Move from US to India

This blog was on a hiatus for the past 4 weeks, as I was in the process of moving from the US to India. While the move was in planning for more than 2 years, it felt great to finally go through it.

I wanted to write this blog to document the experience, and also to look back after a few years and determine how the decision has fared.

The decision

When we (me and my spouse) came to the US, there was always a plan to return to India at some point in time. The initial plan was to complete a Master’s degree, pay off the education loan, save some money, and return to India. The plan was to make all this happen on a 3-year OPT available with the F1 student visa and stay back longer if the work visa H1B lottery gets picked.

Anyone who has gone through the H1B lottery knows that you only have 3 attempts for the visa to get picked in the lottery. When my visa didn’t get picked in the first attempt in 2017, I knew that if it didn’t get picked up the following year, I would make plans to move to India. Many folks apply for Canada PR, however, I felt more comfortable moving to India with a job in Bangalore. Fortunately, my H1B visa got picked up in 2018 and I could work in the US longer.

In 2020, when COVID-19 hit, it was the first time we experienced the challenges of living in a country on a work visa. While people with green card and citizenship could travel freely, there were additional restrictions on visa holders for international travel. H1B visa holders need to get their visa stamped in India every few years, this was also a challenge due to the huge backlog of visa appointments in India.

In 2021, we were ready to put a downpayment on the house, by this time we already knew we wouldn’t want to live on a work visa long term. The wait for a green card was around 25+ years and the cost of living on a visa outweighed the advantages for us.

With our parents getting older, the real challenge of not being able to travel whenever we wanted and worry of losing our visa with job loss reinforced our belief to move and we decided to move in 2nd half of 2023.

After the decision

Once we made the decision to move to India, we researched salaries that engineers were able to get in Bangalore and Hyderabad. Our lifestyle expectation was fairly modest by US standards which would be deemed luxurios by Indian standards. To maintain this lifestyle, we figured our 2 engineer salaries would be sufficient.

In 2021, we bought an apartment in Mumbai. This is the city we grew up in and knew well enough to invest in. This also gives us the option to rent in whichever city our work takes us without planning for long-term house investment.

In 2022, we focused on travel and experiences in the US. We made a list of places we would want to visit, mainly the national parks. We were fortunate enough to get to visit Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Yellowstone National Park, walk on volcanic craters in Hawaii and glaciers in Alaska. These are among the fond memories we cherish even today.

In 2022, we also went to multiple local sporting events in the Bay area to support the San Francisco 49ers, Golden State Warriors, Oakland As, San Jose Sharks, and San Jose earthquakes.

Closer to the move

3-4 months before the move we started talking to our employers about plans to continue employment in India. We have had pretty good employers and expected that continuing the work with the same team would make the move a bit easier. We were able to get the option to work fully remotely from India, which meant we could temporarily work from Mumbai while having some overlap with the Pacific Time Zone.

This also simplified the move for us. Since we already had a fully furnished place in Mumbai, we didn’t need to move any furniture from the US to India. We sold off all our belongings and were able to move back with the bare minimum essentials.

We also had to figure out banking in the US with an international address. This was challenging as very quickly we realized most US banks do not accept non-US phone numbers and addresses. We had to open new bank accounts and close cards, insurance, and other services we no longer needed.

Changes we expected when moving to India

Since we continued working in tech we expected to work from 9 pm to 1 am from India. Most tech jobs would need some overlap the with US time zone. This would be a challenge early on till we get used to a routine.

While initially we do not expect to travel for work, once we are expected to go to the office, traffic will be another challenge. A lot of tech companies are experimenting with hybrid work, which should ease some of the travel troubles.

Having house help in India saves a lot of time that would otherwise be spent in the US doing chores.

3 weeks in India

It has been 3 weeks since we moved to India and it has lived up to expectations. Moving to Mumbai from the US feels like easing into the change. It has taken some time to get used to working the night work hours.

It is surprising to see how many jobs in India can be outsourced/done from a smartphone. While some things are quick and easy, there might be a frustratingly long process for other things.

Living close to our parents has given us another peace of mind. While the initial weeks have been busy adjusting to the new normal, we do expect to find more time to read, workout, and have healthier food habits.

We do expect a lot more challenges when we move to another city for work. I hope to write about the experience later, meanwhile, I plan to continue my weekly writeups on new and interesting things I read.