From the past few days, I have been wondering about the reactions I am getting for one of my decisions. The decision is to go back to India soon after graduation. It’s a choice that I have made wholeheartedly. Even before I came to do MS, my plan was to finish MS, work in US till the loan gets cleared completely and go back to India as soon as possible.
After I landed here, every day has been such a pain. I am missing home every single day. It is much more than missing my parents. To be honest, I am not missing them much since we have a video chat for an hour everyday on skype. So, the second option that anyone would think is that I am missing food. To some extent it’s true, but being quite a decent cook myself, that isn’t the case too. The ony food I miss badly miss are the pani-puri and gobi-manchuri at gaaDis on the street. What I direly miss is every familiar road in Mysore, every familiar shop, every traffic signal and every road hump. I had a dream once that I was riding my bike on Ramanuja road and the bike went smoothly near St Mary’s School (where there is road-hump). I stop my bike, turn around and see that the road has become free of all road-humps!! So, head straight to some government office and fill a form requesting the road-hump to be constructed again! When I woke up from this dream, I realized how attached I am to every minute thing at my home and native. I miss Chamundi hills (in local language “beTTa” ) the most. I always used to climb the beTTa every week or once in 15 days and pray for Goddess Chamundi’s blessings. My mind would feel so relaxed, a sense of calmness would surround me and my thought process. I would feel so confident and positive towards approaching any task for the next few days. Even when I was working in Bangalore, every weekend I would go to Mysore, almost every Sunday to the beTTa. One more thing I miss a lot is kannada movies. I am such a big of kannada movies and used to catch the new releases every Saturday. And there is no way you can find a new kannada movie online (strict piracy rules) I have seen all cinema theatres of Mysore in my dream at least 100 times, especially Shantala, Lakshmi, Gayatri and Saraswati theatres coz any new kannada film would be released in one of these 4 theatres! Off late, I have started missing the Sunday lights at the Mysore Palace, traffic jams in Bangalore, some eat-outs in Bangalore and noise of people too!!
I knew that I would be homesick, but surely not to this effect. Now, regarding the job. I always wanted to be on system design side, using MATLAB to develop DSP algorithms for physical layer of a communication system. Somehow, the kind of work that I liked to do demanded either a PhD or 5 years of work experience. The only set of jobs that I could try were software development, testing, scripting and debugging. But I just hate to do such stuff. Merely doing C coding for a module in a communication system is not what I would like to do now. I did such things right after B.E, it served as a good starting point and now my career has evolved beyond this. Accepting such a job would be like letting my career graph dip. I will never do that. Iam not condemning such jobs, just that I cant go back to where I started my career. If I accept such jobs, then I wont be doing any justice to Masters and prior work experience. And most importantly money is the last thing that I give importance for. Yes, I was in a financial crisis and had to do an internship involving the some stuff that I hate to do! But internship is OK, my status during internship is still “graduate student” and in worst case, I need not even include it in my resume!! I had to push myself mentally to cope up with some work that I hate to do, but finally it was immensely helpful. I had cleared 60% of my loan!!!!
When I went home in December 2009, I thought again about my permanent return to India. I calculated that clearing the remaining loan would take at maximum 2 years with a job in India or 8 months with a job in US. I was tempted to find some job, work for an year in US, clear the loan fully and then leave to India. But I realized that it would be too tough on me mentally if I don’t love the work. I was browsing through the jobs in the Indian market and found many of them that matched my interests. Additionally, I would not miss anything. I can be close to parents, climb the beTTa, see kannada movies and ride a bike (I prefer bike to car any day!) Hence, I decided that I would go back soon after graduation.
Finally, a person has to be in a place that he likes to be and do what he likes to do. If somebody likes being in US, likes the life out here, likes the work here, good for him/her. But it’s foolish to expect everyone to like it here! In some other cases, circumstances (like a huge education loan) might force people to stay here. I just hope that all such people get rid of the dependencies asap and land up in places wherever they love to be (If they started liking it here after few years and find US reasonable able to settle down in life, so be it. Until they are happy, it’s fine.)
So friends, please don’t give me a surprised look when I say that I am going back to India. Some people are so surprised that they feel like I am committing a crime!! Please don’t give me look of sympathy too. I am not going back because I didn’t find a job here. How can someone expect me to find a job when I quit applying for jobs in US long ago!I am going back because I simply don’t find a life that I love!
