Why am I returning to India after my PhD?

Disclaimer:

Please note that a lot of my views in this article are of my own, shaped by conversations with my wife and personal experiences. My intention is not to impose my views on you in any way. I always recommend you analyze, make your own decisions, and decide what's best for “you”.

I’ve been thinking about writing this article for a long time. I recently became a cat dad, which caused a bit of a delay in finishing it. I don’t usually write casually (although I should write more), so please pardon my mistakes if you’re a careful and experienced reader.

“Returning to India” is an interesting term that raises multiple eyebrows and curiosity amongst friends, family and outsiders. Over the past few months, I have been repeatedly getting asked this question:

"Beta, why are you returning to India after your PhD?"

For many people, returning home after spending several years abroad seems like an unusual decision, often considered a lifestyle and career downgrade, unless we glorify the domestic help culture and 10 min Blinkit delivery. Somehow, I am required to justify my decision to return after my PhD. It's even more surprising that I’m returning from Canada, where immigration laws such as PR (permanent residency) and citizenship are relatively less stressful compared to other countries like the United States.

The idea of returning to India is daunting, when you are settled abroad for a few years, after getting your PhD degree at a prestigious university. At this stage, you might even have lucrative and higher-paying job offers, in comparison to those in India. In addition, you have spent so much time in adapting culturally and socially to a new country, you start to compare the pros of the new country and compare it against the potential downsides of living in India.

However, my decision wasn’t because I disliked Canada. I had a wonderful PhD experience there and was fortunate enough to meet the love of my life during my studies. Instead, there wasn’t a single strong reason for my decision to return, but rather my decision was shaped by the accumulation of many small things that I feel are crucial for my life, and I will miss these outsides of India.

Here are some of those reasons:

1. Lonely, especially during winters: During my PhD, there was a time when my wife and I shifted to Edmonton, Alberta. Winters are really cold in Edmonton; it usually can be several weeks with temperatures ranging between -20 to -30 degrees Celsius. I was working remotely during this period, and this meant a lot of less social hangouts and spending a lot of time at home. I found that socializing was hard in Edmonton as unfortunately we could not find the right friend circle to vibe with. Winters naturally made socializing harder and without much sunlight, the mood was pretty gloomy.
2. Food, Friends and Family: I really enjoy food, and I miss eating authentic Indian food (mutton biriyani) and fruits (mangoes). While there are some exceptions, such as the Bay Area has authentic and big Indian stores. But I still have fond memories and miss either eating momos with spicy sauce in Delhi or visiting Meghna’s biriyani back in Bangalore. More than food, I missed friends and family. A lot of my friends are spread across the world, but I’ve unfortunately missed a lot of my close friend’s weddings and special occasions as Canada is just too far away from India. Since I usually travel to India once a year, if the dates don't align, I cannot fly again for a short duration. The flight is expensive (usually 2-3K CAD) and pretty long (~18 hours, if direct) and if you are stuck in a middle seat with the defunct entertainment system…. well, may God help you.
3. The experience of heightened fear and uncertainty as an immigrant: Personally, as an immigrant, I’ve unfortunately never completely felt that belongingness to the country. I also saw friends live with a tremendous amount of stress around visas and immigration status. A job change, delayed paperwork or getting a visa appointment could suddenly become a major source of anxiety. The COVID period highlighted this even more. For e.g., during the covid-19 pandemic, Canada did not recognize the COVISHEILD vaccine from India, unfortunately this meant students had to fly from a third country (Mexico or Qatar), stay there for at least 1-2 days to take the test & get results, and then enter Canada. Other small inconveniences I usually face at airports, e.g., during security checks, there is a very high probability (>80%) that I will be asked to undo my neatly packed bags and checked for chemicals during security checkup lines. None of these issues are probably deal breakers on their own. But together they can create an uncertainty that is difficult to appreciate until you've lived with it.
4. The assumption that I have come to Canada for a PR: Believe me, I’ve been asked multiple times in Ubers by lots of Indian drivers where I’m from and then immediately ask me whether I have a PR here or not, or whether I have applied or not, which is a fairly common assumption amongst Indians immigrating to Canada. Another interesting case which I’ve heard from students at the University of Waterloo wanting Canadian citizenship so that they can work in the United States with a Canadian passport. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these choices. Everyone has different priorities. However, for me, completing my PhD was always the goal. Returning to India was never something I viewed as a backup plan or a fail-safe.

Like most of us who have stayed (or are staying) abroad, returning home was initially a theoretical plan where I would've done it “sometime”, maybe in 5 years or 10 years or even after retirement! However, after discussing with a lot of friends and family who chose to move back or remain abroad, we started getting a clearer picture of what it would take if we wanted our theory to move to reality.

We discussed our goals, both short term and long term and why we had decided to come to Canada in the first place; both of us had the same answer: to complete our PhD. I think the timing and decision to return to India became clearer after that, where there was nothing holding us back once we had both accomplished our goals.

Now, let's write a bit about what excites me to come back to India from an academic perspective:

Contributing to India's growing AI ecosystem

These are the most exciting times to be doing AI research in India. When I pursued my PhD from Canada, I wanted to learn how to do impactful research, work on challenging problems, and gain exposure to good research environments. Over the past years, I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with amazing researchers both at University of Waterloo and UKP Lab, including my supervisor, mentors and my academic siblings.

Similarly, I've watched the Indian AI ecosystem mature rapidly. Strong university groups at IITs, IISc, BITS and others, industrial research labs such as Microsoft Research, Google DeepMind, IBM and more recent ones like BodhanAI, startups such as Sarvam, have created an environment that feels increasingly exciting for research. It's a good time to hopefully bring my experience back into the evolving Indian AI ecosystem.

I would like to tackle important problems, help build research, mentor students, collaborate with universities and industry, and hopefully contribute in whatever small way I can to the community here. India also has one of the brightest undergraduate students, and if I can convince a few motivated students to stay back and contribute within the Indian ecosystem, that will be a big win for me.

Edit:

This last part I’m writing now after spending around a month in Bangalore in my new post-doctoral researcher role at Microsoft Research India.

Well, I admit the transition is difficult. Moving back home can come with its own form of culture shock. You return expecting everything to feel familiar, only to realize that both you and the place have changed while you were away. I’ve felt this now that I have shifted back to Indiranagar again, having lived here back in 2018-2019.

At times simple things that you did not face as an immigrant will bother you, such as traffic or excessive honks in Bangalore. Your preferences and likings might readjust, for e.g., we got into coffee exploration back in Edmonton with the amazing coffeepass, using which we visited around 35-40 cafes. However, in Bangalore, with the weather, filter coffee just tastes amazing and we are yet to use our moka pot here.

After spending the past few years abroad in Germany and Canada, I've realized every place asks you to make different trade-offs. For me, conversations with my wife on how we wanted to build our lives, being closer to friends and family, speaking with others in Hindi, contributing to India's growing AI ecosystem, and feeling a stronger sense of belonging, made it very easy to choose. Perhaps that's why publishing this article today on Independence Day feels appropriate.