A year ago, we did something that had been quietly brewing for a while—we packed up our life in the US and moved back to India. Two kids, two jobs, and fifteen years of routines, friendships, and Costco runs later, we hit pause and asked ourselves: Is this what we want for the next decade? The answer was a clear, resounding no. Since then, I’ve had so many conversations with friends and colleagues—some curious, some skeptical, and some secretly considering the same move. So I thought I’d write this down. Not as a checklist or a how-to guide, but as a real story. Our story. Why We Moved: The Quiet Exhaustion Behind the “Dream” On paper, we had it all. Two full-time jobs, a lovely home, good schools, safe neighborhood. But under the surface, we were stretched thin. Weekdays were a blur of meetings, daycare pickups, grocery runs, and laundry. Weekends were packed with birthday parties, social obligations, and catching up on chores. We were constantly on the move, but...
I still remember the day I logged back into work after my second child was born. It was the middle of the pandemic. Daycares were shut, nannies were out of the question, and both my partner and I were working full-time from home—with two young children who had no concept of 'Do Not Disturb'. There were days when I’d be on a video call with a baby on my lap screaming in the background and a toddler tugging at my sleeve. Nights blurred into mornings. Meals were often a negotiation. And amidst all this, I found myself in a conversation with a mentor, venting about everything I wasn’t able to do—missed meetings, delayed commitments, and the constant feeling of falling short. She listened patiently and then said something that changed my perspective: “Instead of focusing on what you’re not doing, try looking at what you’re building. You’re surviving something incredibly hard. That’s not a weakness—it’s a strength. What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” That conver...