I’ve been waking up every day with the biggest smile on my face.
In December last year, Sam and I decided that it would be better for our personal lives if we moved to New York and lived there for the next three years. As much as we both love India, there’s no denying that as an Indian woman dating a British man, there are constant annoyances such as disapproving glares from middle-aged aunties who don’t even know us, bad service at restaurants, and ignorant people who assume that because I’m with a white guy, I have no moral values. There are the bigger problems, too, including complete rejection from family members and friends, most of whom have now come around and started taking us seriously.
Over the last couple of months, we’ve been planning, saving, researching, and talking to people about setting ourselves up in New York. Sam gave up his apartment in India, got a five-year journalist visa, and I hired a lawyer and started looking into how much all this was going to cost.
In the three months leading up to March, I was very excited. But I was also very nervous. Could we afford this? Where would we live? It was not lost on us that while we both make a good living and would be able to live comfortably in New York, with the same money in India, we could buy a home, think about investing, and travel frequently.
Other questions came up as well: Would we ever go back to India? Would I really only be able to see my parents once a year? Could I even get a work visa for America as a freelancer?
And more importantly, what the heck was I going to write?
Friends say it is glaringly obvious but that they didn’t want to say it at the time: my passion lies in working in the developing world. That’s not to say that there aren’t important stories to be told here in America, but they’re not my stories to tell. That’s not what drives me. Even as we were discussing New York, I kept talking about the reporting I would do in South America, how I could fly back to India every year, and the concepts I had in mind. I spent days in mourning after having to turn down a potential book deal about a story I’ve reported on in India.
While I was super excited about moving to New York, I was not excited about the work I would do there.
Two weeks before Sam was scheduled to arrive in New York, he called me early in the morning and told me to get online for a video chat.
“Are you happy about New York?” he asked.
“Yes, of course,” I said.
“What about India?”
“Er… do you want to stay in India? You can tell me.”
“Um… yes. I do. I want to stay in India.”
“Oh, thank God! Me too!”
(That’s the simplified version. The complicated version included a long conversation that ended with us jumping up and down. Well, one of us, anyway.)
So I’ve been lining up work, speaking with editors (“No, that’s right. New Delhi, not New York”), and collecting assignments. I got a few this week, which means I’ll be traveling around the country again almost as soon as I arrive in Delhi in May.
I’m going back home. And I’ve been waking up with the biggest smile on my face.