Our Circus, Our Problems, Our Future.

Why I left Microsoft and America to come back to India, and why you should too.

This post from Chaitanya (CTO, Ozonetel) made me lose my sleep and deeply influenced me to the point where I had to finally pen down my own thoughts. It was a morning well spent.

The smartest people I know are being treated like sh** in America right now. Highly skilled immigrants who built half of the Tech World are suddenly “the problem.” If you’re one among them, I feel for you. What’s happening is unfair.

If that’s not worse, everyone who already has a visa, green card or citizenship is staying quiet because they’re scared. They want to speak up, but they really can’t. One wrong tweet or post and maybe they lose everything and have to return from “land of the free.” to relocate somewhere else.

I’ve lived this story. Not in a dramatic way that people are experiencing it right now — but nevertheless in a way that one can relate to it even 8 years later. The reason behind this post is to tell you why I walked away from the American dream in 2017, and why I’d make the same choice today.

It’s a story whose time has come.

First, let me tell you exactly how ridiculous the whole system is.

The Immigration Circus

Picture this: You’re one of the top engineers in the field of Computer Science. You crack coding interviews like no other. You’re a builder, nerd and a geek. The top tech companies — Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and so on - they all want you. They spend $20,000+ on lawyers to prove to the US government that you’re so exceptional, so irreplaceable, that they simply cannot find an American to do your job.

Hundreds of pages of documents. Your degrees verified three times over. Letters from everyone. You may even ask your current employer or professors from college to write essays about why you’re the next Steve Jobs. The government agrees - yes, this person is extraordinary.

Then you land in America and... you’re treated like a criminal on probation.

Can’t change jobs easily. Can’t start a company. Can’t volunteer for organizations. Can’t even make plans to go visit your home country whenever you like.

Your spouse? They might get work authorization one year, lose it the next, get it back, lose it again. It’s insane. Or worst yet, they stay back in the home country waiting for a visa.

Here’s the thing though — The H1Bs only came to the US because they were invited into it. They took the legal path.

The H1B became so popular, and the US too in leveraging it — because unlike many other nations, where the rules change every year, or are opaque, US ensures unprecedented transparency, political stability and so on — oh wait.

Personally, I never fancied going to the US to move there forever. Giving up my Indian passport to live an American dream was not my thing. I simply wanted to work on some cool cutting-edge tech, grow personally and professionally and return.

That was the plan.

I did apply for a Green Card though, but only because I thought I could deal with one less (visa) headache. To me, the wait for a GC wasn’t about becoming American. It was about having the freedom to work on what I wanted, when I wanted or to visit India on my terms. But apparently, such a basic human right was simply too much to ask.

I vividly remember sitting across a conversation during lunch once in 2012 (a year after I’d moved), listening to my colleague Raj (not his real name) talk about his green card application. He’d been waiting 3 years. Three years! Wow, that’s such a long time. If I have to wait for 3 years for a GC, I should reconsider continuing to be in the US I thought.

When I moved to the US in 2011, the typical wait for EB2 based green cards was under 1 year. Today this is decades.

Also, the Timeline.

2011: Left Hyderabad for Microsoft HQ in Seattle.

2017: Left America to do my MBA at ISB and start my own company.

When I was returning, many thought I was crazy. We had everything — we bought a house in Klahanie (one of those perfect American suburban communities) within 2.5 years of living there and could have comfortably retired by 40. My career was flying high too, and I was making more money than I ever dreamed of as a kid in India.

But money wasn’t the point for us anymore. Life was too short to not take risks.

When Things Started Feeling Wrong

December 14, 2012. Sandy Hook happened.

My wife Asvini and I were trying to have kids. We were about 1.5 years in, living in the US. And she’d just suffered from a miscarriage a few months earlier. We were still processing that loss when the news broke: 20 kids murdered at an elementary school.

I was having lunch at one of Microsoft’s cafeterias when the news broke out. Everyone glued to the TV — the mood shifted instantly. I watched my colleagues suddenly rush home to hug their children. Almost everyone left by 2 PM. Never happened before.

I sat at my desk as tears rolled. Not just for those families, but for something I couldn’t even name yet.

I genuinely believed that the worst was over. That, America would ban guns after that. Of course they would, right? How could they not? Twenty children were dead.

Nothing happened.

I learned a new word that year: “thoughts and prayers.” Apparently, that’s what one says when they want to sound concerned but don’t want to actually do anything.

Then came the next shooting. And the next. And the next.

October 24, 2014. Marysville-Pilchuck High School shooting. Only 30 minutes from our house. A freshman named Jaylen Fryberg killed four of his classmates and himself. More thoughts and prayers.

Our daughter.

Akshara was born in 2013, three months early, weighing under 1kg. She spent her first three months bouncing between three hospitals - University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Overlake Hospital in Bellevue. The doctors and nurses were incredible. They saved her life. The bill was almost $1 million.

Insurance covered it all. I felt grateful and terrified at the same time. Grateful for the care, terrified thinking about what happens to families who can’t afford this? What happens when the insurance company decides you’ve cost them enough?

The NICU experience also showed me something else about America: the system works beautifully if you have money and good insurance. If you don’t, you’re screwed. There’s no middle ground.

I started noticing this pattern everywhere.

What I Learned About America

The longer I lived there, the stranger things seemed (if only you viewed them without filters):

Politics is like sports teams in the US. People register as Democrat or Republican and stick with their team no matter what. I had colleagues who would defend literally anything their party did, even when it absolutely made no sense. It’s not about policy or performance - it’s tribal loyalty.

Coming from India, where people at least pretend to vote based on development promises (even if they’re lying), this blew my mind. In America, you pick a team and die loyal to it. What nonsense!

Good schools cost money. The public school system is basically designed to perpetuate inequality. Rich neighborhoods get great schools. Poor neighborhoods get schools that look like prisons. Even in most rich neighborhoods, the public schools still lack good education. So, unless you are sending your kid to a private school, they don’t learn well or are subject to other issues like bullying.

Immigration is a bait and switch. The system is designed to extract the best from you and leave you dry when it comes to your own aspirations and goals. Sure, you’ll be rewarded heavily for your work, but you’ll also be thrown out the door the moment someone can find your replacement for $1000 less. Everything is about money. I never experienced this at Microsoft, thankfully.

Politics is huge. In India, we may discuss politics for a few minutes’ tops. In the US, politics is talked about ALL the time. Plus, the influence of politics on policy and on general everyday things is so huge, it destabilizes what you are doing all the time; it’s not just annoying, it’s brutal.

Diversity: In India, you are ok being with friends from diverse ideologies, religions, regions, languages and so on. In the US though, diversity is explicitly talked about all the time. Yet, the reality is that the US never had a woman president in 250 years of its existence — somehow though they are ok preaching diversity to the world.

Everything is performative. Companies love diversity when it’s trendy, drop it when it’s not. I watched diversity initiatives change based on whoever was president. Same executives, same company, completely different messaging every few years. No Spine.

Lobbying is legalized corruption. I only learned this word after relocating to the US. With enough money, you can literally buy politicians to steer policies the way you want. And it’s legal! They call it “lobbying” and it’s a legitimate business.

The fragility of the System. For all that’s worth, I actually admire Trump. Because he was the first president in the history of America to be openly exposing everything for the world to notice. This might in fact lead to fixing America in the long run, while curtailing immigration from other countries so smart people stay where they are.

Fundamentally, the America that you and I knew of from a distance; the one that we admired is long gone. Free speech makes you a security risk, surveillance on your digital footprint is common and everyone is afraid to speak up all the time.

The Deeper Realization

At the time of living there, America’s problems weren’t just policy issues I disagreed with. They were not even my problems to solve.

In India, when something is broken, I feel responsible. When politicians are corrupt, I’m angry because they’re MY politicians screwing over MY people. When schools are bad, I want to fix them because kids like me grew up from them.

In America, I felt like a spectator with no power, interest, or responsibility. I was merely a guest. Even if I did want to turn into fixing some of these things, it meant sacrificing the best decades of my life waiting for my right to do so. So, until then, I understood my position — I was an educated, well-paid spectator, just watching a country fall apart.

If you’ve read it until now, you’d be thinking — but we have more fundamental problems back home in India. But then, my question is, why should you be a tourist in someone else’s democracy when you can be a citizen in your own that too giving your best years!

Why I Returned to India.

Parents:

Asvini and I - we got married at 22. We were too young, rash, and fought with our parents to make it happen. For years when they wouldn’t approve of us. They’d come visit us in the US many times, but there was an unknown silence over many topics. Once we became parents ourselves, we realized many things; our attitude towards relationships and family changed quite a bit as well.

Our parents forgot everything prior, the moment we made them grandparents. I truly believe that meaningful relationships are the only true foundation for happiness. I wanted my kid to grow up in the midst of such relationships.

Startup:

Somewhere along the way, I began building on the side purely out of passion. But I couldn’t launch any of those crazy ideas—because I was on an H1B (after three years on an L1). Legally, I could own a company, but I couldn’t work for it, not even for free. It was a grey area I wasn’t prepared to navigate. Over time, I began to feel capped in my potential.

I had expected my green card in six months—the normal wait during 2009–2011—but more than four years passed, and it still hadn’t arrived. My wife, Asvini, went through her own rollercoaster: an H4 EAD card, then a cancellation, then another approval, and so on. It was all golden handcuffs—and I wanted nothing more than to break free.

Money:

In my twenties, I was already convinced there was no such thing as “enough”—no perfect number to chase. I wasn’t planning for retirement, but I was clear that wealth should be the byproduct, not the destination. For me, money mattered—but only as a side effect of pursuing something deeply aspirational and meaningful.

Books Had a Profound Impact:

Many books fundamentally changed how I thought about life and success. Here are a few top ones:

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho taught me that when you truly want something, the entire universe conspires to help you achieve it. But you have to be brave enough to pursue your personal goals, even when everyone thinks you’re crazy.

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz changed how I interact with the world daily. Don’t take anything personally. Don’t make assumptions. Always do your best. Be impeccable with your word. I made Akshara read this when she was 11 - these principles shaped my life and will my kids’.

The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman opened my eyes to how globalization and technology were leveling the playing field. If the world was truly flat, if I could compete globally from anywhere, then why was I limiting myself? I could build something from India and compete with anyone, anywhere. The book made me realize that in a flat world, talent and ideas matter more than geography.

Good to Great by Jim Collins showed me the difference between companies (and people) who settle for good versus those who push for greatness. The book talks about Level 5 leadership - leaders who are ambitious for their cause, not themselves. That resonated deeply. I realized I was being a “good” employee at Microsoft but would never be “great” there because it wasn’t my cause. I needed to find something where I could channel that ambition for something bigger than myself.

But that’s not all. During those same years, I read over 30+ amazing books that shaped my thinking.

Also:

My schooling at The Hyderabad Public School shaped me more than I realized. When I was a kid, every morning, we wore our khaki uniforms with pride. We sang the national anthem to the exact 52 seconds. Our school instilled a deep sense of patriotism and duty. We learned about our freedom fighters, our culture, our responsibility to the nation. That patriotism never left me. Maybe it was dormant in America, but it was always there.

There’s this scene in Swades where Shahrukh Khan who has been drinking only bottled water throughout his India visit, finally decides to drink from an earthen glass and tears roll. I must have watched that movie a hundred times during my years in Seattle. Profoundly impacted how I thought about returning to India.

The difference between working on someone else’s dream and working on your own is everything.

How I Planned the Move.

Most people make emotional decisions and rationalize them later.

But I’m an engineer.

What would suck about moving back to India, and how do I fix it? I listed down.

Education: Indian schools can be intense and outdated. Solution: International curriculum (IGCSE/IB) schools. They exist in every major city now. No way we’d put our daughter through the CBSE rat race.

Safety: Traffic, crime, general chaos. Solution: Gated community with good security. Yes, it’s a bubble, but it’s an important one.

Healthcare: Private care is expensive but affordable. Solution: Good insurance plus emergency savings.

Family drama: Love my parents but living with them maybe a recipe for disaster. Solution: Same city, different house. Close enough to help, far enough to maintain sanity.

Career reset: Starting up is scary. Solution: MBA first for transition and credibility, then startup. ISB has a good reputation and network.

Money: We’d be going from high US salaries to zero income while building a business. Solution: Live off savings while building the business. Do what it takes to make it work.

Air pollution: Can’t do much about this one. Solution: Air purifiers maybe but just accept the trade-off.

Brand transition: Losing the Microsoft brand recognition. Solution: ISB would help bridge that gap in India.

Skills: Microsoft helped me stay cutting edge by default. Solution: My passion for tech should drive a learning attitude (influenced by the book, Mindset)

City: No place other than Hyderabad. Beyond being the place where I grew up, a million reasons why — even to this day.

Expenses: Use up savings and establish myself in the meantime.

2nd kid: Plan in India. Better to have parents around this time.

At the time, I wrote many points like these and created a risk-mitigation plan just like how I would at Microsoft.

It appeared at the time that the plan crystallized around ISB admission. If I got in, we’d do it easily. If not, maybe we needed a Plan B. But I wanted to try Plan A without having a Plan B in place. Maybe that helped — I got in.

Unfortunately, I could not join in 2016 because of some ongoing health issues for my daughter and asked for a deferral to join in 2017. It was meant to be. I made some of my best friends for life at the ISB.

ISB became a bridge between my Microsoft identity and whatever came next. The ISB campus in Hyderabad is a heaven — It was the perfect transition. Working and learning alongside the smartest people in the country helped me re-calibrate to India quite quickly.

The library is where I spent most of the time — and even now as an alum, that’s where I usually end up when visiting.

I surely could have made the transition back to India without ISB as well. In fact, building a startup has little to do with an MBA. But maybe I needed that little break, a little retreat and some learning before going all-in again.

If You’re Thinking About This

I get messages from people all over the world asking about returning to India. In fact, even this very blog post was triggered from an old friend asking me to write about my experience from quite some time.

It’s not about India vs America. It’s about where you want to build your life. If you’re happy being a well-paid employee in someone else’s country, stay. If you want to own your destiny and solve problems that matter to you, consider coming back.

The timing matters. Eight years ago, this move was hard. Five years from now, it will be a no-brainer. Right now, feels like a sweet spot - India has enough infrastructure to live comfortably, but still enough opportunity to build something meaningful.

Have a plan. Don’t move on emotion alone. Figure out housing, schooling, healthcare, career path. Have 2-3 years of runway saved up.

Start small. Come for a few months first. Work remotely if possible. Test the waters.

Network matters. Build relationships before your move. Reconnect with old classmates, show genuine interest. Everyone loves to help.

Be honest about trade-offs. You’ll give up some things to gain others. Make sure you’re okay with what you’re losing.

But most importantly: don’t let fear decide for you. Don’t stay just because leaving feels hard.

The American dream was sold to us by people who wanted our skills. Now many of them want us gone. Fine. Let’s go build something better.

Because when we look at India — we can say two things. Either we’re running away from problems, or we’re running toward opportunities.

The Real Question You Need to Answer.

The question isn’t whether India is better than America. The question is: where do you want to spend the best years of your life?

Where do you want your kids to grow up? Where do you want to grow old? Where do you want to make your mark on the world? Where do I want to die?

For me, the answer became clear some way along.

Eight years later, I’m building my own technology company. My 2 kids are growing with tons of time with me, closer home to my own parents who are aging gracefully with family around them. I sleep well at night knowing I’m solving problems I care about working on things that I am deeply passionate about.

The circus will continue everywhere - in America, in India, in every country on earth. Politicians will promise things they can’t deliver; systems will be corrupt in different ways; problems will persist no matter where you live.

At least here in India, it’s our circus. Our problems to solve, our future to build, our mess to clean up.