It's now exactly a year since I returned back to India from London. It's been a tough year both on the personal as well as professional front. Having spent nearly 20 years abroad, the re-adjustment to India has been quite demanding.
The most frequent question I get asked in conversations is: "Why did you come back?" I must admit, it's been tough answering that question. Yep, why did I come back? The real answer is actually quite simple - one, I wanted to look after my ageing parents and two, after our pension had been virtually wiped out and given the downward spiral that UK was into, I thought it made economic sense to come back to India. Trust me when I say that I have been planning my return over the past 5 years, but despite the mental preparation the reality of actually living here has been devastating.
Whilst I see that we have leap-frogged in terms of availability of a lot of things that were considered unaffordable to the common man, say, a decade ago (read: mainly technology / devices), there is still so much of poverty. That at least can be explained away by the sheer numbers of people in this country. But, how can one explain continuing lack of water, electricity, basic sanitation, infrastructure, education, and persisting child labour, corruption (this has become so integral to our society that nobody thinks twice about 'paying' something extra to get a job done; worse, it persists at every layer and step of any organisation, be it public or private), nepotism and sycophancy. Nothing seems to have changed in the 20 years that we have been away. It's just that all of this can be communicated better today with the availability of broadband internet, mobile telephony and social networking sites. Yes, we did visit the country several times during this period, but despite psyching oneself for the 'reality' of coming back and living, the actual reality has been quite bitter.
What is the basic problem? To me, it seems avarice in our compatriots appears to play the largest part in this tragedy of a country. Add to this the lovely concoction of lack of basic decency, courtesy and sanitation, we have a potent mixture of the uncouth, totally indecent and rude Indian that is stereotyped in the west. Taking this a level further down, the avarice of the commoner stems from the systematic rape of this nation by the politicians - the poor have been kept poor for only one reason - it breeds ignorance, which in turn is exploited by the politicians for keeping their vote banks, not to mention their electoral coffers, rich.
Do I see any redeeming qualities at all in this country to make me stay? Yes, I do. The common man's struggle to just survive. The integrity that I see in a lot of people - my driver, housemaid, the shop keeper in the street corner, the boy working in the local pharmacy - reiterates the basic goodness in people around us. More than that, the hope that they all cherish - a better tomorrow, is something that will keep me going for the foreseeable future.
More than that, I see a huge amount of ignorance on the health front. An area where I can make some in-roads. Improve awareness in the micro-community that I serve. Also, there is a persisting lack of quality in all that is done here - mere reflection of cutting corners, in everything. Provision of the highest quality care is something that I hope we will be able to provide soon. Providers of such high quality care today are mostly individuals who remain tiny islands in this sea of misrepresentation and cheating.
My colleague was just reassuring me yesterday that the first year after returning from abroad is the worst year. "In the second year, you will start adjusting yourself to the reality here. In the third year, you will become 'native'. This is why the government gives you three years to naturalise!", he said. Only time will tell.
