Many overseas Indians are considering a move back to the homeland at this time. While the professional reasons appear attractive, the desire to return home can be compelling. For me, a key driver to re-locate to India was my India focused venture, which requires me to be here. Also, I was responding to an urge to re-connect with the motherland, friends and family.
Whatever be your reasons for packing your bags and heading to India, I hope you find the following advice useful:
1. When to move: If you plan to move here and then find your home, avoid the monsoon season at any cost if you are looking to move to Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad or any other city city that experiences heavy rainfall. The drainage systems in most major Indian cities are woefully inadequate and the streets get heavily flooded after heavy rains. Your house hunt will easily get delayed by a couple of months, especially in Mumbai.
2. What to move: Your relatives in India will tell you that you get 'everything' here in India. They are right. You will be able to replace everything you owned in your home overseas, however, you should be prepared for living with lower quality stuff. I am not much of a domestic person and shopping is one of my least favorite activities. However, I like to cook and prefer high quality kitchenware and fine china, both of which are highly scarce commodities here. In general, you are well advised to re-locate your kitchen, linen, children's toys at the very least. If you like antique furniture, then dump your old couch before you come. There are plenty of lovely antiques to be found here in the chor bazaars.
3. Where to move: I can only comment for New Delhi and Mumbai.
New Delhi
By Indian standards, Delhi ranks high on civic amenities and quality of life and cost of living. The city officials have undertaken an aggressive campaign to make Delhi the best metro in the country and the efforts are showing. Over the last decade, pollution levels are down by 80-90%, traffic flow has improved dramatically with many new flyovers and non-stop expressways and illegal construction by local merchants are being aggressively removed to clear narrow roads and beautify the city. The city offers many affordable places to live with purchase prices ranging from USD 75-100 per sq ft in residential burbs like Gurgaon and Noida to around USD 250-600 per sq ft in the posh residential neighborhoods in main Delhi. Rents are typically 3-5% of these prices. For USD 2,000 a month, you can live in a sweet villa in a nice part of Delhi, compared to a 2 BR in Mumbai! If you have kids, you should seriously consider Delhi over Mumbai.
Mumbai
Having spent six months in Mumbai as a local resident, I must say I am not impressed with the city so far. The real estate is over-priced (75% of Manhattan prices), the streets are littered with smelly garbage and filth, no matter which part of the city you visit. There is a sheer contrast between the state of affairs in the infrastructure in Delhi and Mumbai today. When I first arrived in Mumbai, my first impression was that the city desperately needed a coat of paint. I would revise that to say that the city infrastructure needs to be gutted and rebuilt from scratch to live up to its stature as India's business capital. Mumbai desperately needs to revamp its drainage system which is 150 years old and designed to service a population which was probably 2-5% the current population. Gnarly traffic jams are common and it takes about 10-15 minutes to travel a kilometer during the day. Logically, it would make a lot of sense to walk short distances in Mumbai but the humidity coupled with the heat and the rotting garbage everywhere make it an unpleasant experience. The quality of construction in Mumbai in most apartment buildings ranges from pathetic to horrendous, with rain water seeping in during monsoons and the quality of plumbing and electricals leaving much to be desired. Mumbai scores high on quality of people, work ethic, nightlife and entertainment but scores low on cost of living, quality of life.
In short, Delhi scores much higher on quality of life and cost of living as compared to Mumbai. However, I like the character and work ethic of Mumbaikars more. Life ain't perfect!
4. Singapore and Hong Kong as alternatives: If your intention is simply to move closer to your parents in India, you should also consider Singapore and Hong Kong. Singapore is family friendly with a high quality of life and reasonable cost of living. It has plenty of good jobs in finance and IT. Hong Kong is the financial capita of Asia and the city has a buzz similar to London or NYC. I am considering a move to Hong Kong in a couple of years when I am ready to enter Pan-Asian markets with my venture. Hong Kong is as expensive as NYC and London (especially the real estate), although the 15% income tax helps a lot!
5. Living close to the family: Can it be too much of a good thing? In India, daily social life involves around family events and get-togethers. You may find that your relatives will expect to meet and dine with you at least 1-2 times a week and over time make your business their business, inundating you with advice on how to live your life in India. It feels nice initially and then gets to be a bit overwhelming if you are not used to it anymore. However, if you have kids, you have the added benefit of having access to many family members who are more than happy to baby-sit for you as family duty. Most of my married friends are most grateful for the quality time they get to spend with their spouses ALONE.
6. Managing Expectations: It's easy to conclude that living standards in India have moved up in tandem with the availability of mobile phones and international consumer brands in India. I would aver to the contrary that the quality of life in many cities in India has actually declined as infrastructure has not kept pace with the explosive growth in urbanization. Indian cities are bursting at their seams and local city officials tend to be mired in inertia when it comes to civic planning. Indian city officials awake out of their slumber only when their is a civic disaster and the media screams bloody murder, causing politicians to scramble and prod their bureaucrats to 'fix the problem'. A decade ago the pollution in Delhi got so bad that one in four residents was known to have a lung related affliction and children started developing asthma. Only then did the local government impose pollution control measures that have improved the quality of air. Large sections of Mumbai's streets are flooded with knee-deep water every monsoon shutting down the traffic and causing mayhem in the city and yet no city government has done much about it. I guess the definition of a disaster varies from city to city. Growing up in India, I had little appreciation for how much trouble my mother went through to provide us with a smooth and easy existence. Hence, I was blissfully unaware of how difficult daily life can be when you can't take basic amenities for granted. Indian families don't hire an army of servants just because they are cheap, it's because they are actually needed to run an Indian household efficiently. The availability of cheap and abundant labor precludes the need for efficiency in the way India operates. In the US, people throw money at problems whereas in India, we are used to throwing cheap labor to overcome our problems! Recently, I was telling a friend how the infrastructure of my house is in need of chronic repairs and the amount of time it's sapping out of my daily life. He suggested I hire a full time errand boy just ($50 a month) to run around and take care of mundane tasks in the neighborhood. He was even more surprised when I told him that I didn't own a car. His point was you need to own a car, because it comes a with a cheap driver ($100-150 a month) who can do errands for you around the city. Having spent hours at the local phone store just to get a mobile connection, I can see his point. He explanation for the 'chronic repair' problem was simple: We don't make high quality stuff since it costs us more to make/buy them in India than to eventually repair them (not counting the value of time).
7. Time is not money: In India, money is more important than time since our capital base is low and population (and therefore the number of people with free time) is high. As long as you are dealing with white collar professionals, you can expect punctuality (well, mostly) and decent quality of work. However, don't expect the cable guy, phone repairman, plumber or electrician to be on time. In fact, don't even expect them to show up the same day they promise to come. If there's an emergency in your house, just deal with it. So the question you ask is how do the privileged folks in India deal with such problems? Well, they get around by employing maintenance staff on their company payrolls who also double up as domestic staff when necessary. If you want to streamline your life even further, you should retrofit your home to your specifications before you move in. This is a feasible option if you choose to live long term in most Indian cities with the exception of Mumbai, which is terribly expensive.
8. If big cities suck, where is the quality of life in India? India's small towns offer the best blend of quality of life, cost of living and a peaceful environment to raise your kids. Tier II and III cities like Hyderabad, Kochi, Chandigarh, Nagpur, Indore and Pune rank high amongst locals looking to escape the chaos and crowds of bigger cities. I would recommend Goa as a great place to retire if you are at that age and don't care for big cities. Its a one hour flight to Mumbai if you need high quality medical care.
9. Social Life: India's The great thing about living in India is that we are not shy to get know each other and even a third degree of separation is seen an an opportunity to interact and build relationships. This can be the most rewarding aspect of living in India if you enjoy meeting people and making friends. However, if you are returning home after many years, you must appreciate that you may have changed a lot more than your old friends have and there will be disconnects.
Having said all this, I must admit that I came back with the naive expectation that many aspects of India would be perfectly preserved in time for all the years I was gone. Some of the changes have been good and some disappointing. At the end, everyone's perspective to life is unique and we must chose and reject what works best for us. So far, I do not regret moving to India and will wait another six months before I come to a final conclusion.
hey Vikram. This is a gr8 post you have made. Am sure it will be useful to many of my friends back in the US too. Currently I am visiting home (Delhi) for a couple of weeks and took out 2 days to visit friends in bangalore. Infrastructure is a mess there and once I came back to Delhi it was a relief.
Anyways wish you the best with your work in Bombay. Do post a 1 year anniversary post too ... would be interesting to see how you feel then.
cheers!
Posted by: Sumit Chachra | October 18, 2006 at 05:10 PM
Thanks, Sumit. Good to hear from you. How is Yahoo treating you? If you are ever in Mumbai, do look me up.
Cheers
Vikram
Posted by: Vikram | October 18, 2006 at 06:00 PM
Hey Vikram
Just stumbled onto your posts. They are great and quite informative. In fact they are so influential that we are moving to Delhi in Jan 2007! Just kidding.....not about the move though, Nigel is starting a new Job in Delhi in Jan 07. We are all making the move. Going to be in JSR for the wedding in Dec 06 and will scout out housing in Delhi in early Dec 06. Please get in touch ...the numbers and email are still the same till 25th Nov 06.
Posted by: Geet Harris | October 25, 2006 at 01:13 PM
Hey Vikram,
I am relocating india this month. to B'lore. Can you please tell me what to do with my credit cards. Specially how to deal with postal mails may not be very secure in India.
--Gaurav
Posted by: gaurav | November 01, 2006 at 02:27 AM
Hi Gaurav,
If you are going to keep your US credit cards while you are in India, I would suggest you opt to receive your monthly statements online, which is what I do. I don't think your US credit card providers will care if you switch your postal address to an Indian address. If you are going to trim down to one card, choose American Express as they have the most customer friendly fraud policy. Also, inform your credit card company to flag transactions above your average transaction size so they can block unusual transactions till you clear them. Finally, don't give your credit card to any establishment which does not possess a credit card reader and uses imprints of your card instead. Credit cards imprints carry all details of your card and increase fraud risk.
Local credit card companies send you their cards via courier so you will be fine. In fact, courirer services in India are very cheap at about Rs 60-70 ($1.50) for domestic delivery. The regular postal service is pretty decent however I wouldn't risk sending and receiving high value items through it yet.
Posted by: Vikram Chachra | November 01, 2006 at 07:59 AM
Thanks Vikram for the info. BTW your blog is simply superb. it just makes me feel at home. I like these travel diaries with excellent images. very much.
--Gaurav
Posted by: Guarav | November 01, 2006 at 11:09 PM
Hi Gaurav,
I am glad you enjoy reading the blog. I started writing it initially for my friends who were curious to see India through my eyes. Now, it seems to have found broader appeal with folks like yourselves. Keep the comments coming-motivates me to keep writing.
Good luck on your move to India!
Cheers
Vikram
Posted by: Vikram Chachra | November 02, 2006 at 10:30 AM
Hi Vikram
What's a good way to move US household stuff to India. I have about 150kgs to move and airplanes allow less than half of that.
Wasn't sure if you had to deal with any of this - but I wanted to ask anyways.
Thanks
Amit
Posted by: Amit Singh | December 30, 2006 at 08:52 PM
Very nice post. I have a five year plan of learning everything about Mumbai. I am swriting down whatever I am learning in this blog. Check it out.
Posted by: mumbaiKar | February 10, 2007 at 09:32 PM
Vikram
We are in Gurgaon now. Send me an email to my address above and I will send you my new contact details.
Cheers Geet
Posted by: Geet Harris | February 28, 2007 at 06:08 PM
Hello:
Thanks for such an informative piece. My husband and I are considering a 2 year stint in Mumbai, but your piece gives me a great deal of pause. We have two little girls, and I am very concerned about the pollution and potentially harmful effects on their respiratory system. Do children who move there experience significant respiratory problems or asthma? Are some parts of the city less polluted than others, at least in terms of air quality? Also, when in the monsoon season?
Posted by: natalie williams | April 11, 2007 at 02:59 AM
Hi are you bases at Indore
Posted by: | April 23, 2008 at 11:37 AM
Quite interesting blog.
From our MakeMyTrip UAE( http://www.makemytrip.ae ) travel we also organize foreign trips and also the trip for other countries also at very low cost.
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