Watch: Navigating Immigration & Returning to India — A Young Couple's Real Story

3:46 Like I should go back because I would I was in a face where you know I I'm I'm married right so I finished the phase where I wanted to explore by myself I'm I really wanted somewhere where I can stay with family so it was either I stay with her my has been in the US or I stay with my parents in India so in that way what happened was I decided to take up the India offer that my company gave me and then because of them I was able to do a smooth transition from the US to India and start working in India so for me I did not have to interview anywhere but I you know the company where I work for was very supportive and helped me through the process yeah that's great I

4:32 Think that you had the smooth internal transfer and that's the best option to you know for a soft Landing right especially when you're you know changing the country I think you kind of touched about this so you are married and so your husband is in us and you are living in India is it right correct I mean if you're okay yeah I know maybe you can share a little bit about the thought process I mean again you know after marriage like you know that's a bit hard decision to you know for somebody to be working in us and somebody to be working in India and that's one aspect like how did you go about it and also like you know for a frequent travel right I mean I I again you know just maybe anything that you can share and also the plans like you know why you made the decision I think if you're okay I mean that would be helpful for the audience yeah yeah sure so I've been married for about three more than three years now so when especially at the time when I did not get my H1B I was married for two years so pretty early in the

5:32 Stage of marriage to be actually looking for long distance but it was a very tough decision like I said you know I wanted us to stay together nobody wants to be separated right yeah so we tried multi we tried to think of multiple ways you know I moved to Canada I try to the grids closer close by but then my thought process was this you know I it's been a long time since I saw my parents it's been a long time since I saw my family and cousins and friends in India and also because my company was willing to send me to India which I am able to retail my job as well right so I thought okay hey let's do this let's let's do the long distance for a bit and we figured you know we had a plan in mind like we are not going more than six months with or five five to six months without meeting each other yeah so how does that work so when I moved to India maybe you know during the December November holidays my

6:33 Husband comes back spends a couple of you know weeks or two like yeah he actually spent about two months in India and then after that we were able to I was able to obtain a H4 Visa sorry yeah so the dependently side and then yeah so I can now basically travel anytime I want if I if I have to see him but the decision here was more about you know when we were deciding especially for the move between me being employed versus me being away from my spouse so the other part is I be with my spouse but I'm unemployed because I can't immediately work on a headphone visa and then I need a EAD and all that right so so that takes a long time and you need to have that approved i-140 and everything to get that going so you know in this stage of my career where I'm still in my late 20s to you know you know basically 29 I don't

7:34 Want to leave my job and then you know just sit at home doing nothing especially when I don't have any other thing like you know taking care of kids or bringing them up so this decision came to us because we didn't have kids first thing and we also were in a stage where our carriers were at its peak you know we don't want to take a break so we thought hey this is a temporary separation we'll figure out a plan later we'll meet every six months but we'll we'll be fine so that's how this decision came along yeah okay thank

8:06 You very much for sharing that and again you know the difficult decision right I mean again you know nobody wants to be separated but I think you just need to prioritize what's important at this current time and so for you like I think you know after spending some time in U.S when you transition you know to India in this last one one and a half year like how has the you know settling going on that's one aspect the second one is if you can talk a little bit on the work-life balance you know somebody working in US versus somebody working in India I think those two topics would be insightful or helpful for the audience sure so it was a pretty easy way to settle down in India because as I have the life in India apart from the five years I was in the US so I didn't feel like an outsider when I came back right I mean I was I felt at home so the adjusting was pretty easy because I

9:07 You know lived with my I I just came back home I mean I just came to landed at the airport and my parents were there to pick me up and then you know I and it was it was a while since I saw them so the first few months went on and you know went on like next day I hadn't even seen my marriage album so I had to come back and you know figure out things meet people and the transaction was very exciting at the beginning but after two months you kind of accept the reality right two months it goes and meeting friends that you've never met before like for a long time and cousins but after two months is when the reality sets in that you know you're here for you know probably another year so is that fine you know are you going to be okay without your husband being here so that's when you know I try to mentally make up my mind to remove you know unlearn whatever I learned in viewers and relearn in India basically so some things are difficult a little bit difficult to adjust which is I mean

10:10 Mainly too for me one is the pollution and the other is the population so being from Bay Area population there was not too much of a difference but pollution a little bit because we are used to living in the U.S with clean air most of the time but here you know what happens you're living in Bangalore in the Heart of the City where there's a lot of noise traffic jams pollution around so I would I would carefully consider it especially if you have respiratory nurses and other things but for me thankfully I didn't have any such problems so I was able to adjust and with masks and everything I was able to get going the other thing population it's okay I mean you have to wait in the crowds for some time to get things done but eventually you will get it done so it's a bit of you know have getting a little bit more of patience when you move to India and you know just the adjusting part of it that needs to be

11:11 Done but for me the rest of the benefits I would say completely outweighed the you know the cons of it which are basically I get to taste my mom's food after so long and I get like you know I am able to interact with go to my relatives players and eat freshly made food over there get some stuff that I could never probably get in the US right I mean there are some food foods that that are only tasty in India so yeah yeah like I mean I'm just I missed all those right so that that was a very good get a thing for me and then the other thing I liked is basically family right I mean there in U.S you have your friends but if you don't have a lot of relatives around you might feel a little homesick and lonely there here I got a chance to you know bond with my grandparents as well because it's

12:12 Been a long time my grandfather is 93 years old and having you know the chance to speak to him again and do activities along with him take him out for lunch that that's that that gave me a lot of Happiness so yeah I think family is the main reason I feel very happy in India and my in-laws right I mean they were very happy that I they hadn't they hadn't even got a chance to talk to me properly because after marriage we went back immediately yeah so I got to like stay with them and you know just enjoy their you know my mother-in-law's food my mom's food everybody's food basically yeah you know I loved it yeah so that's great

12:58 So what about the work life balance or the work culture between us and India because again you can you work for the same firm at both places so anything that you can yeah yeah so I when I like basically of course there's the USD to INR difference that is fairly visible but other than that I think work life's balance wise for me I was in the same project under the same manager with the same team so it did not make too much of a difference at all because the same amount of work that I was doing in the US I am doing in India right there is no difference between that the only difference though I felt was sometimes you have nighttime meetings not all the time you do and basically for me it was fine because I did my mornings free right for a couple of hours I go to the gym I practice yoga I talk to my family I hang

13:58 Out with the people in the mornings and then afternoon till night I'm okay working right and it's not like my work life balance is such that I have to clock in a couple of hours like you know these many offers like services write a product company is different so you end up you know the thing is you know they're happy if I finish the job rather than you know how many hours did you put in how many how much effort did you put in the end of the matter a day you need to finish the job at hand right so that is that that's the thing that my company has always been focusing on and that made me made it very easy for work life balance in India but we do have yeah you do have a constant noise pollution when you are in meetings here but all those are manageable the only thing I would say is if you're not an nocturnal person that is you don't like working in the night times you'll find it a bit of a challenge but depends on the company and the team right some people some companies or

15:00 Teams have meetings every day at night some for example for us like it we get to decide what time the meeting is sometimes Some people prefer early morning where it's compatible with the PST EST time zone Some people prefer our nights because that's compatible with their mornings so it all depends on you know how you fix the deal with them God cool yeah so in terms of your

15:28 Future plans right so is this I know you kind of mentioned this more at this continuing the career path or the progress so is the plan to go back to us for some time and then settle there or you always have some intention to move back they're just curious anything you know you can share from your from your current phase to the future plans yeah right for me I husband we're still discussing what the plan of action should be but I feel like if you have enough U.S work experience right you have that not just U.S you have the global work experience in a different country and you come back to India you are at a much a little little bit of advantage over you know you know getting promotions or getting because you have developed that skill set that might involve you know talking to multiple people being in that Global setting and you know especially if you have a masters from us again that adds

16:29 To the skill set as well so all of these kind of make you you know get you know it's easier to grow in career when you come back to India yeah so if I probably you know stay in the same team for a couple years I'll probably transition to a managerial role and then you know have a good career progress but yeah so that is one advantage you know you as an attorney in Bangalore or in India you get that opportunity to just transition just because of your Global Experience so that is one part of it which you know I also plan on utilizing but the other is there's always the fact that you could still get more experience in the headquarters rather than you know in a India Branch right so you could there's always this backup at the back of my head there is the thought that you

17:29 Know let me go back a few years to the U.S work that get enough experience come back and then contribute to the Indian economy but at the end of the day the idea is to come back and contribute to the Indian economy and are you know benefiting our country in some way so I'm in the Telecom Industries obviously connectivity is the main focus

17:52 Cool so from your perspective are there any topics that we haven't covered or anything that you want to share to the Future aspirants when they're thinking about moving to India sure yeah I you know like basically when I moved I felt a lot of people have asked me this question right why did you come back why you know what what happened and stuff I I I would definitely say that I missed my parents and parents are the main reason for most people to come back to India and the other being you know the medical system here though I was actually very impressed with India's medical system which many people think you know it's Superior and other it is Superior in other countries I'm not saying that but the affordability the you know the accessibility for example I that day I had a I had a case of food poisoning and all I had to do was just walk down to the big hospital next door to next door

18:53 To my house and then get an injection and I'm done I'm fine like you know that's that that kind of service where there are a lot of wait times where there are a lot of you know for example even if you go to the ER yeah you have to wait for a long time to get treatment if you end up and you end up paying so much without especially if you don't have insurance if I don't have to worry about insurance also right in India like it's not that different when you compare with insurance versus without so that is one which attracted me towards India the alternative treatments like Homeopathy and ayurveda and all these that are easily available here which aren't in other countries yeah that is that's one so definitely there's a lot of benefits moving to India but there are also cons being again cleanliness traffic and pollution right one thing I've seen here is I got a lot of time here to focus on myself than any

19:55 Of us the reason being you know most of these for example you know you hire a house help right in India and even though it may be expensive nowadays you end up not having to clean your own house or sometimes even cook because you can hire a cook so in that way what is happening you're getting time for yourself to focus on other activities other important activities like you know focus on health exercise cook multiple other not cook rather you know spend time with families and other things right so this this is what attracted me to urgent care as well so I'll utilize this to you know make my health better as much as possible and if I get a chance to return back to us for because we still haven't figured out how we are going to live together right so so looking at whether my company has any

20:55 Prospects that they can probably do an intra company transfer in the future or you know if I can try and get a work permit something right if that works out I go back if that doesn't work out you know my husband comes back and he tries to find a job here that's all so we will figure that out but these things are one at the back of my head up when you know making decisions yeah cool

21:22 So thank you very much for sharing your journey your experience after moving back to India and and also like working here in India especially with I in your case you know working with the same team same manager it's just such a rare opportunity right so we just have like a fun rapid four questions what's a surprise thing for you after you return to India you can tell both okay so the digitization part of it I mean I was completely mesmerized by the way you know even the street vendors have Google pay and ATM and all these things that I don't I've never carried cash around ever in the last one year that I'm in India yeah not even cards so yes what about on the bad thing back thanks surprise yeah traffic has increased a lot it's not going down it's just going up so infrastructure

22:22 Needs to speed up and you know accommodate that yeah and it's so interesting like digitization is one thing that I hear so often from everyone like how much they are amazed about the progress there right I think yeah and what's your favorite travel destination in India oh I just went to the Enderman me and my husband when he was back in India we took a week off and then we went it was beautiful like you know the food we get Indian food which I I can't get if I go on a tourist place to Hawaii or something not much but I'm a big fan of the Indian food so yeah so we get that and also the Serene beauty of the ocean Indian Ocean and you know very very impressed by that correct and your favorite Indian dish of a lot of a lot of them I would say Pani Puri and then the last one is the

23:24 Favorite part of living in India family for sure great so once again thank you very much manusa I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your journey and the details about thought process there so it's very helpful thanks a lot thank you so much for having me thank you so much thanks thank you all for joining us on this insightful journey of Desi Return if you enjoyed this episode and want to explore more stories and expert advice make sure to subscribe and hit the notification Bell don't forget to leave a comment below with your thoughts and experiences by the way check out the links in the description below for our Facebook group and social media for updates and engaging discussions as well as connecting with below this readers thank you once again and until next time journey be filled with joy growth and endless possibilities