[Part 2 of a 3 part post. Part 1 is here.]

While the choice of returning to India or staying is personal and depends on each family’s unique circumstances, the answers to the following questions lead us to a decision we can live with.

1. How important are your Indian roots to you? How important is assimilating in the US? Will you and your family members be able to assimilate in the US while retaining your Indian roots?
2. Will you and your family be able to adjust in today’s India? The India you will live in is very different from the India you see during your vacations, so don’t answer this question based on your vacation experience. Instead, think of what living in India was before you moved to the US. Add more crowd, more chaos and more pollution (use a multiplication factor based on the number of years you have been away and depending on how sensitive a person you are). Now temper it with slightly better infrastructure and more consumer choice (we get avocado, peanut butter and our favorite breakfast cereal here). This is the India of today. Talk to friends and family to get more insights. A friend of mine stayed in India for a few months on a trial basis before he made his “go, no-go decision” (he stayed back in the US).
3. Where do you think your children will have a better future, better upbringing, better education? If you have older kids, you will have to talk to them about what moving to India means to them and get their feedback. Don’t worry about younger kids – you’ll be surprised how adaptable they are.
4. Where will you have a better social life? Which place gives you a better support structure from friends and/or extended family?
5. Do you have any obligations/responsibilities in India/in US? Old/ailing parents, mortgage, children with special needs, etc. Which location gives you a better shot at fulfilling these obligations?
6. Mother of all questions – Picture yourself and your family in each country when you are 40, 50, 60. Which pictures do you like more?

[Note:

1. I do not include career related questions in the list because I believe they are irrelevant in this context and only cloud the decision-making. First decide, then figure out how to align your career with the decision. In a recent TechCrunch post, Vivek Wadhwa says “Sadly for my Indian friends in Silicon Valley who are looking to return home, returnees—formerly in high demand and treated like rock stars—are out of vogue and now treated like rocks.” I do not quote this to discourage folks from returning but to illustrate that job markets are fickle and you cannot pin a big decision on something that’s transitory.
2. Sorry, I cheated in the title. There are more than six questions but “question sets” does not sound half as good.]