedback we have received was so overwhelming. It's moment like these that remind us the impact our platform can make. Now let's talk about a little bit on the
8:22 Community. One of the things that we are proud of is the vibrant community that we have built. We have a WhatsApp group with more than 500 people and it's a space where members can share advice, offer support, and celebrate each other's success. We also have a weekly newsletter where we share relevant information related to the news, any updates that can help you during the future planning. We also created a checklist, a comprehensive checklist, to help families who are planning to relocate back to All the links to these resources are provided below. And your engagement and participation in these communities have made a real difference creating a supportive environment for everyone going through this journey.
9:10 I also want to take a moment and talk about the different perspectives.
9:15 At Desi Ritam, we are not here to promote moving back to India. Our goal is to provide real stories of families who have made the decision along the valuable information so you can make an informed decision about whether staying abroad or move to India. We understand the decision to return to India is deeply personal and can be challenging. It's important to make a decision before life passes by. And we acknowledge the diverse perspective of those who choose to stay abroad for various reason. Our aim is to respect and value all viewpoints, provide balanced guidance and support for everyone. We are held here to help you make an informed decision based on real experiences and expert advice. Whether you decide to stay abroad or move to India, we want you to feel confident in your decision, knowing you have considered all the facts.
10:16 As we think for the future, we have some
10:19 Exciting plans and goals for Desi Return. And this is because of the impact that we can make to the families who are doing and we decided to expand and continue the stories that we have been capturing. We are working on the new content ideas like live Q&A, informative guides, discussions with experts, and community events along with these impactful stories that we continue to bring to you. Before we wrap up, I want to hear your thoughts, memories, and future expectations in the comment section below. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button and turn on the notification so you will never miss out on our exciting upcoming content. Thanks a lot for hearing me out and sharing some of my personal thoughts on this first year anniversary.
11:10 And wish you all the best. Thanks.
