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By Rajkamal Rao
By Rajkamal Rao
See Also:
The Three Generation Problem
Could returning to India be an option?
We come back to the first audience segment - the well settled Indian family in the US who is considering returning to India. The proverbial 64 million dollar dilemma is: US or India?
You are used to the many comforts the West offers. Your children like their schools and are doing well in numerous extracurricular activities. You and your spouse have built a solid network of friends (and sometimes family) and the children of your friends are friends of your children. Play dates, sleepovers, birthday parties, religious events at home and the local temple, cultural events at which your family participates have all created a mini-India 10,000 miles away from home so much so that you don’t really miss India after all.
But wait. You constantly feel that there is still something missing in life - a feeling exaggerated whenever you reflect on the long flight back home from a vacation to India and during the weeks after your return. Perhaps you miss your parents or other elders. Or a sibling is already caring for your elders - so you feel obligated to do more. Or you hear about that college friend who was really good at nothing but who is now in a senior position either running an entire division at a multinational or doing well in business. Or you lament that your kids have become much too westernized, cannot communicate with your relatives in the language you grew up with and worse, have no emotional connection to the country you left behind.
And you strongly consider moving back to India - for good. You comfort yourself by recalling that just in the last year, you know of a few families who have returned and have heard about them doing well. You know that there is even a term for people like you - Repat - Indians who left for educational or work opportunities abroad but then are returning as India’s economy began to boom.
You have a long discussion with your spouse and raise it at the weekend dinner/movie night with your close friends. Until then, the discussion to return to India had just been academic - but now, it is turning serious. And for a few weeks, you even Google job openings, real estate prices in India, school possibilities - and then, all of a sudden, much like a New Year’s resolution to lose weight, the interest fizzles. Things return to your normal western routine. And you derive comfort from your daily calls to India, the Facebook updates and the Skype video chats. Until, next year when you return from India on that long flight. And the cycle repeats.
Welcome to the world of the diaspora Indian: a life in which the Indian is never really at peace with his or her decision to move westward.
The US .v. India dilemma applies equally to men and women, although, for women, the drive to return to India may be sometimes less severe. Women are torn between the love for their own families in India and the unwritten expectation of having to re-enter into deeper relationships with members of their husbands’ families to uphold the traditional Indian lifestyle. Working women generally enjoy more freedom in the US workplace and appreciate the sense that their effort is valued and rewarded. In the comfort of their western homes, these women enjoy more freedom running their families without interference from their in-laws or meddling relatives. And women fearful of lack of basic security to life and limb appreciate the blanket of safety that US suburban living generally provides.
The Three Generation Problem
Could returning to India be an option?
We come back to the first audience segment - the well settled Indian family in the US who is considering returning to India. The proverbial 64 million dollar dilemma is: US or India?
You are used to the many comforts the West offers. Your children like their schools and are doing well in numerous extracurricular activities. You and your spouse have built a solid network of friends (and sometimes family) and the children of your friends are friends of your children. Play dates, sleepovers, birthday parties, religious events at home and the local temple, cultural events at which your family participates have all created a mini-India 10,000 miles away from home so much so that you don’t really miss India after all.
But wait. You constantly feel that there is still something missing in life - a feeling exaggerated whenever you reflect on the long flight back home from a vacation to India and during the weeks after your return. Perhaps you miss your parents or other elders. Or a sibling is already caring for your elders - so you feel obligated to do more. Or you hear about that college friend who was really good at nothing but who is now in a senior position either running an entire division at a multinational or doing well in business. Or you lament that your kids have become much too westernized, cannot communicate with your relatives in the language you grew up with and worse, have no emotional connection to the country you left behind.
And you strongly consider moving back to India - for good. You comfort yourself by recalling that just in the last year, you know of a few families who have returned and have heard about them doing well. You know that there is even a term for people like you - Repat - Indians who left for educational or work opportunities abroad but then are returning as India’s economy began to boom.
You have a long discussion with your spouse and raise it at the weekend dinner/movie night with your close friends. Until then, the discussion to return to India had just been academic - but now, it is turning serious. And for a few weeks, you even Google job openings, real estate prices in India, school possibilities - and then, all of a sudden, much like a New Year’s resolution to lose weight, the interest fizzles. Things return to your normal western routine. And you derive comfort from your daily calls to India, the Facebook updates and the Skype video chats. Until, next year when you return from India on that long flight. And the cycle repeats.
Welcome to the world of the diaspora Indian: a life in which the Indian is never really at peace with his or her decision to move westward.
The US .v. India dilemma applies equally to men and women, although, for women, the drive to return to India may be sometimes less severe. Women are torn between the love for their own families in India and the unwritten expectation of having to re-enter into deeper relationships with members of their husbands’ families to uphold the traditional Indian lifestyle. Working women generally enjoy more freedom in the US workplace and appreciate the sense that their effort is valued and rewarded. In the comfort of their western homes, these women enjoy more freedom running their families without interference from their in-laws or meddling relatives. And women fearful of lack of basic security to life and limb appreciate the blanket of safety that US suburban living generally provides.
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