Why NRIs Are Done With America

本站添加: 2026-05-26

[00:00:01]Good afternoon from Philadelphia. So I'm in the Skookul uh river river park near square. Um so a couple of days ago I was reading a survey by an organization called back to India. They surveyed over uh 1100 NRIs from all over the world um to see what was the key reason for um people returning to India. So there is gen definitely a trend of uh Indians uh from all different age groups all different backgrounds who are going back to India and this study was trying to figure out what are the key reasons. So the first reason is uh uh parents who are aging about 74 over 70% of the respondents mentioned that um the fact that their parents are in India by themselves and they're getting old is one of the key reasons for them uh moving back to uh India. So this is very understandable. Um you know it's it's very difficult to uh manage uh older parents sitting in the US. you know, in many cases, the parents do come over to the US. Um, they spend uh time with their kids here. Uh, but that's not an ideal solution because um, most Indian-Americans tend to be in the suburbs and in the suburbs, you definitely need to have a transportation uh, to move around. You know, it's it's not like the Philadelphia, the city that where I'm living currently, you don't need a car. I actually don't have a car.

[00:01:27]Um, I haven't had a car in almost 10 years. Uh, you can walk everywhere. You can take Uber, you can take um subway and things like that. Uh but that's not possible in the suburbs. So if you do come to the suburb um you have to learn to drive. Um otherwise you're going to be like totally bored uh once the kids and the grandkids um get out of the house in the morning. Then what do you do? Um so this can be very boring particularly during uh winter. Um so that's one issue. Second issue is if the parents are here longterm they need very strong insurance. you know, you you can't depend depend on um the insurance that you have. I would call it more of a travel insurance than anything else that most parents have when they come over.

[00:02:10]Um that's that's not a good insurance to have for a um for a long-term stay. Um I've had uh I know cases where the parent came here, they were diagnosed with some serious illness um and hospitalization and emergency services will cost uh thousands of dollars and uh it can put you at serious financial risk. So that's the number one reason.

[00:02:35]Um the second reason is uh children growing out growing up with without uh Indian heritage. So it's something that uh almost all of us know like uh second generation Indian-Americans for them are Americans you know they're born here they're brought up here they go to school here so it's very unreasonable to ask them to like learn Indian languages adopt Indian cultures so some of them uh you know might know a little bit of their mother tongue uh but in most cases um they definitely are losing touch with India and uh the schedule here is so busy that you know you cannot just uh go and spend a lot of time in India during summer and things like that. Uh I I've been very lucky. My daughter is uh very fluent in uh malaram. Um she can actually read and write malam which I cannot do. Uh I can read, write and speak Tamil but not malam. Uh I can only speak malam. Um but my daughter has picked up malam. Um so she's able to like connect with her parents and grandparents. Um which is a good thing.

[00:03:38]But that's not the um the common thing uh among Indian-Americans. Um the third uh uh topic uh the key reason why uh NRAs are going back to India is aging in the US is frightening and I 100% agree with that.

[00:03:57]You know, I see a lot of old Americans.

[00:04:00]Uh if you go to condos in big cities, you'll see a lot of uh uh older uh uh Americans um including Indian-Americans who are um you know pretty much alone uh most of their lives, most of the year.

[00:04:14]Uh they may have some family gatherings here and there, but for the most part they are by themselves. And once the health declines further um most Americans are in u ind what they call independent senior living uh homes you know and an average independent senior living home will cost about $70,000 a year on top of uh other expenses. So it's not only very expensive um you are not really getting a lot of bang for the buck because even after spending uh $70,000 you are for most part uh by yourself. You know there will be some other seniors along with you uh but you might have difficulty connecting with them. Uh you might be from a totally different background and things like that. So uh that's a big issue and I did mention that in my very first video. Uh that's one of the key reasons for me moving back to India among others like um expensive healthcare.

[00:05:12]Um another issue why a lot of Indians are Indian Americans are going back is that is that the job market is very different today than it was like say 20 years ago or 25 years ago. you know there was there was a huge uh influx of uh uh Indians into the United States through the H1B program. Um it is still there but uh the job opportunities are lots. Um and the the next point that is related to that is that the green card process is also becoming very tougher.

[00:05:50]when I came here in uh back in '92 um after I graduated it took me only I believe 12 or 13 I I will say 12 to 15 months to get my green card. Um it was that easy and and the reason why it took that long for me is my lawyer was not at all familiar with the green card process. Um so she herself was learning.

[00:06:14]I was the first person she was uh you know her first client uh who was doing this process. Um even my company that I was working for at that time did not know how to do this process. So it took 15 months. It could have been done um in lesser time. Uh but now that is not the case. Um now from what I am reading um green card will take at least 15 years and then you have to wait another 4 and 1/2 years before you can apply for the US citizenship. So you are basically looking at uh anywhere from uh 15 to 25 years before you can become a US citizen. So you're going to be in a a temporary visa status for a very long time. Um and that's not a good feeling.

[00:06:56]So um so that's one of the key reasons uh why a lot of NRAs are returning back to India from the US and I want to mention like two more uh things uh one is a lot of uh Indians also mentioned that um India is not the country uh that it was uh 20 or 25 years ago. In my case it is definitely not the same country. I remember um the early 1980s, early 1990s in India, very different country than what it is today.

[00:07:30]Um you know, I would say in in a majority of the way it is a lot better than what it was um um in the 1980s. You know, in a small way it it might have uh degressed. Um I would say cleanliness um probably today uh I mean probably in the 80s was slightly better at least in Kerala than in what it is uh in Kerala today. So there might be a few reason areas where India was worse off today but in majority of the uh ways uh uh India is a million times better than what it was in the 80s. It took like I remember the first time I came to um to back to the back to India after I went to the US. Um the only way you can fly is to fly through Europe. So you have to fly from uh east coast of US to a European country and then fly to either Mumbai or uh Delhi and then fly to the south Indian cities and huge transit times. I remember the transit time in uh London was something like 15 hours. um that is completely different. Now you can fly from Philadelphia to Kochi in 19 hours with a very small transit time in uh um in Qatar you know. So things have changed. Uh India itself has changed. Um there are a lot more opportunities, job opportunities, business opportunities in India today than it was before. So that's one of the key reasons that is motivating Indians to move back to India.

[00:09:02]And the last reason which is a a huge reason for me is that uh your money goes a long way uh in India than in the US uh at this point. There is no doubt about it you know um as I mentioned senior living will alone cost you uh $70,000 a year basic fee. Um and then you on top of it you have to add all kinds of health care costs uh life insurance costs um you know so many other things like if you have a car you have to pay for uh auto insurance you know things like that so it's pretty expensive whereas in India I think um in most uh big grade cities I would say cities outside the major metros um you can easily live for uh $1,000 a month um so that is an extremely u um attractive trade-off in my view. Like uh so if you if if you are able to save like $12,000 or $15,000 a year um then you can have a very comfortable life in most cities in India maybe except uh the major metros like Mumbai or Delhi uh but in all other places um you can have a very comfortable retirement for uh you know 10 to $15,000 a year. So I just wanted to mention um all these uh list all these things. Um so if you are thinking of going back to India, I want to know from you what is the key driving force.

[00:10:30]Um or uh at least let me know which one of this do you think is a uh is a key factor. Okay. So it was nice talking to you. Hopefully we'll connect again soon.

[00:10:40]Bye.