7 ms·

I'd imagine moving back to India after being successful in the US gives you lots of leverage and status, in the sense of being a big fish in a smaller pool (wha

I'd imagine moving back to India after being successful in the US gives you lots of leverage and status, in the sense of being a big fish in a smaller pool (what a beautiful irony, thinking of India of all places as the smaller pool, heh). But lets be real, isn't the quality of life much worse? I've never been there (or in the US, for that matter), but I'd imagine that things like infrastructure are far worse in India. Also, the country seems so... chaotic, the cultural shock must be crazy.

throwaway158497 5y ago
Many people somehow are able to overlook the lack of infrastructure and accident prone roads. Family+having access to maids, cooks, drivers, etc is a big driver of this behavior.
vishnumohandas 5y ago
I moved from Switzerland to India sometime back, for reasons similar to OP's. Here are my ₹2 > quality of life "Quality" is subjective. My wife and I value having our parents around, being able to afford a cook/maid/nanny, not having to deal with winter and darkness, ... > infrastructure For sure it's worse in India. But our lifestyle here is such that we don't have to deal with it frequently. We live next to friends, in a arguably beautiful society, and when we do need something done, we inevitably "know a guy who knows a guy", who can help sort things out without us having to deal with the subpar infra. But yes, for sure India could do a lot better on this front. > chaotic For someone like me, who was born and raised here, it is easy to thrive in this chaos. This is home.
- glogla 5y ago
  > being able to afford a cook/maid/nanny Having domestic servants is only possible in placesi of high inequality.
  - thematrixturtle 5y ago
    "Indeed", nodded the HN reader sagely, as they sat in the back of their Uber ordering some Doordash and checking on the cleaner with Handy.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - oblio 5y ago
      Temporary "help" like Uber is a ton more affordable than full time help.
  - mohanmcgeek 5y ago
    Several Indian states have a lower gini coefficient than the US and it's still possible to hire household help here.
  - immigrantheart 5y ago
    What if you provided those domestic servants place to live, food, internet, TV, sofa, clothing, etc, and also salary, and of course you let them take vacation as well.
  - weatherlite 5y ago
    It's not like rich Americans are above paying for servants...they just have nicer names for them like "help"
dartharva 5y ago
There's immense variance in the quality of life you can find in India. In some places (esp. private townships) you'll feel no different than in classier parts of Europe, in others you'll be apalled at how one can humanely live here. The chaos is.. an acquired taste. I find beauty in it.
FlyingSnake 5y ago
There will always be subjective differences between India and the USA and not everything is hunky dory, but there are some things India is IMO better than USA for an Indian expat: 1. Climate: India is definitely sunny and enjoys predictable weather patterns all year round. Climate change might upset the equation, but it is still bright and sunny. 2. Biodiversity: India is 7th largest country with lots of great places to visit. Mountains, deserts, beaches, jungles, plains etc are all there and South East Asia and Africa are just a flight away. India is 2nd only to Africa when it comes to wildlife. 3. Food: Most Indians eat locally grown stuff sourced from the region and there is an amazing variety of fruits and vegetables that are local to the regions. 4. Social support: The society is definitely more warm and cordial compared to USA. There is house help readily available and the extended family support is unbeatable. 5. Booming tech scene: India will soon need to support it's own internal market which is growing exponentially. The success of Byju's DarwinBox etc is just a start. P.S. Balaji Srinivasan goes into details about ascending vs descending societies here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlY8HICFiRs&t=4183s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlY8HICFiRs&t=4183s
- srvmshr 5y ago
  Except 4 & 5, the first few cannot be said "subjectively better". This is your personal opinion, not the "statistically true" opinion. >Climate Definitely hotter in most (80%) of India, from late February to mid-October. US states enjoys more cloudless sunny weather per annum. >Biodiversity: India is 7th largest country with lots of great places to visit. Mountains, deserts, beaches, jungles, plains [...] US is almost a continent. It has all these and more. Sorry. > Food: Most Indians eat locally grown stuff sourced from the region True for US too. California, Midwest, Florida and North Carolina produce majority of US food primary produce. Infact, they export it. And we import a lot of these to India.
  - hinoki 5y ago
    I’ll have to nitpick your last point. Unless you’re going to a farmer’s market, the quality of fruit and vegetables in America is abysmal. Watery hard fruit, etc. You can get the same terrible strawberries all year round if you want though. I’ve never been to India, but I assume the situation is better, at least based on how people rave about mangoes.
trextrex 5y ago
One thing that people who haven't lived in India don't realise -- depending on where you live (much like in the US), you can have an extremely high quality of life, including access to world class education and healthcare. And it would be even higher for someone coming back from the US, since they would have friend and family networks in addition to everything else. The only thing that would be truly hard to get away from would be the pollution and traffic in the cities.
sid-ant 5y ago
That's correct. I live in Bangalore, India and there are a lot more issues than just quality of life. 1. Since, I am from North India, Bangalore treats us like foreigners i.e. if you don't speak the native language, you will be at a significant disadvantage when requiring the assistance of police. 2. Rather, the police has been known to discriminate against `outsiders`. You can even head over to r/bangalore to know more. 3. The income inequality is real and through the roof. We tech people make much much more than any other private profession and this has made the general population unhappy. 4. Lastly, there isn't much to do besides going out to pubs/cafes. Which is why I've been leetcoding and preparing to emigrate to Canada/UK. While it's true that I can save a lot more money here (in real terms! At PPP, my monthly savings allows me live for several months without an income) but at what cost.
- FlyingSnake 5y ago
  This unfortunate take is solely based on a single data point i.e. life of a North Indian in Bengaluru. Such extrapolations when applied to a huge and diverse country like India does not present a comprehensive picture. > Lastly, there isn't much to do besides going out to pubs/cafes. I am just amazed at this comment. The wondrous ruins of Hampi are just a train ride away. Then there's the UNESCO protected majestic western ghats few hours away, and not to mention the pristing beaches of Malpe and Udupi. I mean Chamundi hills, Hogenakkal etc is right next to the city.
  - sid-ant 5y ago
    > The wondrous ruins of Hampi are just a train ride away. Then there's the UNESCO protected majestic western ghats few hours away, and not to mention the pristing beaches of Malpe and Udupi I agree, there are certainly amazing places to sight-see but I am largely referring to activities like rock climbing gyms (https://www.youtube.com/c/magmidt88 https://www.youtube.com/c/magmidt88), archery, horse riding, accessible national parks and a more extensive board games culture (surprisingly Hyderabad has 2 active clubs) The Indian society would cast you as an extremely privileged person if you were to bring this up and rightly so, since most people here are trying to live a life first. I understand that it may not be what everyone wants and this is personal to what I prefer. I would like to be in a place with a better infrastructure (trains), schools and with access to more recreational activities.
danuker 5y ago
> isn't the quality of life much worse? I can't speak about India, but I am a Romanian who worked in Austria, and when coming back, I noticed the infrastructure is lacking, especially public transport. Still, with my savings and investments, my quality of life is much better than a typical Romanian's, though not quite on par with Austria's.
pm90 5y ago
Quality of life is actually pretty great in India once you pass a certain income threshold. I would argue that its higher in certain aspects especially if your family is back there.
devnull3 5y ago
> being successful in the US gives you lots of leverage and status That use to be the case. The shine has definitely worn off. I would say the work culture in Indian product companies are much more closer to its western counterparts. (Service companies are a different ball-game) > But lets be real, isn't the quality of life much worse In my opinion, India is worse off in 2 things primarily: 1. Population density in cities 2. Poorer govt. Having said that a lot of things have improved in last decade: 1. Payment infrastructure is probably the best in the world. 2. Govt services increasingly getting online and digitised. This used to be a big friction before. 3. Govt services are increasingly streamlined in last 10 years e.g. Huge improvement in passport application/renewal 4. Investing heavily in physical infrastructure. E.g About 36 KM/day is getting added as National Highways [1] 5. Biggest Tax Reform called GST in last 50 years. The implementation is shaky but improving. 6. Incentivising production in India called PLI scheme. It received huge response [2] As far as startups are concerned, the sentiment here (at least for me) is "we-can-also-do-this" and "we-can-be-the-best". This uptick in confidence is palpable (again where I am standing) 10 years ago, I would have never imagined electric scooters/cars being designed (and not just manufactured) in India [3] [1] https://www.news18.com/news/auto/road-network-in-india-showed-substantially-growth-in-current-fiscal-economic-survey-4720484.html https://www.news18.com/news/auto/road-network-in-india-showe... [2] https://www.cnbctv18.com/auto/govt-receives-huge-response-to-pli-for-auto-auto-components-heavy-industries-minister-mn-pandey-12845302.htm https://www.cnbctv18.com/auto/govt-receives-huge-response-to... [3] https://www.atherenergy.com/ https://www.atherenergy.com/ https://pravaig.com/ https://pravaig.com/
akmittal 5y ago
> but I'd imagine that things like infrastructure are far worse in India That is true, but most tech folks live in cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune and can skip bad infra part. For residential there are premium societies and here office spaces are build like hotels. For transport there are metros(ongoing in Bangalore) . Roads are only unavoidable bad infra.
me_me_mu_mu 5y ago
Imo it isn’t worth it. My family left India for a better life because having no running water and spotty electricity is an awful living experience. But the worst part is going outside and seeing that 80% of the people are doing worse than you and the suffering I saw was absolutely mind boggling. This was back in the 90s and 00s. I went back recently in 2017/18 and between the 400ppm smog (when there was a wildfire near me in CA it was like 160) and people driving the wrong way across lanes in the smog fog and the traffic and poverty, I found the occasional Mercedes and other luxury car stuck sideways in traffic in the middle of the four lane highway that’s now somehow 9 to be extremely ironic. I know I personally would find it extremely difficult to move there. I couldn’t deal with the fact that we went to a ultra luxury mall and came outside to be surrounded once again my mind boggling poverty and seeing everything from beggars to people in Benzes stuck in the same road. You go back to your nice home and still hear honking or breathe in the smog. Moving to America was my lottery winning experience. I’m forever grateful for it.
- weatherlite 5y ago
  But you'd still live the life of a multi millionaire if you moved to India, no? You'd easily be in the top 1% I think, that means a personal driver and help, a gated community etc etc. So how bad would quality of life be to you then? Yes pollution is the great equalizer though, rich people have to breathe the same air mostly (for now...)
- princevegeta89 5y ago
  Great points. India is in a weird composition when it comes to the lifestyles people lead there. The problem is income inequality and lack of an economic balance thereof. I am sure there are a lot less beggars these days than there were in the 90's. The government, albeit corrupt, is slowly lifting people out of the poverty line and looking at the private sector, there are more employment opportunities now. Wage levels are still not up to the mark, and quickly diminish in value after trying to meet the costs of basic necessities like housing and transportation (fuel). We may need to hold on for another 10 years or so and see for ourselves what stage India may get to, at that point.

throwaway158497 5y ago

Many people somehow are able to overlook the lack of infrastructure and accident prone roads. Family+having access to maids, cooks, drivers, etc is a big driver of this behavior.

vishnumohandas 5y ago

I moved from Switzerland to India sometime back, for reasons similar to OP's. Here are my ₹2 > quality of life "Quality" is subjective. My wife and I value having our parents around, being able to afford a cook/maid/nanny, not having to deal with winter and darkness, ... > infrastructure For sure it's worse in India. But our lifestyle here is such that we don't have to deal with it frequently. We live next to friends, in a arguably beautiful society, and when we do need something done, we inevitably "know a guy who knows a guy", who can help sort things out without us having to deal with the subpar infra. But yes, for sure India could do a lot better on this front. > chaotic For someone like me, who was born and raised here, it is easy to thrive in this chaos. This is home.

glogla 5y ago
> being able to afford a cook/maid/nanny Having domestic servants is only possible in placesi of high inequality.
- thematrixturtle 5y ago
  "Indeed", nodded the HN reader sagely, as they sat in the back of their Uber ordering some Doordash and checking on the cleaner with Handy.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - oblio 5y ago
    Temporary "help" like Uber is a ton more affordable than full time help.
- mohanmcgeek 5y ago
  Several Indian states have a lower gini coefficient than the US and it's still possible to hire household help here.
- immigrantheart 5y ago
  What if you provided those domestic servants place to live, food, internet, TV, sofa, clothing, etc, and also salary, and of course you let them take vacation as well.
- weatherlite 5y ago
  It's not like rich Americans are above paying for servants...they just have nicer names for them like "help"

dartharva 5y ago

There's immense variance in the quality of life you can find in India. In some places (esp. private townships) you'll feel no different than in classier parts of Europe, in others you'll be apalled at how one can humanely live here. The chaos is.. an acquired taste. I find beauty in it.

FlyingSnake 5y ago

There will always be subjective differences between India and the USA and not everything is hunky dory, but there are some things India is IMO better than USA for an Indian expat: 1. Climate: India is definitely sunny and enjoys predictable weather patterns all year round. Climate change might upset the equation, but it is still bright and sunny. 2. Biodiversity: India is 7th largest country with lots of great places to visit. Mountains, deserts, beaches, jungles, plains etc are all there and South East Asia and Africa are just a flight away. India is 2nd only to Africa when it comes to wildlife. 3. Food: Most Indians eat locally grown stuff sourced from the region and there is an amazing variety of fruits and vegetables that are local to the regions. 4. Social support: The society is definitely more warm and cordial compared to USA. There is house help readily available and the extended family support is unbeatable. 5. Booming tech scene: India will soon need to support it's own internal market which is growing exponentially. The success of Byju's DarwinBox etc is just a start. P.S. Balaji Srinivasan goes into details about ascending vs descending societies here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlY8HICFiRs&t=4183s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlY8HICFiRs&t=4183s

srvmshr 5y ago
Except 4 & 5, the first few cannot be said "subjectively better". This is your personal opinion, not the "statistically true" opinion. >Climate Definitely hotter in most (80%) of India, from late February to mid-October. US states enjoys more cloudless sunny weather per annum. >Biodiversity: India is 7th largest country with lots of great places to visit. Mountains, deserts, beaches, jungles, plains [...] US is almost a continent. It has all these and more. Sorry. > Food: Most Indians eat locally grown stuff sourced from the region True for US too. California, Midwest, Florida and North Carolina produce majority of US food primary produce. Infact, they export it. And we import a lot of these to India.
- hinoki 5y ago
  I’ll have to nitpick your last point. Unless you’re going to a farmer’s market, the quality of fruit and vegetables in America is abysmal. Watery hard fruit, etc. You can get the same terrible strawberries all year round if you want though. I’ve never been to India, but I assume the situation is better, at least based on how people rave about mangoes.

trextrex 5y ago

One thing that people who haven't lived in India don't realise -- depending on where you live (much like in the US), you can have an extremely high quality of life, including access to world class education and healthcare. And it would be even higher for someone coming back from the US, since they would have friend and family networks in addition to everything else. The only thing that would be truly hard to get away from would be the pollution and traffic in the cities.

sid-ant 5y ago

That's correct. I live in Bangalore, India and there are a lot more issues than just quality of life. 1. Since, I am from North India, Bangalore treats us like foreigners i.e. if you don't speak the native language, you will be at a significant disadvantage when requiring the assistance of police. 2. Rather, the police has been known to discriminate against `outsiders`. You can even head over to r/bangalore to know more. 3. The income inequality is real and through the roof. We tech people make much much more than any other private profession and this has made the general population unhappy. 4. Lastly, there isn't much to do besides going out to pubs/cafes. Which is why I've been leetcoding and preparing to emigrate to Canada/UK. While it's true that I can save a lot more money here (in real terms! At PPP, my monthly savings allows me live for several months without an income) but at what cost.

FlyingSnake 5y ago
This unfortunate take is solely based on a single data point i.e. life of a North Indian in Bengaluru. Such extrapolations when applied to a huge and diverse country like India does not present a comprehensive picture. > Lastly, there isn't much to do besides going out to pubs/cafes. I am just amazed at this comment. The wondrous ruins of Hampi are just a train ride away. Then there's the UNESCO protected majestic western ghats few hours away, and not to mention the pristing beaches of Malpe and Udupi. I mean Chamundi hills, Hogenakkal etc is right next to the city.
- sid-ant 5y ago
  > The wondrous ruins of Hampi are just a train ride away. Then there's the UNESCO protected majestic western ghats few hours away, and not to mention the pristing beaches of Malpe and Udupi I agree, there are certainly amazing places to sight-see but I am largely referring to activities like rock climbing gyms (https://www.youtube.com/c/magmidt88 https://www.youtube.com/c/magmidt88), archery, horse riding, accessible national parks and a more extensive board games culture (surprisingly Hyderabad has 2 active clubs) The Indian society would cast you as an extremely privileged person if you were to bring this up and rightly so, since most people here are trying to live a life first. I understand that it may not be what everyone wants and this is personal to what I prefer. I would like to be in a place with a better infrastructure (trains), schools and with access to more recreational activities.

danuker 5y ago

> isn't the quality of life much worse? I can't speak about India, but I am a Romanian who worked in Austria, and when coming back, I noticed the infrastructure is lacking, especially public transport. Still, with my savings and investments, my quality of life is much better than a typical Romanian's, though not quite on par with Austria's.

pm90 5y ago

Quality of life is actually pretty great in India once you pass a certain income threshold. I would argue that its higher in certain aspects especially if your family is back there.

devnull3 5y ago

> being successful in the US gives you lots of leverage and status That use to be the case. The shine has definitely worn off. I would say the work culture in Indian product companies are much more closer to its western counterparts. (Service companies are a different ball-game) > But lets be real, isn't the quality of life much worse In my opinion, India is worse off in 2 things primarily: 1. Population density in cities 2. Poorer govt. Having said that a lot of things have improved in last decade: 1. Payment infrastructure is probably the best in the world. 2. Govt services increasingly getting online and digitised. This used to be a big friction before. 3. Govt services are increasingly streamlined in last 10 years e.g. Huge improvement in passport application/renewal 4. Investing heavily in physical infrastructure. E.g About 36 KM/day is getting added as National Highways [1] 5. Biggest Tax Reform called GST in last 50 years. The implementation is shaky but improving. 6. Incentivising production in India called PLI scheme. It received huge response [2] As far as startups are concerned, the sentiment here (at least for me) is "we-can-also-do-this" and "we-can-be-the-best". This uptick in confidence is palpable (again where I am standing) 10 years ago, I would have never imagined electric scooters/cars being designed (and not just manufactured) in India [3] [1] https://www.news18.com/news/auto/road-network-in-india-showed-substantially-growth-in-current-fiscal-economic-survey-4720484.html https://www.news18.com/news/auto/road-network-in-india-showe... [2] https://www.cnbctv18.com/auto/govt-receives-huge-response-to-pli-for-auto-auto-components-heavy-industries-minister-mn-pandey-12845302.htm https://www.cnbctv18.com/auto/govt-receives-huge-response-to... [3] https://www.atherenergy.com/ https://www.atherenergy.com/ https://pravaig.com/ https://pravaig.com/

akmittal 5y ago

> but I'd imagine that things like infrastructure are far worse in India That is true, but most tech folks live in cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune and can skip bad infra part. For residential there are premium societies and here office spaces are build like hotels. For transport there are metros(ongoing in Bangalore) . Roads are only unavoidable bad infra.

me_me_mu_mu 5y ago

Imo it isn’t worth it. My family left India for a better life because having no running water and spotty electricity is an awful living experience. But the worst part is going outside and seeing that 80% of the people are doing worse than you and the suffering I saw was absolutely mind boggling. This was back in the 90s and 00s. I went back recently in 2017/18 and between the 400ppm smog (when there was a wildfire near me in CA it was like 160) and people driving the wrong way across lanes in the smog fog and the traffic and poverty, I found the occasional Mercedes and other luxury car stuck sideways in traffic in the middle of the four lane highway that’s now somehow 9 to be extremely ironic. I know I personally would find it extremely difficult to move there. I couldn’t deal with the fact that we went to a ultra luxury mall and came outside to be surrounded once again my mind boggling poverty and seeing everything from beggars to people in Benzes stuck in the same road. You go back to your nice home and still hear honking or breathe in the smog. Moving to America was my lottery winning experience. I’m forever grateful for it.

weatherlite 5y ago
But you'd still live the life of a multi millionaire if you moved to India, no? You'd easily be in the top 1% I think, that means a personal driver and help, a gated community etc etc. So how bad would quality of life be to you then? Yes pollution is the great equalizer though, rich people have to breathe the same air mostly (for now...)
princevegeta89 5y ago
Great points. India is in a weird composition when it comes to the lifestyles people lead there. The problem is income inequality and lack of an economic balance thereof. I am sure there are a lot less beggars these days than there were in the 90's. The government, albeit corrupt, is slowly lifting people out of the poverty line and looking at the private sector, there are more employment opportunities now. Wage levels are still not up to the mark, and quickly diminish in value after trying to meet the costs of basic necessities like housing and transportation (fuel). We may need to hold on for another 10 years or so and see for ourselves what stage India may get to, at that point.