Travel and Personal

Returning to India: of Struggle and Hope

A friend pointed me to Piya’s blog. Piya has a penchant for clicking photos and has just returned to live in Delhi after several years. Only two months old, the blog is already an excellent illustration of the riot that India is for one’s senses, and the eccentricities it presents. Reading it, I finally had a moment to think back to my own 3 months over winter, contemplating a possible return in a similar situation, and searching for work. The good news is that I managed to find many. The mixed news is that I did not take them, choosing instead to move to Zurich. A lot of reasons explain that, suffice it to say that this was one of the toughest decisions I have ever taken.

In so many ways, as Piya puts it, there is indeed no place like home. We’ve all heard the success story of economic growth and unbounded professional opportunity. That story is very much true, and its scale only visible after one arrives in India, but that is only part of the story.

Contrasting Lifestyles: Comfort vs. Chaos

Living in Switzerland, even in the US, is comfortable. I can get used to getting up at 7am, walking to work at 8am (stopping for a coffee on the way), eating at noon, walking out at 7pm (not my case unfortunately) to a bar in old town, staying for a few drinks as friends join, and walking back home at 11pm. I can plan, to the minute, the time it will take me from any place in Geneva to any place in Zurich, because I can set my clock to the trains. Going to a public office to get things done can be a headache, but if I know the process, I know the outcome.

I can forget all that when I land in India. Process and rules are only synonyms for the ‘guideline’. The outcome is what is important, and achieving it dependent only on how badly one wants it. The Indians have a word for it - jugaad. It makes us special. Frustrating as the chaos can be, managing it only requires understanding that there is a method to the madness, and to learn to be a little mad oneself.

A Twinge of Loss

On a personal level, as Piya seems to be discovering, that chaos reminds everyday of how things have changed - the value of money is no longer the same, fashions and practices of Nani’s days are dying; and how they have not - bribes still get the work done, Indian English is still quirky, and things may or may not work.

Yet, I cannot but feel a twinge of sadness for a way of life fast disappearing under the trample of short-term growth. Delhi, in so many ways epitomizes this problem. The Supreme Court just announced a ban on outdoor food stalls, so Piya may not enjoy some of the food she so loves. Earlier, the Delhi Government in all its wisdom banned cycle rickshaws from Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi. Delhi is set to become very boring.

Beyond the nostalgia, it is also set to become more unlivable. Worse, such decisions are frustrating because they come when Europe has managed to retain its old-world charm, and sprawling cities in the US are promoting pedestrianization and cycles. India, in trying to catch up with the west, is still catching up with the west of yesteryear. And nobody seems to know better.

Why Returning is So Difficult

That, in fact, is the biggest problem I faced in India. Of developments that are mediocre, and people that accept mediocrity, or even ignore that it exists. Let me explain with my pet peeve - Delhi’s transport infrastructure.

Several years ago, the Delhi government announced a series of flyovers and highways around Delhi. They were heralded as state-of-the-art, and today most are ready. Simultaneously came the Delhi Metro, a modern marvel that is transforming commuting practicies in Delhi. Yet, if you have ever been to any modern city, what strikes you is not how good these developments are, but how good they could have been. Flyovers have no space for pedestrians or bus stops, the larger ones have an amazing array of lane changes and merges with no space for them, and are bad design more generally. Similarly, the metro while amazing inside, is an eyesore outside. These heavy concrete constructions are in stark contrast to the sleek constructions one sees in South East Asia and Europe (I learnt Indian construction contracts are paid by weight, which explains why we want heavy flyovers).

If all this is a problem, even more difficult to reconcile is that most Delhiites - and Indians - see it as the epitomy of transport infrastructure. They compare to Bangalore and say it is so much better. I could not understand why they compare to what is worse, rather than what is better, till very recently.

It is the same jugaad, and our meagre expectations of what is offered in public that constrains our expectations. When Delhiites say public infrastructure is excellent, even if it is not, it is not their aspirations talking, but their experience.

It is all too easy to overlook these problems. Returning NRIs in particular, can easily roam in their air conditioned cars, driving from door to door. In that world, of private enterprise where salaries are easily Rs. 100,000 a month, India is getting much better, because the hotels, resorts, and houses have become bigger and better. But in another world, of the average middle class Indian, of teachers paid Rs. 15,000 a month (these numbers are based on personal experience for someone with my experience), and NGO or government employees receiving Rs. 30,000, India illustrates the tradeoff between growth and lifestyle. The improvements for one segment are coming - at least so far - mostly at the cost of the second (perhaps best illustrated by the soaring inflation, driven largely by upper middle class consumption).

Then Why Return?

So, if returning is frauth with such ethical and emotional challenges, why return? Because avoiding that challenge is to be a sissy? Worse, because it is those very challenges that remind one of being alive. Skiing is fun, but its not in the big scheme of things that important. Giving a city its first metro network is; creating a major conglomerate from nothing is; creating policy on energy efficiency for a country of over 1 billion is (the chief of the BEE left the private sector because, and I quote from a meeting, “this is the chance of a lifetime”).

In finance, one holds that big risks come with big returns. India is fraught with risks, including the possibility of not being able to live there. But it has incredible opportunity too. Professionally to make money and make a name. Personally, to feel alive.

Returning was , for me always a question of when, not if. In those three months, I met numerous returned NRIs, several expats, and many NRIs contemplating return. To the last I can only say that this is India’s time. No matter what you want to achieve, you can achieve it in India. Born and bred in the ‘management school of scarcity’, most things are possible, including the attempt to reshape societial priorities (my own preference). So go ahead, follow Piya’s travails and wish her luck. For her story may well be yours.

© 2007 The Discomfort Zone.