Hi All,

I have returned back to India to see if I can settle here after staying in Canada for few years. I will be evaluating my decision along the way every 6 months till 3 years, beyond which I would have expired my PR and reached point of no return to Canada.

Will keep you updated how my move materializes, the going so far (keep in mind I am in Chandigarh):

a) Corruption, I have not encountered any corruption issues in last 3 months. In this time, I have renewed my driving licence, renewed my car registration and going to renew my kids passports. Another thing I found was for both the things the process had been streamlined a lot. The only negative is that the application form was the old one and I had to pay 300/- for both to be filled.

b) Power/Water, Not experienced major power/water cuts even though there was little monsoon in north. One thing to be noted water comes morning and evening 3 hrs, I don't mind as I store it in tanks for continuous supply. Power rates seem have been increased.

c) Traffic, its increased but frankly I adjusted very well to the traffic I would say better than Canada. Probably because I had more years of experience, one thing to be noted for first couple of weeks I did not drive.

d) Work, I left a very well paying job in Canada (90K+) but have not landed any work yet. My focus is to get freelancing work in IT and make 20L in India, let us see how it goes.

e) Hobby, I am back to my spending time on my hobbies, I jog daily for 1 hr early in the morning at 5:30 am and working on getting organic kitchen garden on my terrace mostly for leafy veggies.

f) Being a vegetarian, though I was in Calgary for some time but definitely India has more options. I get the produce from farmers market, which though crowded and not clean by Canadian standards still has its own charm for me. I enjoy my weekly outing to farmer's market, the produce I get I soak in water and ozonise it to reduce pesticide content. I guess this should bring the produce to the Canadian standards.

g) Socializing, there is more in India but frankly I never had a problem in Canada either. Outside office I had made few Indian and Caucasian friends. One change I find is that people call you before coming to your place and atleast my friend circle understands that you need time for family as well on weekends.

h) Education, it is more rigorous here in India. I would say the TLC in Alberta is comparable as per the syllabus.

i) Extra Curricular, my kids learn painting , music and sculpturing all at home. This is unbeatable, as Canada does not give this luxury.

j) I find kids here are more social and as a parent I feel I have better control over the decisions. Even in schools there are PTM and the issues are getting addressed, the best part of schooling I like is the uniforms. There is no undue competition for clothing.

Will keep you updated as I go along.

Crish

Today, as I was driving from Mohali to Chandigarh in the evening peak hours I found that the people are impatient and want to reach their destination ahead of everyone else . I was expecting this and did not come as a surprise just that I had to be extra careful driving during dusk time with pedestrians crossing everywhere on the road.

My wife got her free Cancer checkup done by PGI (like AIIMS), they have this trailer which is converted to a mobile radiology lab which moves to different parts of the city. This was a surprise and surprisingly it was clean and they did mammography, colcoscopy, osteoporosis and ultrasound.

So far so good, I am still sticking to my plan.

Crish,

nice post...keep posting your experience will help others...:-)

Good to know crish. In my opinion, educated and professionals adjust very well when back in India.

Above all, you need a broad perspective and FULL family support in order to settle back home.

Crish, Thanks for sharing the experience.
What was the reason behind taking this decision ? It is more important in your case to know since you had good job here.

One of the reason you are finding lesser difference is that Chandigarh is nice and organised city, A french swiss designed it, thats why ;-) otherwise all our cities were designed by mughals , and are in a mess, anyways thats a different thread.

How are your kids coping with the heat when they are not sheltered in AC ?

My background for moving back to India
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Though I had been working in Canada but never moved my family, we were serious about it during 2010 but Canadian embassy rejected families visa though I had been on a valid work permit. This year family had been to Calgary for a short stay (PR landing) and my wife and youngest ones liked it. At the same time we are decently settled in India. There is no push from my wife or family to immigrate to Canada neither is there an push for not immigrating.

One thing we both agree, is that higher education is better in Canada but we feel we will better able to enable our kids to utilize higher education in Canada if they have schooling in India. By higher education we don't only mean engineering / medicine it also means fine arts etc, India we feel gives us the flexibility to help kids focused on their field of interest. We might be wrong but either way we can always send the kids for higher education later in life to country of their choice not only to Canada. This is a gray area, and we don't want to make the move to Canada assuming that it is better for kids. Even if we decide to move to Canada few years of primary education in India will only help kids.

Canadian weather is not at all a damper for us, neither is the culture. We are clear if we move then these things have to be accepted wholeheartedly. Our move will only be if I am not able to fend good for my family in Chandigarh setting up my business or freelancing(no job). Objective is to have flexibility of timing to spend more with kids.

Now that we have done our landing, we have time and are giving it an all out effort to settle in India. We had been seeing changes in India recent few years which makes us feel positive for India. But we are aware that India will never be clean or organised like Canada, our threshold limit is that even if it is 50-70% of Canada in these areas we feel we are better off. If it does not happen then we will completely wind up from India and settle in Canada.

One thing I forgot to answer, I have lived in Capebreton and walked 2 kms even in winters to and fro from office. Visited India in summers, my belief is that weather is something beyond our control and if we take it in our stride it hardly is a worrying factor.

Yes, if kids live in Canada for couple of years then moving back is out of question.