When I decided to migrate back to India, my employers in UK (Fujitsu) found me a role in their Indian headquarters in Pune.
So I shifted the entire Kallidai family from UK to India – lock, stock and barrel. Well, almost. My house still stands in Hemel Hempstead just outside London although occupied by tenants. My friends still send me regular mail and text from UK, and some even visit me in Pune.
We settled down quite well. My new job was fantastic and my wife and son enjoy the change in the lifestyle.
“Do you like the school in London or Pune,” I asked my son, Neel.
“Pune of course Daddy,” he replied emphatically. “The school here has two computer rooms and much better computers than London.”
“And what about your friends here?” I asked him, pleasantly surprised.
“I like my friends here better too,” he drawled. “I get to play with them every day.”
In UK, the weather was so dreadful most of the year that playing outdoors was unheard of, except for the occasionally clear days in the summer.
When I asked my wife how she was getting on, she smirked and said, “Well there’s nothing much to do here really! I don’t have to drop Neel to school every day – he gets a bus at his door step. I don’t have to do the washing up and the cleaning up as the maid does it every day. I don’t even have to drive as the driver takes me wherever I want. I quite enjoyed the busy routine in London.”
I helpfully offered to cancel the school bus and sack the maid. She looked at me as if I had gone quite mad, and smirked a bit more. I could see that she was getting used to the little luxuries that matter so much in India.
Even my mother and father seemed happier. “I can take a walk any time I like in my slippers and flip-flops,” my mother beamed at me. “I don’t have to be burdened by the heavy jackets and sweaters like London. India is so much better for us retired folks.”
And of course, I have now bought a house and find it even more enjoyable. In London when we moved to our new house, I had to do everything from moving things to painting, and from assembling furniture in flat-packs to fixing the new cabinets and wardrobes. In India, labour is so much more affordable. Everything is one phone call away, usually followed by helpful people who do everything for you as you watch and direct them.
But the real icing on the cake is our ‘after-dinner walk’. One hour after dinner, I usually nod at my wife and son. They immediately put on their flip-flops and we saunter out in our bermudas (and yes this is December/January) to take a quick walk. Usually these walks end in the three of us ending up at a chat house or an ice-cream parlour or a milk-shake joint, usually eating paani-puri, licking some exotic icecream, or sipping a thick-shake topped with chocolate chips. This was unimaginable in the UK.
And to think that some of my friends and colleagues actually tried to discouarage me from moving back! Whoa!!
