After 35 years and turning from age 25 to 60 is India still your home country?

Hi,

Just stumbled upon this very old thread today. I have the same kind of thoughts in my mind about this.

Everyone say make the best out of what you have here. In one of the threads, members discussed about how Indian parents depend on their kids during old age and American parents do not. My personal view is that nothing can be generalised. Not all Indian parents depend on kids during old age, some of my own relatives are not like that. Anyways, the thought that being in alien country during my old age scares me.

Friends, what do you all feel about this? Which is the best place (India or US) to retire....once all the milestones in life are met....house,kids,education etc. Pls share your thoughts.

 

awesome Naazeen. just my thoughts exactly!waiting for good responses.I am restarting this thread.hopefully,
people will answer.

 

India is a magnetic place. Indians are a unique specimen. Those who were born in India and migrated have a strong magnetic pull. My laptop has a problem and typing here is a pain. I will cut short.

 

Hi Friends,
I am Srividya and this is the first time I am writing on Net. I have recently come to live in UK, my husband works here. I very much agree with ragavss, India has a magnetic pull. I feel hometown (mine is Chennai, India) is the best place to retire as that would make us feel more comfortable being in our own surroundings, language, etc.
Thank you all for this thread.

 

Dear Naazneen, You are not alone. Even I've spent my 6 years here in the U.S with the same feeling what you have. I always think of myself as a parrot kept in a golden gate. My greatest boon is the vonage phone connection which I use for talking to my parents and sisters in India. My half day will be gone this way and this keeps me going as I think that I'm still in touch with our family members in India. Otherwise I'll go mad.

 

As usual, my perspective on this may be different from everyone else. But maybe someone will find some food for thought in what I say about my family's experience of immigrating to the US.

We have IMMIGRATED here, in every sense of the word. When my husband received an academic fellowship offer here, we had not been planning to move to the US (we had a pretty good life in South Africa that is similar to the US in some ways). When we did get here, we found everything to be very much to our liking. Two fellowships later (I think he is addicted to studying like some people are addicted to crack cocaine), my husband was offered a job, and we decided to stay.

This decision was made based on a careful weighing of the pros and cons of putting down roots here in the US, versus returning to South Africa or India. We knew that any children we would have would be American. We decide that we wanted permanent residence, and we wanted to become citizens, too. These decisions were not made on the basis of financial expediency or convenience. We love this country and everything it stands for (well, almost everything!) and we felt that it would not be possible or fair to ourselves to live with a foot each in two different countries (that is, being citizens of the US but thinking of some other place as home).

We both made a lot of sacrifices and we are mindful every day of how lucky we are to be here, and what wonderful opportunities our daughter is getting as a result. Over time, India and South Africa have ceased to be our homes, because we don't live there anymore (we had previously lived together in both our countries of origin). We still have family there, of course, and lots of good memories, but apart from that, we have put down firm roots here in the US.

For us (personal opinion, don't try to stone me), life in India and South Africa cannot compare to the life we have here. The advantages, conveniences, rights, luxuries, amenities etc. we have here make every day a pleasure, and we can see how we have flowered as individuals and as a family as a result of these opportunities we have been given.

We live in a wonderfully friendly, supportive community. We have made an active effort to associate with everyone here and be involved in local events and organizations. Of course we miss things from home (for me, it's Nando's first, with my family coming in a close second, haha) but we have found little time to be sad or lonely because our life here is just as rich (richer, cleaner, safer, and less corrupt, actually) than it had been in our previous habitats.

For us, this is our home now, and we are confident that we can retire here, happily and comfortably. We have been in the US for 6 years, and barring some catastrophic event that changes our lives drastically, we would see no reason to leave.

I guess whether you are happy here or not would depend on why you came. If it was for work, and purely for work, then I can see why you would long for your homeland. Honestly, though, if I was miserable here for some reason, including feeling like an outsider or desperately missing my home and family, I would seriously consider returning to my real home. I know this is not as easily done for everyone, because of other circumstances like spouse's job/preferences, but it seems a real shame, as the poster above me has stated, to feel like the proverbial bird in a gilded cage.

There's another possible angle to this whole issue. Salman Rushdie says it best, in his essay from the book Step Across This Line (I think the essay is called "There's No Place Like Home") - he proposes the idea that we always long for an idyllic and totally illusionary version of "home" that we remember from long ago. In other words, there can never be a place like home, because home exists as a TIME, not a place, and it can only be found in memories, in our heads. I can't find the whole essay online, but I did find this extract (the great man says it much better than me, of course):

"So Oz finally became home; the imagined world became the actual world, as it does for us all, because the truth is that once we have left our childhood places and started out to make our own lives, armed only with what we have and are, we understand that the real secret of the ruby slippers is not that "there's no place like home," but rather that there is no longer such a place as home: except, of course, for the homes we make, or the homes that are made for us, in Oz, which is anywhere and everywhere, except the place from which we began."

Shivers.

 

Dear Nazneen, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us on India, staying in the USA and on coming back to the home country. For viewership by a larger audience we have it as an article here.