Watch: Single Parent Return to India After Divorce: Kids, Schools, Custody

4:11 So it was a good time you know to to come back and the reason for coming back was for family for you know spending more time with parents or for the daughter to spend more time with grandparents on both sides and maybe raise her in the way we were raised you know more Indian upbringing and closeness to family cousins uncles things like that and some of those goals were met and again you know as it happens whenever you take a decision you can't really predict how it will go so in my case many things worked moving to India I think working in India gave me a good foundation for my life you know that work life was always the same you know at work all the facilities were there there were conference rooms there were there were laptops there you know it looked like my workplace in the US outside of course was a different story but the work really satisfied me and and I felt

5:11 Very good about it but on my personal side things didn't go as well so you know there was more interaction with in-laws you know the extended family and of course life happens and my marriage didn't survive the move so very quickly actually two years years after moving to India I separated from from my then husband and I had to figure out life on my own of course there was always option of going back to the US I had a green card and some people said that that's what I should do but it just didn't feel right so I continued to live in Hyderabad and work and made a new life so in many ways you know going back to that part of my life I would say that going from India to us I had to to discover who I was in the US as as a person but when I came back to India I had to do that again I had to find myself find my place in society you know what is it I need to do I had

6:12 To make some tough decisions and life changes so both of these transitions to me were life-changing they fundamentally changed me as a person I can't hear you sorry yes thanks a lot for the you know that detailed background and how things went you know after moving to India sounds like I think it's for the family I think you got the opportunity to spend time with the parents and and I think the big thing that you mentioned about especially you know when you're talking about in 2000s how much drastic difference in 1990s right between India and the US and how India has evolved with in the last you know in 2000 compared to what it was in '90s and and then the Indian work culture at that time at least I think you know it it it is in a close and I know I think you moved from India to Singapore you know right now

7:13 That's where you are spending time so maybe before that I know you mentioned about like you know starting your life again you know figuring it out and all that stuff is there anything that you can share with the people like you know some of the things that you have to go to something that works something that you know people needs to be aware of if you're okay to share I think that could be helpful you know for the audience sure I think now things are different for example you know there's not that much difference between countries in the world in terms of you know how technology works you know there are ATMs everywhere everyone's on WhatsApp there's social media there are smartphones access is there exposure is there knowledge is there everything is in your phone or in your laptop top so you know a lot of the unknown part that used to exist even 20 years ago when I came to India it was like do you have broadband connection you know these were real life questions that that you had to deal with and I think now

8:14 A lot of this information is avilable online at the same time there is a large number of experts who have moved back to India so there is also you know access to communities where these kind of questions can get answered so the thing is you know your practical life maybe you know all the answers but your internal life you know how will you feel how open are you to adjustment I think that depends on the individual so many times one person in the family says I want to go back to India after leaving abroad because they have a burning desire to go back for some reason maybe there is a sick parent maybe there is some property issue they need to settle maybe there's some health issue for them or someone else they want to tackle in India with family support the reasons could be many but the thing is if you are a family with a spouse and children they may not feel the same way about how you feel how strongly you feel about moving back to India which means the level of commitment is different the expectation is different the ability

9:16 To put up with thing things when they don't go your way you know your patience is different so even back then in 2003 I knew families who came to India with the best intention and within 6 months they went back either the traffic didn't work for them the schooling didn't work for them or the day-to-day life which requires more effort in India honestly even today because you're dependent on a lot of factors those things got to them and and they went back on the other hand many people said they went back because they felt their children had better education abroad which I do not buy completely because in India depending on what you want to priori there are many good schools there are many systems of Education now that you can put your child into a school which suits your child children end of the day most children I would say are very good at taking their cues from the adults so if the adult is comfortable

10:16 With the move the adult is making their way through you know figuring out things in a new country in know in a rational Manner and in general they seem like they're having a good time the children are also having a good time but if you as a parent is stressed always if you are fighting fires all the time if you are always angry or upset or irritated you know the children also pick up on it and you know they carry that forward so I feel a lot of the adjustment has to do with the primary person who is making the move and how much bandwidth they have to accommodate their own fam's different reactions to the same move so that is something I would I would say that Be watchful how how you are dealing with your move it is a big move it is a big decision but your family is taking your cues from you so you really need to include their feelings their emotions their reactions in it otherwise again it's not a very pleasant place to be if that same move is having different

11:19 Impact on each member of your family definitely I mean I think it's a big decision and a big big move right I mean whether it's going back to India or or maybe even a different country at the end of the day right in those cases I think the family everybody needs to be on board so otherwise it's just not going to be an easy one and the other thing that you mentioned about I think you know in terms of the experiences that everybody have I mean if somebody has the flexibility it's always a good idea to you know spend a month or two months not as a visitor but actually you can rent a furnished apartment and live as if you're living just to experience experience how the life could be I think that should give a glimpse of you know how the lifestyle in India would look like and then you know make a decision you know because these are big decisions there are some hesitations about from a spouse part like in terms of how things could work out these are important things to consider and make the right decision there was one point I think that you mentioned and I think it definitely good to explore

12:21 Further is on the education right maybe in your case I think if there is anything that you can share right I think you know your kid has done some primary education and then doing education in a different country later is there anything that you can share in terms of the different curriculums or you know the academic rigor from one country to the other country or anything on that sort because those are common questions in terms of which curriculum to choose or you know what would happen when they grow up you know they go back abroad again and all that stuff if there's anything that you can share on the education side from your perspective that would also be valuable sure so my daughter was she got into first grade in India so in many ways she had not had formal education in the US she had been to kindergarten so her first foray was into Indian education she went to the cbsc board and since I spent 10 years in India she

13:22 Actually completed one to grade 1 to 10 in India to be honest the she had many classmates who were like her over those 10 years you know who started with her or who came at later times who had moved from us mostly to Hyderabad and they were her classmates and many of these students went on to go since I can look back and tell you my story they these children grew up in India and then after 12th they went back to the US for their undergraduate education and you know 10 more years have passed to that and I see these young adults now and they're all perfectly fine they have a very good grounding and they see themselves primarily as Indians in whatever country they are because of the years spent until 18 I think those are the formative years same is true with my daughter as well she's very close to these people my daughter is back in the US now she did her Masters and she's working there but she's very close to these friends

14:24 Who went to school with her in Hyderabad and who are now living in the US many of them like her they were born there so they are US citizens by birth and even if they are not they were born in India but spent early years in the US and then again you know they've lived in two countries they all seem to figure out the world very well they seem to be very well adjusted of course Growing Up Is Hard becoming an adult is difficult every generation has its own challenges they have all that but I see them as very well adjusted you know nice nice young people to hang out with so don't worry so much about curriculum which board and stuff like that I think support understand your kid and support your kid through their Journey the younger they are the easier it is to settle into the Indian schooling system because they don't know anything else sometimes I know kids who came in a little later maybe around age 10 to India they do have difficulty

15:25 Picking up a new language because they've learned only English so right in Hindi or telu or whatever is a local language they are a little concerned about that however children do learn most children do learn well and there are other schools you know like there are the world of schools and many other alternate curriculum choices are available today so take your you know take your cues from your kids support them in their Learning Journey and they they will integrate they will take all the input that come into their life from school from home from their Playmates and if you look at it through the long length of time you know from since you can't see the future but I can look back at the past and say that it all worked out well you know it wasn't there is no need to stress overly stress about this okay cool sounds like I think lot of kids who moved in that like you know went back to

16:25 Us for Bachelors and did Masters and all that stuff okay so maybe is there anything I think you know you can say like you could have done differently looking back about the move I know it's a long time back or if you are thinking of coming back again or you know living in a different country like is there anything that you do differently or approach it differently or any other insights to other people right I mean you know who are considering about the move I think you made an excellent point saying that if you know since you are making a commitment to change your place of residence for a long period of time that you don't have to do it blind come and try it out you know stay not as a tourist but as a resident of this place and now more choices are available right you can have airbnbs that you can rent in fact right now we have friends from Singapore who are test driving their return to India so they don't have affiliation for a particular city in

17:27 India to live because they've been out of India for a long time so they are taking a few months and renting in different places within India which they feel may be a good match for them at this stage of their life of course their kids are grown but even for themselves as a couple they are staying in different places trying it out to get a feel for the place before they decide I think that's an excellent idea if you have the ability to do it on the other hand if you are you know a younger family with small kids if both husband and wife are working and you need family support and that's your primary reason then of course your city or town of choice is limited to where your folks are and that may be fine but again think about it and try it out do you want to live in the same house with them do you want to live nearby so you have support and still have an independent establishment try that out come during summer vacations if if that is what you need to do if your kids are in school and see how how they feel

18:30 And take all that data back including day-to-day life you know it will be different it won't be exactly the same though I think the differences are shrinking now you know you get door delivery of everything you can order food you can order groceries and and you can choose whether you're working from home or you know you can choose your the length of your commute if you have to go to office you can find a place closer to office depending on cities where traffic is bad so do a test run maybe if your employer allows you to try this working from abroad for for a while you can you know extend it a bit and and see how it feels you know there is no point to suffer or cause suffering for yourself or the others but don't forget that there are pluses also to moving back to India if if you feel strongly about going back and creating a life in your home country the pluses are also there the the things that I really enjoyed about coming back to India was was the festivals you know I had holidays on my

19:31 Festivals as opposed to trying to celebrate every holiday on the weekend you know like Diwali was always on the weekend or many of the other festivals got sidelined because you didn't have a holiday so in India you have a holiday for your festivals and the spirit because everyone is celebrating it or the majority are celebrating it you get caught up in in the spirit these are things that you can't buy you can't substitute so being part of that culture and and remember that you can depending on you you can always make friends in in a new place and it's the same thing as when you left India to go abroad you met very interesting people similarly you will meet very interesting people in India I would honestly honestly say that I met many inspiring people in my time in the US but I met an equally large number of inspiring people in India and the difference was in India people at all levels of society can inspire you because the struggle is real there is a difference in your life and the life of the people whose

20:31 Life intersects with yours and you have to understand that everyone is just trying to to do the best they can and I was very impressed by many people in India and so be open to the good experiences that you can have there is a tendency and it's a human tendency to always complain and to focus on what is not working but many things are working and a lot of these are little bit hidden and you need to be patient and and find that so I would say I made great friends in my time in Hyderabad that I lived totally new people who I had not known before from school it or college some were work colleagues but not necessarily everyone so all that is available for you when you come back yeah I I think as you said I think there is no like a perfect place anywhere I think it depends on what's more important to you at your stage of life and and see that resonates you know which place could work or what that option could work I think that should be driving it more because there's

21:32 Always be some negative things that that irritates but you know as long as the major big things checks off I mean I think you know that could help you with the decision process so I know I think you have written a couple of books you know which could be relevant to you know some of the you know audience is there anything that you can share or you know talk about that you know that could definitely be very helpful for the audience yeah happy to do that when I returned from California to Hyderabad I was writing articles for a local magazine there in California which which is still existing and I offer to write a a monthly column on how my experience was about returning to India because just like you are doing it now 20 years later this topic has been hot for a long time so even then people were moving back there was curiosity about how it is working out for individuals and family and so every month I would write a column about different aspects of my move back to India and it was written in

22:34 That first year of my return you know the first year is the hardest for anything of college of marriage of moving you know so in that first year I wrote this as it happened and I would submit these columns and what I have done is I have compiled all those columns and I have published an ebook it's called no longer NRI so no longer non-resident Indian which which was the term that is used used for you when you don't live in India and I realized when I moved back to India that I was no longer a non-resident I was a resident Indian so that book is available on Amazon I write under the name of ranjini RA and it's only an ebook so it's available on Amazon so anyone who's interested to see how your move back to India affects your work life your home life you know what are the pros and cons travel day-to-day life all that I have covered in that book that is one the other book I have written is more recent and this is I think during the pandemic is when I wrote it this

23:34 Is the one I have a copy of because it's a also a print book it's called rewriting my happily Ever After A Memoir of divorce and Discovery this is also available on Amazon and this actually focuses on a very specific aspect of my life as I mentioned in the beginning the move back to India from the US didn't work out for my marriage and I had to separate from my then husband and I was living in Hyderabad which was not my hometown I had to figure out my life my work my to rent a place to figure out how to take care of my daughter who was going to school and you know the difficulties of being a single parent in India which are exacerbated because you know there is no organized daycare in India a lot of people rely on Family Support to watch your kid while you go to work generally people are not famous with one person renting a house for themselves they expect families to be renting they expect men to be leading any conversation including something which

24:36 You know one of the funniest thing was when I went to buy a car and the the guy at the dealership I said I want to test drive this car and I he said who will drive it and I said I will drive it and he was quite surprised but you know these these are the things that happen and I have written about my journey to build a new life I did build a new life in Hyderabad I you know I bought my own apartment and as I mentioned about my own car I had a job in fact from my job I transitioned as an independent consultant to help be at home and my daughter comes back from school so a lot of Life issues I have dealt with in in this book and what I have found that this subject is still there's a lot of stigma associated with divorce in India and my book has really helped a lot of people and as a result have lost a podcast called rewriting your happily ever after in which other women have come forward to share their story so these are things if the

25:37 Listeners are interested they can look me up I'm ranjani ra I have a website ran.com and you know life goes on I think the main point I want to make is it doesn't matter where you live these are decisions we all take and there is no one perfect path to to to any goal even if the goal is specific there are many paths to it and in a way it's good we can't see our future because we H we are constantly asked to make those difficult decisions not knowing how it will turn out so when I bought my apartment in Hyderabad I was so happy because this was my own place you know my name was on the on the board and no one you know I was not renting anymore I wouldn't have anyone telling me to vacate and stuff like that but you know few years after that I had to leave I I had to move to Singapore and again I'm an NRI but you know now I'm at a different phase of my life so that time I was in my 20s and then when I

26:37 Moved to Singapore I I was already in my 40s and it's different so when you move especially these large moves it depends on where you are in life which phase of life and did I know what was in the future of course I I don't know but I came again to a new country and I am embrace the experiences I had here Singapore is very different from us it's very tiny it is also Multicultural but you know it's a city it's a city state so it's a very small place I don't need to drive here because the public transport is excellent but I had to find a job I had to settle into a new routine with with my new family and things like that so the DIY return theme of your show you know addresses a question of moving back to India but I think right now India is in a very good place because it's a two-way street you can leave India and you can come back to India and you can leave India again which is what I have

27:38 Done and maybe in a few years I will move back to India so it's not a one time that I will never again do this in my life many people move for jobs they are posted abroad for a few years they come back to India they posted to another country I think that's going to become more and more common so it's good to collect data from people but but I think it's also trust yourself be open to new experiences one of the things I feel is that particularly with Indians when we go abroad we want to create a mini India in the new place we want to hang out only with Indians we want to eat only Indian food we want to talk about movies and cricket and things like that but the truth is the blessing of being outside your country is that you can meet so many interesting people you can learn about so many cultures you can assimilate some practices that other people do which may work out for you and yes you can read about everything on Google but until you live in a new place you cannot absorb the atmosphere of this new place and before you know it it

28:39 Becomes part of you you are not that same person you are a different person so I was a different person when I moved to the US and when I returned to India but now I'm a different person as well because I have Ed things from Singapore something Singapore does excellently and of course like with any place it it's not perfect perfect but it has an impact on me so I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity to live in many cities in India and different countries oh yeah for sure I mean I think some of the key points that you mentioned is it's the world is becoming more globalized right so it doesn't matter where you live you can still work you know with covid you know we have tested the work from home or remotely like there's a lot of things that you can do remotely the connectivity has increased you know the systems have changed so you know you can get lot of these things that are available in the Western countries in India and the same thing like you know there are lot of these multicultures you know that experiences it becoming a very globalized so it's not like you're making a decision where you can't go

29:39 Back and you know depending on that and then each journey I think the experience makes you better I mean you know that experiences make you think in a different way right I think you know that's what the journey is about at each stage because you experience like how other people interact or you look at like how things work then you kind of your thought process would change so as a journey I mean it's just learning throughout the process but I think from my perspective the key thing is you know make a decision at any point and not let life lead by its own right I think you know whether you want to return back to India or whether you want to stay just decide instead of like letting the life go as is and later realize oh what happened you know the 10 years passed and then you know it might be difficult for the family whatever it is I think you can make a decision and if it's reversible decision it's always easy to make you know don't spend a lot of time go with your gut feel because you can always come back I mean I don't think but if it is not a reversible yeah

30:40 Put some thought through it understand it and make sure everybody's on board I I think but my biggest thing is make a decision whether or one way or the other instead of like let the life go by but just that's quick summary of like you know what I heard and I think Rin I mean is there anything that we haven't touched that you would like to tell the audience you know from your experiences living in different countries have seen India at different phases and so on anything that we haven't touched that you want to tell the audience you know they say about regrets right like you know a lot of people have regrets in their life and mostly the regrets are for things you did not do even if you did something stupid you know like got a tattoo or something you're still okay I wanted a tattoo I got a tattoo and maybe it's irreversible but most people regret what they did not do so if you have it in your mind that this is something I want to try whether it's moving back to India or you know even if it is moving out

31:42 Of India it could be both ways that just go with it like you said you know make a decision and see where that leads you because at least then that question is answered in your mind so the regret for things not done lingers because you don't know how it would have turned out while for the decisions you took you know how it turned out like in my case I knew what happened I came back to India my marriage broke up I did not Factor it into my decision making and it happened but guess what that put me on another Journey it made me learn many things about myself I became more independent I I learned more about myself I think I got more self-awareness I developed a lot more confidence and that might not have happened otherwise so just make that decision you will not regret the things you did and you might who knows you might even proud of the that decision that you took so I would say go for it yeah experience the life and yeah so thank you very

32:44 Much ranani for taking your time and sharing your insights so we'll put the links in the video you know how you can reach out to ranini if you have further questions once again thanks a lot and wish you all the best I think you know in your decision in terms of whether to come back or go to another country life is Journey and then we are experiencing it and thanks a lot for your time thank you so much for having me yeah thank you all for joining us on this insightful journey of Dy 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

33:45 As connecting with fellow Thea wrers thank you once again and until next time may your Thea written journey be filled with joy growth and endless possibilities