Three years ago, in October 2016, I left the UK for India, with a promise to myself. The promise was list of things I wanted to achieve: I wanted to help my mother in sorting out her health, finances and land affairs; I wanted to ensure her financial security and well being; I wanted to improve the relationship with my father; I wanted help Richa get settled in a happy marriage; I wanted to become proficient in programming; I wanted to learn the ropes of starting up, and eventually, start working on my own: I wanted to have the the silhouettes of a team and a product ready; I wanted to earn myself a financial safety net; I wanted to be fit.
Importantly, I gave myself only three years to achieve all my objectives - I promised myself I not become complacent in India, that I would not forget what it was like being in Oxford, that I would still carry spirit of excellence through hardwork, duty, service that I found in Oxford. I feared that the comforts of India would make me lazy and lifeless.
I pictured myself growing old, with a balding head and a potbelly, and a fat Indian middle class family in tow. I did not want that life. Instead, I wanted to be in the community of the people I admire: artists, philosophers, writers, mathematicians, scientists, makers and craftsmen. Why, even doctors, lawyers, economists and investment bankers. I wanted to retain the memory of sipping aftertoon tea at Blackwell’s, or the pleasant summer garden parties and fancy college dinners, and the feeling of intellectual contentment that I felt reading Hannah Arendt or Isaiah Berlin at Duke Humfrey’s or Codrington, or proving Godel’s Incompleteness theorem in my clocktower room.
While in India, not all time was spent purposefully. I spent months doing nothing but binging on TV shows. Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, The Good Place, and Friends were all devoured.
Then there was the travelling: the Kolkata-Sunderbans-Varanasi-Agra trip on the even of Shohini’s wedding, Nikhil’s wedding in Ajmer, Gautam’s wedding in Yamunanagar, the Jaipur Lit Fest, and the Pushkar festival.
At times, worry and self-doubt would creep in. For example, these were my feelings in September 2018:
I think sometime around August 2016 I had realised, finally, after years of introspection, what I truly am and truly care about, and the mission I need to follow to live in alignment with that, and that that would make me happy. But I have lost that feeling now. It was hard to hold onto, keeping hold of it was like trying to grasp a water bubble, and I feel I am now, once again, retracing all the missteps and false paths I had taken to reach there. I am back to where I was in 2014. I had the (what I thought was) good sense of writing down stuff that was important to me, but those words mean little to me now; for it was a state of mind, and one cannot simply redicover a state of mind by reading something. It is the same difference as exists between experiencing a dream and recalling one. All I know is that I need to find my way back to Oxford, somehow; it is there that I had begin my purposeful journey; it is there I had decided to return to India.
I had told myself then, that the biggest risk to my new state of mind was India itself - it would tuck me into bed, wrap me in comfortable blankets, switch off the lights and lull me into sleep; it would take me away new enlightened life I had found. Now, thoroughly trapped in the blanket, I lie awake nervous that I might die in it, or be too late in escaping its clutches. My englightened state of mind grows foggier by the day, and in proportion increases my nervousness that I will not be able to escape, which, ironically, would not let me embrace the blanket and sleep.
In this state of insomnia, I can neither sleep nor escape, but I still prefer the anxiety to the comfort, for comfort can never lead me to truth and happiness, but anxiety, however uncomfortabe, can.
And earlier, from Feb 2018:
When I had just returned to India a year and a half ago, I was in a particularly vibrant, upbeat and energetic mental space. Everything was interesting! - even the things I had grown up with and should have been intensely familiar with - my family, city, country, and culture. I had travelled the world and I was rediscovering everything through fresh eyes - a traveler’s eyes. In my mind, I had a definite reason for returning and a definite plan for myself. In my mind, my stay was going to be temporary. I was filled with a sense of purpose and a jest for life. And now, 1.5 years later, my biggest worry is that I am forgetting what I once remembered. I am forgetting what it was like a few years ago and risk losing a sense of what’s truly important to me. I have become complacent. I get easily frustrated at minor stuff. And I have become lazy. And fat.
I worry I will get stuck in this country - which I do not necessarily dislike, but which, with its same old troubles - I am boringly familiar with. My elite education has drilled in me a sense of improving the conditions of my country - the corruption, the crime, pollution and poverty, but it is not something that is I am willing or able to do until I take care of the rest of my family. I want to ensure that my sister is settled. I want to ensure that my parents are financially secure and well-taken-care-of in my absence. I want to ensure that I myself have a financial safety net. Only when these conditions are met would I feel free - only then would I be able to unmoor from my present state and go on an adventure or a heroic journey - whether it is mere travelling or a risky venture. These are the sort of thoughts which do not occupy my day-to-day life, but which sometimes jolt me out of the bed into action on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
But it is now October 2019, and against all my expectations, I have achieved most of the tasks I had set out for myself.
“Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.” - Bill Gates
Granted, it is the case that the dear sister still hasn’t settled. And the relationship with Dad is still full of frictions. But progress has been made on both counts. Hands have been outstretched, someone on the other side just needs to grab them.
I am especially happy with what I have achieved everywhere else: Mom is now healthier and has a bunch of physiotherapists to take care of her if if she needs them. She is now financially secure; the locked assets are now free. The land dispute was a rich experience in working with the police, lawyers, land registrars, politicians, brokers and middlemen. Richa is now much healthier and fitter: she continues to go to the gym regularly, and would be gradually off all her meds. I myself have gone through a good journey. With the crypto boom, I was lucky. I am also now much fitter. As for my startup, I have a product and team ready, and I know what needs to be done.
Most importantly, not only am I now back in the UK, but in exactly the place I ought to be at: Cambridge. It has landed me straight back in the spirit and the culture of Oxbridge that I wanted to not forget, and it has all the ingredients I need to continue on my mission. I have great work-life balance, everything at bikable distance, including all the skill and interest realted communities I want to be part of; a university town; I am making good money with good people in a good culture in a lovely campus; my landlord and housemates are great, and I have an slowly improving social circle. It is miraculous how all of this just came together: I couldn’t designed this wonderful future for myself if someone had given me the implements.
01 October 2019