The dreaded midnight call – and a call to action
In my forties, I was getting to be of an age where I would
have dual filial responsibilities towards my nuclear family on one hand, and
aging parents on the other.
Economic migrants like me dream of greener pastures in
foreign shores and eventually settle-in after jumping through visa and
immigration hoops, calling a foreign city or town ‘home.’ I was living the
‘American Dream’ with my nuclear family – a house in the suburbs of Greensboro,
North Carolina; two cars and a first grader doing well at the local elementary
school.
Greensboro, like most other midsize American towns afforded
a nice quality of life for expatriates like me. Suja would drop our son Vijay
at school and spend the mornings volunteering at the local library before
picking him up after classes. I worked at Syngenta, a multinational with a
large presence in town. On most days, I’d come home for lunch, a 10-minute
drive from office. Greensboro also had a sizeable desi population and Hindu
temple and a new BAPS temple, along with a couple of desi grocery shops and Indian
restaurants. We had moved to Greensboro about five years prior to that after a
stint at a few other cities across the US.
Like many retirees with kids abroad, my parents lived in a
nice villa in Bangalore, and until recently enjoyed the freedom without much of
life’s encumbrances. They were both in relatively good health and even into
dad’s late seventies, my parents would frequently travel to visit temple towns
in Southern India and had chronicled their trips to over 100 famous shrines.
They had also made an extended trip to spend about six months with us in
America, but the novelty of the trip wore out soon and they were eager to get
back to their life and routine in Bangalore.
The late
evening calls
This midnight call from mom wasn’t exactly unexpected. During
the past two years, we had made a couple of trips to India. Dad’s health had
been gradually declining, and he had been diagnosed with stage-4 prostate cancer.
As a retired military officer, he was entitled to access a world class medical
system and had been undergoing treatment at the Air Force Command hospital in
Bangalore and the therapy was expected to minimize the symptoms and spread of
the cancer. Now the situation seems to have progressed further.
During our late evening calls over the week, mom would
update me of the day’s happenings and how she continued to struggle through the
new situation. The effort of managing dad’s needs along with household chores
was getting to be a bit overwhelming for mom, even with the domestic help at
hand. She was clearly on the verge of a breakdown and needed help.
Mom said she was making similar calls to Manoj, my brother
who lived in Wembley, in the suburbs of London with his wife and son. He too
had migrated west a decade ago and his nuclear family were now British
nationals.
Manoj and I got on a conference call with mom the weekend
after my mom’s first call and we agreed that we had to act. One of us had to
make a quick dash to Bangalore to assess the situation on the ground and plan
for the way forward. Manoj indicated
that he was busy with project at work and couldn’t travel and I began looking
for flights and ticketing options to Bangalore. I found an Air France flight
from Raleigh to Bangalore via Paris for and booked it and informed my boss
about the family emergency.
That weekend, Suja drove me over to Raleigh, about 60 miles
from Greensboro and dropped me off at the airport. While waiting to board the
flight, I saw a message from Manoj that he too would be able to make it to
Bangalore after all. He was keen to get a firsthand assessment for himself too.
This surprised me a bit since I felt it was redundant for both of us to be traveling
from different parts of the world at the same time. But I decided to shrug it
off; more the merrier.
After Manoj and I landed in Bangalore that week, mom gave us
a rundown and shared dad’s medical records. We noticed how dad’s condition was gradually
declining and decided to take him to a specialist for a second opinion. The
oncologist looked at the reports after examining dad said that he was
exhibiting some new symptoms like slow movement and impaired speech which weren’t
consistent with the progression of prostate cancer and referred us to a
neurologist. The neurologist ran a few diagnostics and an MRI, after which he said
that the symptoms were consistent with Parkinsonism, that would gradually
advance to Parkinson's disease.
After the initial examination, the neurologist took Manoj
and me aside and explained the implications of his prognosis. “I would give
your dad about two more years. Although he is mobile now, his motor skill will
continue to decline,” and he added “since both of you live abroad, it is
for you to decide if you want to be here at the end or spend some quality time
with him now.”
This blunt assessment felt a bit jarring, but the message
was loud and clear. It was a call to action for Manoj and me.
Before returning to our adopted homeland, Manoj and I
decided to engage a caretaker to help dad at night, which would provide some much-needed
reprieve to mom. After a week of whirlwind activities, we flew back agreeing to
discuss the future course of action further. It was understood that one of us
would have to bite the bullet and return to India to be with our parents.
Breaking
through X = X+1
Suja and I were in the typical NRI trap – I had migrated
west nearly two decades ago. After moving on the famous H1B work visa, I had
got married and Suja had joined me in pursuit of our American dream, and we had
a child who was now seven. We were Naturalized Americans with an Overseas
Citizen of India (OCI) status that would allow us to live in India or America
permanently. Armed with American passports and OCI cards, we had the
flexibility to live and work permanently in the US or India.
On returning back to Greensboro, I discussed my observations with Suja. After hearing me out, she said simply
“Let’s plan to move back to Bangalore. We were looking for a
reason to return back to India in the future. It’s now or never.” She added, “20
or 30 years from now, we shouldn’t be looking back and regretting not taking a
decision.”
I was blown away by the simplicity of this statement. Here I
was, conflicted on the pros-and-cons of returning to India “for good,” but Suja
had distilled it to the basics – focus on the catalyst and put our plans into
action. While we had discussed the possibility of returning to India “someday”
to be around for aging parents, it was always in the distant horizon. Until
now, that is.
This topic of “Return to India” is a perennial favorite
among fellow desi immigrants in most parts of the world. For some, the need to
return is driven by the sense of nostalgia for the land one left behind while
for others it is about the need to be around family and friends one grew up
with. A few plan a return back to explore business ventures to capitalize on
the rate of growth of the Indian economy. The vast majority, however, find it
hard to make a move back. The inability to act on such a move has been
eulogized by several articles, blogs and films, most famously by the online
essay “the ‘X + 1’ syndrome” that has been circulating on the web for a couple
of decades.
A week after Manoj and I returned back from Bangalore, we
got on a conference call with our parents. Mom sounded especially chirpy, and
even dad sounded upbeat. The engagement with Kamala, our night-caregiver was
working out well. She would come home in the evenings and spend the night in
dad’s bedroom, helping him to the bathroom during the night. In the mornings,
she would help him bathe and escort him for a walk around the block before
leaving for the day. Mom was able to sleep well and tend to household chores
along with tending to dad’s needs during the day.
Manoj called me back after our conference call and began
musing if the RTI was really warranted at this stage. Hadn’t we dodged the
bullet for now? He wasn’t sure the situation was as dire, and that we didn’t
really need to be around to support the seniors. The ball was in my court and Suja
had simplified the decision, so it was now unto me to “plan” the move.
Why not
relocate parents to the US instead?
A few times when I expressed my thoughts about our
return-to-India move to friends, a common question would pop-up: ‘Why not
relocate your parents to the US instead of you moving?’ They were intrigued
that I was uprooting my immediate family while not disrupting my parents instead.
Many of my Indian, Pakistani and Mexican friends had done just that. After
immigrating, acquiring naturalization, they had applied for a Green Card for
their parents.
The ‘family unity’ policy of the American immigration system
ensures the ease of immigrant visas for immediate family members of Citizen. Parents
of US Citizen are eligible for an immediate approval of immigrant visas and can
get a Green Card approved in a matter of months.
Many families wind up their lives in the old country, opting
to start afresh in America. In many
cases, naturalized Citizen also sponsor immigration paperwork for their
extended family including siblings who eventually migrate to the States. The
term for such migration of entire families is “chain migration.”
This trend is prevalent among younger immigrants, especially
those with parents in their sixties and seventies who are relatively mobile and
in the prime of their retirement years. After the parents migrate to the US on
immigrant visas and eventually acquire naturalization, they may be eligible for
Medicare and other social benefits. However, till that time, the parents are
expected to be dependent on their sponsoring children.
There were a few reasons I didn’t want to entertain the ‘family
migration’ idea. For one, my brother and family lived in England not America.
While it is easy enough to get on a plane and cross the ‘pond,’ it would not be
practical for my parents to hop between Greensboro and London. And secondly, my
dad, who had turned 80 wasn’t exactly in the pink of health. Insurance in the
US wouldn’t cover his pre-existing conditions and the cost of his cancer
treatment would be prohibitive if I were to pay for it out of pocket in
America.
There is also a strong emotional factor that plays out while
discussing such plans. My parents were not ready to leave the comfort of the
home that they had spent most of their retired life in and relocate to a
foreign land. And there were other practical factors that at play here - thanks
to his military service, my dad was eligible for world class medical treatment
which we didn’t want to give up.
Takeaway
Many NRIs migrating overseas harbor an intent to return to
India, perhaps after they have met their personal and professional goals.
However, the goalpost for such a return keeps shifting as life priorities take
precedence.
If you are reading this book, it is probably to get a
glimpse into one person’s RTI move. For me, the catalyst for me was rather
simple – the need to be around for aging parents. For others it could be a job
transfer, and a few tech entrepreneurs I know have moved to explore the growth
opportunities in India.
During my brief trip to India, I caught up with a couple of
old friends, including a former Bay-Area techie who had returned after making a
little fortune when his startup was gobbled up by Microsoft. He gave me a
rundown on contemporary life in India along with a few practical pointers to
focus on the basics.
The silver lining from the pandemic and lockdowns is that it has shown business executives that white collar can indeed work from home efficiently. After the pandemic and lockdowns, a few of my friends in the US who had been “working from home” decided to move their “home” to a base in India while continuing to work for their jobs remotely. Such temporary work-from-home in India may be a model to explore for those trying to immerse themselves into live in India before making a full move.
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