Home Is More Than Just A Place: Indian Expats Talk About Their Search For Belonging

As a non-religious single woman who never intend to have children, I feel out of place almost all of the time. I keep my interactions with my family and neighbours limited to small-talk because explaining why I'm not married or in a government job yet is a losing battle. It's even hard for me to picture a future in an India that sets a new low everyday with its gender-based crimes. Sure the festivals are a treat and the food is spectacular but I still imagine this place like a slow-burning house on fire. Unlike many others who are devoted to staying and saving it, I aim to flee.

Moving out of the country is an idea that fits differently into everyone's design. For some, it's a natural milestone in their academic journey, for others it's not a option. I know for sure a good number of us have daydreamt about it purely based on the allure of the travel destinations we see online. I come from a place of hope when I look at the West (I'd like to skip the US for this). There are better roads, there's a better work-life balance, a better distribution of resources, a more curated learning system, low crime rates, etc. but my biggest fear is what if it's worse? What if everything around me is perfect but I still feel out of place? At this point, it's all speculation.

To dive deeper into the intricacies of what makes a home for a global citizen, we spoke to people who have spent some time overseas and returned. Education is the primary reason young Indians move abroad. The hopes of bigger opportunities and a better life for their children is something that makes parents push past their socio-economic limits. Students seek greater institutions for exposure and upskill in both STEM and artistic domains.

Anah wanted to be a fine artist and learn to experiment with techniques and concepts that were looked upon as 'the other'. "The idea was to explore a lifestyle that was indicative of my intellectual curiosity, which would transform my art making practices," she explains. After returning, she meant to go back again because there was still a lot to learn but she got a job working for a prominent artist here at home instead, which is what she chose to stick with. Nandini moved to Dubai for a semester and hoped to get a job there as well but as a creative she figured that India was a better option for her because she could express herself better. The same goes for Gaurav who chose Sydney due to the quality of education for his course compared to India. After obtaining his residency, he decided to explore what India might offer, without fully giving up on living abroad in the future.

For others it was less moving towards something and more stepping away from it. The first time Nikita moved out of India was when she went to Syracuse, New York for her undergraduate degree. But the American Dream wasn't at all what she thought. She returned feeling like the US was an "unsafe pyramid scheme of a place". Racist cops, unhealthy processed foods, and high insurance prices were just some of the things that made her come back. She does admit that in India she had lived a privileged life, soo In NY, the daily burden of laundry, dishes and cooking after 8-10 hours of work everyday for seven years was a little too much.

In all honesty, writing this piece has given me a bit of an existential crisis. I've been in my hometown since 2020. Small town kids know that this can sometimes feel like a trap that you ought to escape. I ended up here after the pandemic and at that time, everyone in the world was unsure of the future so it didn't matter what my plan was. 4 years later, despite a job I like and my feline friends (that I wouldn't have found if I didn't move), sometimes the panic does set in.

I wonder if it's the same for my friend Sameer who was a travel-freak and was excited to be in Budapest but had to come home because of Covid 19. Gautam, another friend of mine who is currently still in the UK is coming home in December. He worries that he may not have anything to show for his three years there because he couldn't find a job in his domain. He tells me about other students there who are buried under debt, work overtime, and eat poorly to pay it off, living a life that feels the opposite of what they had dreamed of.

I'm glad he's coming back but his fears are valid too. Education, especially when you go out of the country is looked at as a financial investment. Inflation or that the job market can be a nightmare becomes irrelevant. Having put in so much time, money and effort into it, we, and more so, our parents expect a certain return. Intangible things like exposure or a lived experience, as real as they may be, aren't enough. Coming from that space it's fair to wonder:

Was it worth it?

And if moving out is as much of an upgrade as it's made out to be, what does it mean when one comes back? Maybe that's an unfair question. Anah mentions a statement that is popular online for encompassing the total sensory overload living here can be: India is not for beginners. She doesn't think there's anything she can bring from outside that emerges as a solution for the kind of lives we have here. Having come from abroad, she is astonished at how well India works with the limited infrastructure it has in a lot of cases. But she also believes that this dysfunction could be its downfall.

Nandini on the other hand feels like her experience outside her expanded her empathy. Returning to a third-world country, after having seen another lifestyle awakened her to the struggle that one can feel in the air here. It made her want to be kind even when it's not convenient, and to live with an understanding that every person is going through an internal battle of their own.

But don't worry, we're not gonna 'Slumdog Millionaire' this place yet. Things are better than they might seem. Nikita attests to it too. She mentions how a lot of privileges that appear to be normal in India are luxuries reserved for the uber-rich in other countries. We're absolutely feral on the road here. I couldn't imagine the number of tickets one would get in the US for violating a traffic rule. Despite these differences, Nikita too found the humanity we all share, even if our origins, cultures, and languages are diverse. She points how moving is paradoxically both the biggest opportunity and the biggest challenge because it's easy to feel out of place. But in the US, where everyone is an outsider in some way, she did feel eventually accepted.

Gaurav gained a different perspective on his return. He feels that India's priorities are misaligned with the religious divides and dogmatism. Instead of mimicking what works in other countries, he insists that we need ideas that are rooted in the Indian context because what works for others may not necessarily work for us.

Coming from a highly dysfunctional family, I'd be flabbergasted when I visited friends and saw what interpersonal dynamics could look like within a healthy home. I think he went through something similar with our country when he returned.

Gaurav still believes that change is possible, but only if decisions that direct the course of the nation are governed by ingenuity and practicality instead of power.

Gautam's biggest takeaway from his time abroad was the contrast in social dynamics. India does have a strong sense of community but it sometimes comes at the expense of individuality and personal choices. Most families in India have some degree of enmeshment. As the kids grow older the attempts to break free from this creates conflict that is usually brushed off as teenage rebellion. The lack of personal boundaries, veiled as family values and tradition, doesn't help either. I had a strained relationship with my mother most of my high school years. It was only when I moved out for college that we could move past the petty disputes and learn to appreciate each other again. I'd like to believe that the distance did us good.

Cultivating your own identity is part of adulthood. Anah wondered who she was outside of her culture and ancestral heritage. Being in the US became a powerful avenue for self exploration. She didn't feel the need to seek Indian communities because she had already found a sense of belonging with the group of artists she was with. There were times when parts of her work that were rooted in South Asian influences wouldn't register with people in the West, but it also brought upon a cultural curiosity. Her friends asked her about Indian concepts, festivals, histories, and artistic practices which gave her a new perspective on looking at her identity from the outside, which wouldn't have been possible if she stayed here. Like my mother and I, going away brought her closer to her motherland too.

Nikita had a similar experience of finding herself. In her seven years abroad, she learned more about herself than she had in her whole life in India. She felt like she became an upgraded version of herself when she left the country. Gautam felt like he was 'more Indian' in the UK than he was here.

For Gaurav the change wasn't exactly unforseen. Growing up in an upper middle class household, he had plenty of exposure to diverse cultures, cuisines, and people through travel. This is what shaped his understanding of what it means to be truly global.

But being Indian extends to more than just our religious or familial cultures. Sameer believes that there is a huge gap between the work cultures in South Asia and the West. Due to the huge population, a poor job market and failing economic systems, Indians have to live in a survival mode to make a livelihood. Our bar for basic necessities compared to other countries is much lower.

Which brings me to an important factor to consider. It comes down to financial security and the socio-economic strata. For those who come from well-to-do families, the quality of life can be pretty good in India but others might be more inclined towards frameworks that support and empower the working man better. There is an urgency that comes with not having a safety net, which is also what pushes people to seek more lucrative opportunities overseas in the first place.

Society has changed a lot in the last few decades and so has its values. Owning a home, something that used to be the entire purpose of many from the previous generations, is now a far-fetched dream. A lot of us have even embraced it by diverting those funds into travel and life-enriching experiences. Homecoming then feels less about the place and more about the community that shares your values and a sense of belonging. Some find it a different country, others rediscover it after returning from overseas. In between, life takes it own course with no regards to our pre-established plans. In this constantly shifting, nomadic existence, perhaps home becomes a series of pit stops.

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