Editor: This series is written by a IT professional from India.  She transplanted herself to NYC and worked for one of the biggest media companies in the world.  Despite her success, she was lured back home by the opportunities and developments present in one of the world’s fastest growing economies.  What does it mean to come back home? How is it to try the non conventional path?  What does a growing nation mean at the individual level? Follow her story here…

The photo above was taken from my Jersey City apartment the day I left to return home to India.  You can see the Statue of Liberty facing East on the right.  The script underneath the photo is a line from one of my favorite Kannada poems.  It means “Life’s about leaving behind what we have and yearning towards what we don’t.”  I love this line; considering my current situation, it couldn’t be more apt.  My life in the Big Apple was fantastic.  I have had one of the best year’s of my life there.  I was given more opportunities to fulfill all the dreams (and more) that this small town Indian girl could ever imagine.  But the problem with dreams is as soon as you fulfill one, another one rises.

Moving from the US to back home to India was not an easy decision.  It is always hard to get out of your comfort zone and do something that’s not conventional.  Thanks to the American thinking I have started questioning why I want to do something (at least partly now).  If not for this, I would have spent the majority of my life doing what is supposed to be the next best thing to do.

Living away from home – especially in a New York City coping with a bad recession while constantly hearing and readin gabout all the growth and magical GDP numbers in India makes you wonder if you’re in the right place.  Isn’t success about being in the right place at the right time?  Even though economically, India is doing great, socio-politically a lot needs to be improved.  I believe one can’t thrive without the other.

So I thought why not apply the skills I have learnt living away from home into something which I believe needs to be improved.  I hope this makes all the people in India who cry about brain-drain a little happy.  Maybe I am just stupid or way too idealistic.  I don’t know but a little that’s what I am hoping to figure out.

I would never ever imagined I would be writing about something like this on my century-old desk.  I have had all the horrific memories of slogging for my 10th, 12th and engineering exams on this.  It occupies about half of my room and mom keeps reminding me such a waste of space it is.  But I simply love it.  Few things are just so special and I am glad I am writing my first ever blog post on this.