A distant cousin of mine from India was in the same boat. He was a Mechanical Engineer from Osmania University in Hyderabad. In the early 2000s he came to Sil

A distant cousin of mine from India was in the same boat. He was a Mechanical Engineer from Osmania University in Hyderabad. In the early 2000s he came to Silicon Valley and was employed by Intel. He made a little money and bought a condo, he then joined a startup. Unfortunately the startup folded and he lost his health insurance. At the same time he developed some kidney issues and had to go on dialysis. His family convinced him to return to India so they could care for him. He really languished there for a decade. His health is a bit better as he received a kidney transplant, but its far from ideal. He has many complications. He also missed out on almost 15 years of career progress due to his medical issues. Also, India is very prejudiced against men with health issues so he could not find a wife through the traditional arranged marriage route (it didn't help that he was unemployed). He sank into depression. When I visited him in 2016 I was really worried about him. He would not pick up the phone when I called. I started to write him letters ... he only answered maybe one in 10 letters. But I kept writing to him. I would send him books, and snippets of information on interesting projects I thought he would like. He was interested in self-driving cars many many years before they became mainstream ... so I offered to pay for him to attend the Udacity class on the topic a few years ago. He started the class but never finished it. I didn't mind that he didn't finish it, but since the course was quite expensive he was filled with shame and wouldn't speak to me. Finally, almost miraculously, something changed in him over Covid. You would think that in the isolation he would get worse, but he actually began to reconnect with his friends and family in the USA over Zoom starting in 2020. In late 2020 he started working on some open source projects in image recognition and some related math libraries. From that work he got contract work. Its nothing huge, but its enough to pay his expenses in India and build some savings. He is really enjoying working remotely for a team in the USA. They offered him a fulltime job in Minneapolis, but due to his health and not knowing anyone in Minneapolis, he decided to remain remote and work from India. But his mood is palpably better now. I don't know if its a turn around story ... but maybe the beginning of one?