While talking to a friend in India recently, I was shocked to learn that he had given up his Canadian PR and would visit his family in Canada only occasionally, now onwards! His wife was very forthright in her reasons,” We feel restricted in our actions and movement. Here in India, we have our own individual friend circles plus relatives. We can move around on our own, without any problems, at our convenience,”! This set me thinking. Living abroad has always been a much sought-after condition in India for years! Here is an elderly couple (touching 70) who have visited the US and Canada thrice but are not very keen to stay in Canada for longer periods (to keep Canadian PR alive, a person must spend a minimum of two years in a slab of five years in Canada).

Right from our childhood, we have been in awe of ‘life abroad', particularly in the West! The affluence of western society, particularly in Europe and North America, was the main reason; India, in contrast, remained a poor, third-world country, dependent on PL-480! Anyone who managed to ‘go abroad’ would become a hero in our eyes! I recall about 50 years back, a relative earned a scholarship to study in the UK and a ‘sheer chai + katlam’ party continued in their house for well over a month. This fascination continued as we saw signs of prosperity and changes in the lifestyle of families with such ‘foreign connections’; symbols like ‘imported’ electronic equipment, clothing, personal accessories, and even cigarettes beside the most sought-after item -makeup tools and perfumes were often flaunted by the ‘desi’ families. My younger brother traveled to the US for his Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the 1980s and was able to save a substantial bit of money for the family, besides bringing gifts to the family. Pictures of famous landmarks only added to the mystique of the developed world!

My parents traveled to the US in 1998 and returned after 6 months, happy and exhausted! They were full of stories about the wonderful places they had visited and the quality time they had spent with family. A close relative living nearby had also helped take them around. Attending a Kashmiri Overseas Association Camp was the icing on the cake - they met KP families living across US and Canada. My father, after the demise of my mother, again traveled to the US in 2004 but unfortunately did not relish his stay this time – he returned after just three months. I heard him speaking to a friend,” America sone ka hai, lekin mere liye pinjre jaisa hai.” I could not exactly appreciate the sentiments he expressed in 2004.

My first-hand experience of travel and stay in the US and Canada in 2018 was fabulous– five glorious months of visiting picturesque locations, historical places, and sites (Niagara Falls, New York City, Atlantic City, Jasper, Banff, Athabasca Glacier, Vancouver, Whistler Olympic Park, etc. My family (sister in the US and daughter in Canada) took excellent care and kept us engaged all through. We had a lovely interaction with their local contacts and friends. Time practically flew and before we could realize it, the date for return to India had arrived!

I retired from my job in March 2020. I had planned leisurely travel to several relatives and friends in India, post my retirement; the family tree needed attention, something I had been unable to do during my service tenure. A longer trip to North America was also planned, especially since life gifted me with a grandson in 2019! The COVID-19 pandemic, unfortunately, changed all calculations! For almost eighteen months, we were practically confined to the house with very restricted movement. We were able to travel to Canada only in October 2021 amidst several new travel-related guidelines and restrictions!

I have been in Canada for three months now. Covid -19 and Omicron spread have led to increased restrictions and precautions, limiting movement out of the house or visiting friends. While we have been able to spend quality time with family (read grandson), it has also given me time to reflect on the type of life senior citizens/ dependants have to lead while visiting family in the West. I understand Covid restrictions and severe winter in Canada are contributors to the condition, yet, this visit has made me look closely at the hectic life schedules of my family in the US and Canada and appreciate the efforts they put in to make our stay as comfortable as could be!

For people like me, who come to visit family after an active life in India, life here can be a mixed bag. While the family does its best to see to your comforts and take you around, they have their limitations! They have work-related commitments which keep them busy, Monday to Friday! Their day starts quite early, depending on the commute. On weekends, they have to attend to groceries, cleaning, and other household chores. My wife is able to contribute by attending to cooking and some other household chores – I feel useless, not contributing much! Naturally, one feels restricted! Being in unfamiliar territory, moving out on my own is a brave option; public transport, as we understand in India (buses, trains, auto-rickshaws) is limited, and the cost is very high (by Indian standards). I once explored the option of traveling to Boston (from New Jersey) to meet a friend but travel options are limited - inter-district or interstate bus service, as we are used to in India, is rare; trains don’t run as frequently – so traveling by plane sounded the safest option! Likewise, I was invited by a relative to visit them in Vancouver – I toyed with the idea of traveling by train from Edmonton but was told that the travel might take 48 hours (by air it is 2 hours max) and the cost would be much higher than air travel! In the West, people prefer to travel by car – personal or rented, hence dependence or requirement for other modes of transport is limited! For a person so used to travel, limited independent mobility comes as a big shock. We have become dependent on family and all of them are busy working, Monday to Friday. In India, we are used to having shops selling day-to-day requirement stuff, foodstuff, and the like on every street! Here, we have designated markets and nothing in the neighborhood! It is, often, a cultural shock!

Youngsters often move to North America/ Europe/ Australia in search of better living standards and career opportunities. Trust me, they lead hectic and tough lives in their adopted countries. Competition is high, job expectations even higher and job security (as we understand in India) is missing. They do earn well but to us ‘desis’ their earnings appear astronomical due to the currency exchange rates. One USD fetches Rs 75 and a CAD Rs 60/- in INR. Likewise, with the Middle East, European or Australian currencies being stronger, the exchange rates are high. All Indians who come to these countries have to build their lives block by block through sheer hard work and perseverance. Their lifestyles appear grand by Indian standards but that is how people work and live in these countries! People living here do not have the benefit of household help – the concept of ‘Kamwali Bai’ as we have in India is alien here! In India we have families with 2-3 ‘kamwali bais’ coming in daily to help the lady of the house clean the house, do the dishes and cook food, milkman delivering milk every morning at the doorstep, the ‘dhobi’ coming for collecting clothes for washing/ironing daily, ‘kachre-wala’ coming to the doorstep to pick up the garbage every morning, ‘mali’ coming in to attend to the lawn and plants and vegetable vendors moving around lanes to sell fresh wares, again at the doorstep! Some households can even boast of a full-time household help – a multi-tasker who even attends to grocery and other chores! In the developed world, these facilities do not exist; all household chores have to be done by self! The cost of hiring people to do daily chores or repair electric/plumbing equipment is prohibitively costly! Therefore, attending to household chores, from cooking to dishwashing, cleaning the house, and doing laundry have to be done by the hosts and the chores take their toll! Menfolk often share the burden by loading/unloading the dishwasher, doing laundry, taking out different forms of garbage (recycle, compost, and garbage) on designated days, and even attending to the cooking! Men in India are a pampered lot, in comparison!

Indians living abroad also pay a price by way of missing out on regular ‘in-person’ social interaction with family and friends. I remember in the 1980s, the only method I had for communicating with my sister in the US was through letters which would take three long weeks in reaching. Mobile communication/video calling and Social Media Platforms have no doubt made life easier with instant interaction! Still, missing the joy of ‘in-person’ participation in social and family events, and being together in the joys and sorrows of the family is a very heavy price they pay. A relative got stuck in the US due to visa-related issues while his parents passed away in India. The emotional pain and price he must have paid would be known only to him!

I feel that the first visit to the developed world is an ‘aha’ visit! The family goes out of the way in entertaining, planning trips to exotic locales, and whatnot. Reality bites during the second or during a longer trip. All nearby locales are done and dusted; the novelty of the place has worn off a bit. Lady of the house leaves for work at seven in the morning, leaving you to fend for yourself till her return! Food is in the fridge but needs to be warmed before eating. Cooking is done for the entire week or a part thereof in one go during weekends. Indian men of my generation are used to freshly cooked food three times a day! Unfortunately, many kitchens in the West are not suitable for heavy and deep ‘tadka’ frying, as required for Indian-style cooking – the fire alarm goes off the moment some fumes or smoke rises! So, ‘desi’ food has to be cooked the ‘angrezi’ way!

Indians who work and live in these developed countries for a couple of decades find it difficult to return to India. Reasons are not difficult to understand – professional opportunities apart, they get used to a more organized and comfortable lifestyle. In India, we have long ques for everything – God bless our population; add to that the tyranny of ‘Sarkari babudom’ which creates complications in every process! Our cities and towns give us a dirty look, thanks to the typical Indian mentality of keeping our homes neat but throwing garbage onto the streets! I recall some years back, my US-based sister wanted her children to experience travel by train – we chose day travel so that they could look around and experience the Indian countryside. When we saw heaps and heaps of garbage piled on either side of the railway track each time we neared a town, I had no option but to bring the curtains down on the windows! Traffic in India is another thing that scares visitors – it is functional chaos with utter disrespect for rules. The lack of self-discipline and utter contempt for norms we Indians exhibit in abundance is in direct contrast to the way life moves in the West. Cities, towns, and the countryside are clean because people make it a point to keep those clean. During a visit to Jasper in 2018, we were staying near the river Athabasca and my daughter explicitly told me not to litter or throw food leftovers into the river. From our childhood, we would throw leftover food into whatever waterbody we were visiting in Kashmir and even wash the grease-laden tiffin in the water of a river/ lake. These disciplines were missing from our curriculum and the results are there, right before our eyes! The freedoms people get in the developed world and the ‘ease of living and operation’ they get used to have been missing in India all these 75 years! That obviously does not encourage people to venture back. An Indian business family I know has two of its sons living in the US – both have refused to return to India because of similar reasons, much to the disappointment of their parents!

Being used to a certain lifestyle and environment, people find it difficult to adapt to a different lifestyle late in life! For people of my generation, living in India is an excellent idea, health, and other factors permitting! Things in India are improving with infrastructure developing by leaps and bounds. We are no longer a ‘third-world country, which has become the world’s third-biggest economy. The availability of quality products has improved considerably in India and almost all international brands are available, in foodstuff, apparel, electronic goods, personal care, luggage and you name it! With digitalization, ease of operation has improved in most sectors including banking, travel, getting things done at Govt offices, etc. Healthcare facilities in India are freely available and at a pretty low cost, compared to the US model. Health insurance costs in the US are prohibitively high and people often hesitate in bringing an infirm parent or relative, even for a short visit! Consulting a doctor, even a specialist is much easier in India than say the Canada Model where the consultation is free of cost but consultation may mature after two months! The speed at which Govt of India is expanding ‘AIIMS’ type hospitals across India is going to be a game changer for the healthcare segment in this decade itself! The Ayushman Bharat Card (health insurance) facility in India is slowly revolutionizing the healthcare services in India for the common man. More reforms are in the offing! So, in the next few years, India is bound to witness major improvements on the Quality-of-Life front!

I must admit that our children remain anxious about the welfare of parents in India; – similar children living in India but in a different city due to job constraints! My daughter has already initiated paperwork for our PR in Canada so that we can spend more time with her. My views are not that one should not visit children settled abroad. Traveling to the US or the developed world for a few months with family or traveling for pleasure to see the world is fine but for me, permanent settling down abroad does not appear as appealing today as it might sound. East or West, for me, my India remains the best! I today totally appreciate the sentiments expressed by my late father in 2004,” I do not want to live in a cage,”!