[vishnurp99]

Originally Posted by volkman10

One in five ultra-rich Indians plan to migrate abroad.

Why is this surprising? Travel has become more easier. When I moved back from US to India around 11 years back, I expected the air travel times to decrease dramatically. That hasn't really happened. I still haven't lost hope and that's the reason I moved to Hamburg in Germany couple of years back.

However I am hopeful to see the new chinese passenger plane prototype in production soon (planned date is 2027). The travel time from Beijing to NY will be around 2 hours in this flight. Hamburg to Trivandrum should be under an hour in this.

It should be similar to working in Trivandrum & returning to your hometown(say kollam or something) once in a quarter or so.

[HRT_FPV]

I’ve lived in Australia a few years having gone there in 2001 for my Masters at Monash Uni. The Uni name I’ve mentioned only to bolster support for others who said only a top Uni is worth considering, not the crap ones.

Did a short stint in India, quit my job and moved to Singapore to find a new one.

Yes, it was a doable thing back in 2011 albeit with the stress of high cost living without an income. I was invited to SG through a special program that gave me a one year visa and a pre-approved EP (work visa) if I found a role. This made the opportunity attractive for me and also for HP, who offered me a role 3 months from landing.

My wife and 2 yr son couldn’t move immediately, so I spent a year by myself travelling every month to Chennai. I chose to stay in a condo with two guys, who are now close friends. Once my family joined me, we took the entire apartment for us and didn’t want to share with others.

The scene I’ve set is to make clear my perspectives. I’m back in Chennai now but my wife and son continue in SG as he’s got 4 years of school to get done, stability was key for him.

1.) Quality of life is NOT AUTOMAGICALLY BETTER EVERYWHERE OUTSIDE INDIA - if you’re working, with/out family and having to scrounge in a foreign land with bare necessities, it’s the worst you can do. You’ll have spent prime years looking over your shoulder all the time, running all chores, counting pennies, etc.

2.) But if you land a decent paycheck, change your mindset to spend, not save the last bits too. Because it is this experience that will serve you well in terms of networking, new skills, learning the culture, etc. OTHERWISE THERE IS ZERO BENEFIT FROM BEING OUTSIDE INDIA.

3.) We settled on SG because we could have a full time helper at home. Sounds like I’m spoilt? Elitist? No worries whatever because it meant I was home at 6 PM, dinner done, dishes cleaned, pristine home, freshly pressed clothes, etc. This allowed us to really know work life balance, let us spend 4 hours every single evening with our son and that’s priceless.

4.) I got my Australia PR a few years ago, didn’t bother even thinking of moving there and let it expire. There’s no chance anyone would prefer leaving the safety, comfort, low taxes, and excellent quality of life in SG for the skull numbing loneliness and chore filled life in most other countries. My wife lived most her life outside India and she’s been turned by SG too.

5.) Now in Chennai, I’m living a way way better life than Singapore too. Why? I’m fortunate to live in a good part of Chennai, own house, friends around, driving is possible, help for housework, and more. Every few weeks either or my family comes to Chennai or I fly to SG. Lusting for some shopping? It’s 3 hours away. But I won’t relocate outside India ever again because at 45 years, India provides a level of comfort, peace, and contentment which I consider luxury state of living.

To close out my monologue, if you’re going to leave India simply with an aim to save a bit of money, it’s a bad decision. Your life, career, opportunities, and mental health will fare much better in India.

Quality of life isn’t better if you’ve to keep worrying about visa renewals, the occassional weekend outings in a manicured park for 2 hours, then walking to the MRT, finding a cost effective restaurant for the 1-2 weekend dinners, zombie out to Netflix until 1 AM, spend Sunday morning and afternoon on chores, and dragging your feet to work on Monday, putting up with crappy pay hikes because you need a sponsor for the visa that allows one visit home every 24 months where you’ll pick up the mandatory Mars/Milky Way sack of chocolates from the airport and finally feel good giving them to someone in India.

So, don’t bother about other countries if compromise is on the cards. Neither you nor any Indian deserves to compromise. If you truly see significantly better prospects, go ahead. It’s worth it and you’ll have an amazing experience.

Else, look ahead to being in a place that’s poised for a trajectory unlike any other country ever. It’s not for the dosas or IPL that the whole world is focused on India whilst wiping away the drool induced by vast treasure of opportunities.

When others are able to recognize that India is the place to be, we only need to look a tad harder and little closer. You’ll then see India’s actually not a bad place to be actually.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by HRT_FPV

Else, look ahead to being in a place that’s poised for a trajectory unlike any other country ever. It’s not for the dosas or IPL that the whole world is focused on India whilst wiping away the drool induced by vast treasure of opportunities.

When others are able to recognize that India is the place to be, we only need to look a tad harder and little closer. You’ll then see India’s actually not a bad place to be actually.

Thank you for your post. Heartily agree with every point you make. One of my children and her spouse recently took the call to return to India for good and build a fresh career here. They both enjoyed an Ivy league masters education, both worked in top jobs in the West and then in other countries of the global south so they have been around the block. There criterion for coming back are - India is where the growth is; living in the same city as mom & dad is a blessing when you want to start a family; and having saved a bit they realize there is something to career fulfillment in doing something in their own country. They are mature enough to gather that the first 12 months will be tough.

As I've written on this thread earlier - so many of my batch mates and more so my wife's batch mates migrated to USA in the 1980s. Today with one exception I don't see any one enjoying a higher material standard of living than those of us who stayed back in India. And of those who stayed back and did well in our chosen careers we all enjoy a significantly higher status in our own society and I dare say a better network than our batch mates who settled in USA.

My {much} younger sister settled in USA as a Professor - she and her husband borrow money from me to stay afloat, pay mortgages etc. Something tells me all is not in apple pie order living in USA. They now can't really come back to India as the environment here doesn't encourage lateral entries and the Indian environment frankly is way way tougher and I dare say more chaotic.

Originally Posted by volkman10

One in five ultra-rich Indians plan to migrate abroad.

The findings have come at a time when the number of ultra-HNIs are expected to rise to 4.3 lakh by 2028 from 2.8 lakh in 2023.

Thank you for sharing this. These journalists are lazy about peeling the onion. The ultra rich {however defined} do not think of migration the way a young IT employee does in terms of find a job, get a visa etc. They also don't really migrate because XX$ of their assets are in India and those assets need looking after. The ultra-rich want domicile of a tax friendly place, a nice house to live there 185 days a year, the flexibility to travel often to India to attend to their business/assets here. They also crave for status in society which they get only in India for the most part. And they desire to brag in their Indian circle about the home in Kensington, London. Their tax status might change but their involvement with India does not. So these click bait titles do not reflect the complexities under the layers.

[Samurai]

Wow, this is getting out of hand.

The US Department of State (DOS) has been sending alarming emails to hundreds of international students, instructing them to self-deport due to their involvement in campus activism.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world...213021550.html

If you are on F1 visa or applying for F1 visa, avoid all social media activity involving politics. Heck, don't even reply to this post.

[ArjunPadmakumar]

Originally Posted by volkman10

One in five ultra-rich Indians plan to migrate abroad.

The findings have come at a time when the number of ultra-HNIs are expected to rise to 4.3 lakh by 2028 from 2.8 lakh in 2023.







Link:

As someone who is 28 and has seen my entire peer group move to EU, CA, USA, Japan, GCC, Australasia and South East Asia I feel absolutely devastated on my choice to stay back in India. Unless you are
1.rich
2.absolutely stellar in Academics
3.In the Government
4.flourishing field like IT

you are totally done in here. When I started working in 2021 I was hoping to buy a car by 2025, explore the country, maybe slowly save in some cash to buy some gifts for the family and so on. I'm not the person who compares self to peers and retrospect but It really hits (and hits bad) when one by one everyone of the peers who endured the struggles to moving abroad starts getting their sweats worth.
Its not like I don't move out of my comfort zone. I moved from Kochi to Delhi (worst decision in my life), learnt a language, endured horrible work pressure and totally different food and culture. Each time I get a thought that am I on the right path I would recomfort myself and say it would take time and lot of patience and hardwork. But no, all I received was a great toll on my health, a realisation of extreme racism among some of our countrymen who see fellow citizens as 2nd class (this is despite learning their language and respecting there culture) and the worst part is absolutely bad increments with respect to the work load. Stayed away from the family, overworked, no relaxation, no lovelife, and worst of all is back home if I had worked a part time gig like food delivery or pump assistant I would have had the savings to get a nice ride.
I started with 21k in 2021 and in 2025 when I quit my salary was 35k. Needless to say, I quit my industry and came back home with empty pockets and tired heart and soul. And an absolutely useless professional degree with 4 years experience.

In this country, a citizen is viewed as nothing but a equipment to extort his sweat and brains.

After a month long detox, I am preparing mentally and physically to start from scratch and study a new field and after the initial phase complete it in a different country. My family is super supportive, and great friends mean a lot during bad times. But I am totally done, survival and peace of mind comes first. Patriotism, so called growth, commitment to the home country and everything else is secondary if not tertiary.

[notme]

Originally Posted by ArjunPadmakumar

As someone who is 28 and has seen my entire peer group move to EU, CA, USA, Japan, GCC, Australasia and South East Asia I feel absolutely devastated on my choice to stay back in India. Unless you are
1.rich
2.absolutely stellar in Academics
3.In the Government
4.flourishing field like IT

Back in 1994, when I finished my studies, jobs were hard to come by. Even though I was a good student from a well-known college, getting a job right away was next to impossible. Times were tough. Finally got a job at a decent automobile company—though the starting pay was just Rs.1250.

Fast forward to 2025, as an entrepreneur, I find it hard to get committed freshers even at 30k. Many youngsters today lack patience – they don't want to stick around long enough to learn properly or build real skills. Instead, they jump ship at the smallest frustrations. It's problem of plenty – it's a problem of too many options and too little perseverance.

Putting inflation into perspective, What cost Rs.10 for a full vegetarian meal in 1994 now costs 110 at the exact same eatery.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by ArjunPadmakumar

In this country, a citizen is viewed as nothing but a equipment to extort his sweat and brains..

Thank you for your candid view. I must admit it does resonate with me. I think these threads tend to have a skewered view of the world out there. I used to run a sizeable organisation in India. Close to 25k employees, about 2/3 worked in what we called the field. The other 1/3 (university and college degrees) looked down on the field force as an uneducated, ignorant lot. When somebody met with his/her death, which unfortunately happened almost every month initially, that was never an issue, just hire a new body. To this day I am appalled at the calousnous of how well to do, well educated Indians look at some of their countrymen.

I must admit, having people killed on the job was one of the most difficult things I had to deal with. There was absolutely no reason for it. Our field technician were supposed to climb radiotowers to fix antennas and stuff.

But you don't climb at night and you don't climb under certain weather conditions. I had to re-introdcue all those rules. And I got angry calls from the CEOs of my customers. When I explained they got angrier, telling me Imhad the wrong priorities and the network being up and running was more important than the life of one field technician. These are some of the richest guys in India!

So I told them no, this is how we do things. So they call my boss, who backs me to the hilt and tells them not to call him as I have final authority on these matters.

So I started showing images of these dead field technician during my executive team meetings. Some people got sick. I was appalled at the level of compassion, or rather lack of, from my direct reports to their staff dying on the job. Somebody fell to their death I used to get a call. “Boss, a field technician fell out of the tower this morning. Not to worry, he has already been replaced.

My question were about: how is he, what about his family, did you call his wife? How are we looking? After him and or his family in this difficult situation.

One of my best decision, I put a woman, former Indian army, in charge of our field force! I spend a lot of my time and energy into normalizing this whole division between the have and the haves not.

To, this day I can't begin to fathom how somebody can look down at another person, purely based on critiiris such as parents, education and simply not care whether they live or die.

Again, just my experience, but one of the things Imtook away from being in India is that life is cheap. Especially if you don't belong to a specific group.

Against that perspective I find it highly plausible that India did not come out that well in this recent “happiness report”. Can you imagined having to, live with the reality that people who control everything in your life, simply don't care whether you actually live or die?

Originally Posted by notme

Fast forward to 2025, as an entrepreneur, I find it hard to get committed freshers even at 30k. Many youngsters today lack patience – they don't want to stick around long enough to learn properly or build real skills. Instead, they jump ship at the smallest frustrations. It's problem of plenty – it's a problem of too many options and too little perseverance.

Well, I hope you realize you sound a bit like a (grand) parents, possibly a very old git like me. Complaining about the younger generation.

I think it is very simple. If they can afford to move from the jobs you offer them without second thoughts to something new, you are not offering them the right job, the right environment, the right career, the right management and coaching. Somebody else out there is offering them a better deal. Its not theiy who are at fault, its you!

If you are the boss, you can't shift blame. Its all down to you!

Jeroen

[ninjatalli]

Originally Posted by ArjunPadmakumar

But I am totally done, survival and peace of mind comes first. Patriotism, so called growth, commitment to the home country and everything else is secondary if not tertiary.

Thank you for your very frank view. All the best for your future overseas educational endeavours. That indeed is the right decision and good luck down that road. And don’t stress too much about the “lost” 4 years (vis-a-vis your peers). As long as you reach your goals albeit a few years later, that’s all that matters.

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by notme

Fast forward to 2025, as an entrepreneur, I find it hard to get committed freshers even at 30k. Many youngsters today lack patience – they don't want to stick around long enough to learn properly or build real skills. Instead, they jump ship at the smallest frustrations. It's problem of plenty – it's a problem of too many options and too little perseverance.

That’s because this is a free market which as an entrepreneur is something you would really appreciate. Truth be told, it’s much easier to get ahead in life by switching jobs at the opportune moment than waiting for a promotion or a raise. This is unless offcourse, you are spending big bucks on the training process in which case, jumping ship would be in bad faith. However, even in the latter scenario, if it becomes a cycle, then it would be prudent to have a hard look at what’s causing them to quit - what you perceive as small frustrations might be a much bigger issue for them (work place politics can get rough, in a small organisation, even one bad apple could cause mass frustration), also unlike previous generations, a lot of these freshers come from families that can already offer them the basics (especially in the South), they aren’t dependent on the job for survival unlike previous generations but rather to maintain a certain standard of living. If the work place is not able to provide that standard of living, they will quit.

[Fuldagap]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Thank you for your candid view. I must admit it does resonate with me. I think these threads tend to have a skewered view of the world out there. I used to run a sizeable organisation in India. Close to 25k employees, about 2/3 worked in what we called the field. The other 1/3 (university and college degrees) looked down on the field force as an uneducated, ignorant lot. When somebody met with his/her death, which unfortunately happened almost every month initially, that was never an issue, just hire a new body. To this day I am appalled at the calousnous of how well to do, well educated Indians look at some of their countrymen.

Thank you for this post sir.
Death has no bearing on not only Indians but South East asians I suppose. Or that is what I have experienced.

I once did whatever was required to save someone's life. I had almost finished writing the whole incident here but then decided not to describe. Social media can lead to troubles even after years.

The gist is nobody else was even slightly bothered that something ought to be done to save someone's life. He was a low rank.
When he finally got saved using some tricks for his immediate air travel to the hospital, he never even called me back till date to even let me know he was doing fine.

India has almost zero importance for any sort of life, be it humans', flora or fauna. Period. Compassion starts and ends in the morning with reciting prayers.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by ArjunPadmakumar

As someone who is 28 and has seen my entire peer group move to EU, CA, USA, Japan, GCC, Australasia and South East Asia I feel absolutely devastated on my choice to stay back in India.

After a month long detox, I am preparing mentally and physically to start from scratch and study a new field and after the initial phase complete it in a different country. My family is super supportive, and great friends mean a lot during bad times. But I am totally done, survival and peace of mind comes first. Patriotism, so called growth, commitment to the home country and everything else is secondary if not tertiary.

Dear @ArjunPadmakumar, thank you for sharing your challenges and baring your soul - always a difficult thing to do. Others have offered their advice which I'm sure you are evaluating. I don't want to get into the India vs abroad debate but share a different line of thought which I hope will serve you well. You are the same age as my youngest child so do forgive this old man if something I write does not find favour with you.

First, at 28 you have ~35 to 40 active career years ahead of you. Rain today does not mean there will be no sunshine tomorrow. When I was a wee bit older than you are today I was demoted. In those days such things also happened. Jobs were few, PV Narasimha Rao's liberalization was still in the future and employees like me swallowed the humiliation out of lack of opportunity. Stuff happens. We all feel miserable as you are feeling today and I did then.

Second, spend time dwelling on your decision making process of selecting job-company-location - first the one in Kerala (I presume) then the one in Delhi-NCR far from home on a modest salary. Do this exercise for yourself - think & write down, (i) what are the actions I took that landed me in the soup I am; (ii) then what do I need to do differently to get myself out of this soup of trouble.

No matter what to a lesser or a greater degree in career matters we too are responsible for where we find ourselves. You may want to consider thinking this through so that your decision making process does not cause you to take sub-optimal selections of employer-location-job in the future.

Third, I'm sure as wise and thoughtful young person like you will try and avoid the lure of getting into the spiral of blaming the job, the boss, the employer, India etc. It is a self defeating effort much the favourite of all on social media.

My very best wishes to you. India or abroad both are equally good for you at this early stage. Best of luck.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Our field technician were supposed to climb radiotowers to fix antennas and stuff.

But you don't climb at night and you don't climb under certain weather conditions. I had to re-introdcue all those rules. And I got angry calls from the CEOs of my customers. When I explained they got angrier, telling me Imhad the wrong priorities and the network being up and running was more important than the life of one field technician. These are some of the richest guys in India!

Couple years ago, my co-founder and I visited another much larger company for partnership discussions. As we started with small talk, their CEO and my co-founder discovered that they started their careers two decades ago in a company called Mack Telecom, which was in the business of deploying mobile towers. That company used to make all their graduate engineer trainees climb mobile towers, even at night. I guess that company wanted their graduate engineer trainees understand the perils their field technicians undergo. So, the next 30 minutes were spent sharing the war stories from their tower climbing days, the fear, the danger, not just of the heights, but of snakes and other wild animals found at the bottom of the towers.

Yes, life is cheap in India. We all learn that growing up in India.

[GutsyGibbon]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Wow, this is getting out of hand.
:

The 3 pillars of democracy are under attack
1. Judiciary, legal processes
2. Journalists, news media, freedom of expression
3. Educational institutions

Destroying things doesn’t take nearly as long as building something that scales up to withstand the test of time. The destruction is happening at a frantic pace.

[hondatoyotafan]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

My {much} younger sister settled in USA as a Professor - she and her husband borrow money from me to stay afloat, pay mortgages etc. Something tells me all is not in apple pie order living in USA.

My sister is a tenured professor at UT and has a good life. I don't think Macroeconomic conditions of the US is so bad.

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

These journalists are lazy about peeling the onion. The ultra rich {however defined} do not think of migration the way a young IT employee does in terms of find a job, get a visa etc. They also don't really migrate because XX$ of their assets are in India and those assets need looking after. The ultra-rich want domicile of a tax friendly place, a nice house to live there 185 days a year, the flexibility to travel often to India to attend to their business/assets here. They also crave for status in society which they get only in India for the most part. And they desire to brag in their Indian circle about the home in Kensington, London. Their tax status might change but their involvement with India does not. So these click bait titles do not reflect the complexities under the layers.

Indeed, this is something most folks quite miss. If a part of the world is welcoming to the ultra-rich, it doesn’t make these places amenable for the common folk. A nice case-study is Dubai where a friend of mine is working at a dead-end IT job for close to 5 years with a salary of just over $1000 per month (offcourse him being stuck there isn’t entirely Dubai’s fault). Apart from the fact that I’m tired of convincing him that he might actually get better pay in Bangalore, he’s also hit by the double-wammy where living in Dubai is extremely unaffordable now due to the overheating real estate market which will inevitably crash soon as it has done every 7.5 years for the past 2 decades. Doesn’t help when it eventually crashes, he might also lose his job or they’ll use the crash as an excuse to dock his pay. That’s why I left Dubai, it’s not worth it unless you get a monthly pay of atleast $4000 as an individual or $6000 as a family at a reputed organisation and even at that pay, I’m much more happy in little Bahrain (which is also a tax haven to be fair) where the locals are nice, bureaucracy is friendlier and there is a nice sense of community. Sad that Bahrain doesn’t offer the job opportunities for more people to enjoy this hospitality.