I Came Back to India Thinking I Was Giving Up American Dream
Instead, I found what I had been missing for years.
Moving back home sounded simple.
Pack a few bags. Parcel few packages.
Book a flight.
Start a new chapter.
Reality had other plans.
It’s been a couple of months since I moved from the US back to India, and I’ve learned something interesting:
Coming home can feel just as foreign as moving abroad.
People often talk about culture shock and reverse culture shock when they move back to Indai.
Here are a few lessons I’ve learned.
The hardest thing to rebuild is trust.
In the US, shopping became effortless.
If an item arrived damaged—or simply didn’t fit—I returned it.
No arguments.
No stress.
A refund showed up a few days later many times few minutes.
That experience builds trust.
Back to India, I realized many products don’t even have a return policy. Once you buy something, it’s yours.
I never appreciated companies like Costco or Amazon.com until I no longer had them.
The difference isn’t just about refunds.
It’s about confidence.
When customers trust a company, they buy more without overthinking every purchase.
Trust is invisible.
Until it’s missing.
Punctuality is more valuable than most people think.
One experience taught me this the hard way.
I hired a moving company, agarwalpackers.in “Bade Bhaiya”, to transport my belongings.
The sales representative confidently promised delivery within 8–10 days.
Day 10 arrived.
My shipment hadn’t even left my hometown.
Customer support repeatedly told me, “It will reach in two days.”
That wasn’t even possible because the shipment hadn’t been dispatched yet, and the journey itself takes around three days.
Eventually, the salesperson stopped answering my calls.
Emails didn’t help either.
After countless follow-ups, my belongings finally arrived on Day 21.
The delay was frustrating.
The lack of honest communication was worse.
People can accept bad news.
What they struggle to accept is being misled.
I’ll write a separate article about how the corporate culture within the same company surprised me.
But moving back also gave me something priceless.
I get to live with my parents again.
That sentence means more to me than any salary increase ever could.
For the past three years, I couldn’t even meet them in person because of circumstances outside my control.
Now I get to have breakfast with them.
Talk to them.
Simply be around them.
You don’t realize how valuable ordinary moments are until they’re no longer ordinary.
One idea changed my perspective forever.
I once read about author Sahil Bloom calculating how many dinners he had left with his parents.
Instead of thinking in years, he thought in moments.
The number wasn’t as large as most people would expect.
That idea stayed with me.
It made one thing obvious:
Success means very little if you’re too far away from the people you love.
Moving back wasn’t only a career decision.
It was a life decision.
Another dream quietly came true.
My parents lived in the same house for 35 years.
I always wanted to give them a better living experience.
Because my work required relocating to another city, renting was the practical choice.
Compared to apartment rents in the US, I found a beautiful apartment with something I’d always wanted:
A balcony.
Every evening, I come home, sit outside, and watch the lake, the skyline, and the trees.
Nothing extraordinary happens.
That’s exactly why I enjoy it.
Sometimes happiness isn’t buying something new.
It’s finally having enough time to appreciate what you already have.
My biggest takeaway
Moving back to India has been a mix of frustration and gratitude.
I’ve experienced broken promises, delayed deliveries, and moments that tested my patience.
I’ve also gained something far more valuable.
Time with my parents.
A home I genuinely love coming back to.
And a reminder that the best decisions in life rarely optimize only for money.
Sometimes they optimize for people.
Looking back, I’d make the same decision again.
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