R2I - WHY?

a lot of people have asked us to blog about our R2I (Return to India) experience. there are so many things to share, that it is an overwhelming undertaking. i will jot down a few things here, albeit randomly, and hopefully it will take some form.

THE WHY?

I'll start from the time when we (me and Arti) mentally decided that we are going to move to india. at that time Arti had an informal offer from Amazon India. We had a good discussion on the July 4th weekend and decided to go ahead with it. we hadnt done much research on the cost of living in india and in bangalore in particular. a lot of folks have asked us why and what prompted us to take this big decision. For a lot of folks that have R2Ied there has been a pressing reason - sick parents, better career opportunity to move to. That was not the case with us. so why did we move?A lot of things came together for us to make this decision. the main reason was that i was suffering from allergies in seattle for the last 5 years. every passing year the severity and duration of my allergies was increasing so much so that i was pretty much miserable 24x7 almost throughout the year. Finally in 2010 we decided to move out of seattle. The lure of dry and sunny weather was also a big pull to move out of seattle. the next question was if not seattle then where? we settled on 2 alternatives - bay area in california and somewhere in india. my elder brother stays in bay area. that was a BIG incentive for us to move there. in addition we had many many close friends over there and so we would continue to be socially active there. Plus we didnt mind the sunny weather :) as we started considering this option very seriously, one big con that came up was that bay area is very very expensive. a decent house (about 2400 sq ft and less than 20 yrs old) was around the million dollar mark. in addition private education for 2 kids is very expensive. going the public education route limited us to a few areas in bay area and then the house prices were even more expensive. all in all, this would have meant a hefty mortgage and both of us having to work in a more aggressive work culture to make ends meet for our standard of living and have some savings. however the pros were very attractive and so we seriously pursued this option. towards the end of 2010 and the start of 2011 both me and arti had a few interviews with different companies in bay area. however nothing worked out to our satisfaction. around march of 2011, my manager came to me to sell an opportunity of a bigger team. since i was anyway panning to leave work in a few months it didn't seem right to accept the opportunity. so i told my manager about my decision to leave microsoft. once i had that off my chest, i decided to leave microsoft earlier than planned and so 1st april was my last working day. the plan was to take a few weeks off, concentrate on alternative allergy treatments, workout and then start looking for jobs in bay area. however the time off turned out to be great. it is unimaginable the amount of stress one has (mostly subconsciously) when one goes to work. i started doing NAET (allergy treatment using acupuncture) and would go 2 hrs every alternate day. the rest of the time i spent being with the boys, working out, cooking, going to parks, etc. it was a very enjoyable period and i would highly recommend a break to anyone who hasn't had one in a long time. slowly my allergies also started improving and the thought of preparing for and then starting a new job didn't seem too appealing. i really wanted an extended break since this was a great time to have one and moving to california would not afford us that luxury.

in the meanwhile, arti was busy organizing a charity dinner event for CRY. After the event, one of the CRY volunteer was talking to his manager about how arti did a great job in organizing the event and that too with a bunch of volunteers. his manager mentioned that he would be interesting in talking to her. this was in amazon. he spoke to arti and they had openings in india. amazon has offices in bangalore, chennai and hyderabad. when arti told her manger about this development, her manager encouraged her to look at all india openings since this would be a big move. he put her in contact with appropriate people at higher levels and this expedited the process. within a few days she was in touch with 3-4 groups in india. around that time frame, we had planned a trip to india since it was arti's mom's 1st death anniversary. once we were in india, we went to bangalore for 3 days and arti got to chat further with 3 groups. once we came back to seattle, the groups doled out informal offers based on internal recommendations. she didn't have to go through any interviews and the whole process went very fast. come july, we had to make a decision whether to pursue this further. i always wanted to go back to india or at least give it a shot. not for any pressing reason, but i have always imagined myself being in india in the long term. there was a sense of not belonging or some sort of emptiness in US. don't get me wrong. life there was very enjoyable, comfortable and there was time to do things. however in the last few years it seemed increasingly meaningless, materialistic and i felt the need to connect more with people. it is something that is a bit difficult to put down. another factor contributing to the move to india was that we all had our US citizenship and OCI cards done and so there is always the option of coming back. Also the kids are young and barring health issues would find it easier to adjust to india.Once kids become older it adds to the complexity of the decision. As it is i was on a break and that also made the move to india easier since i would continue to be on a break and help settle the kids and family before starting my job hunt. financially me being on an extended break was less of a hit in india that in california. also we wanted to go there when there was no pressing need. we had always thought that whenever there was a pressing need we would head back to india. however when arti's mom was battling cancer for 2 yrs, we didnt end up relocating to india. one can argue that there were a bunch of very legitimate reasons for not doing that. instead what we ended up doing was go to india every 6 months. we weren't very proud of our decision after her demise and don't want to put ourselves in that situation again. also fit grandparents would be a huge help to ease the transition of us and especially our kids back to india. so all in all it was deemed worth to take the big step at this point of time.