A few days ago I read a story in BBC Capital which quoted an amazing figure: between 2011 and 2015, an estimated 300,000 ethnic Indians will come to India to work.
When I first arrived in India 5.5 years ago, I thought I'd stay for 2 years. I didn't know why I'd come, or at least, I couldn't put the reason into words (which is unlike me) and so over the years I developed several inadequate answers to the question "why are you in Delhi?" I was surprised sometimes at the vehemence of this question, particularly when it was asked by other Indians, who seemed astonished that anyone would be in Delhi if they had the option to live elsewhere.
I tried to talk about India's burgeoning opportunity, or the chance to engage with a journalistic market that offers novel opportunities for engagement and depth. I talked about meeting and working with people who are on the forefront, in terms of defining media for a generation of users who will come of age with the Internet. I talked about the personal aspects of finding myself in a foreign country: about learning how to make friends in a city where I had no social history, about learning to rely on myself in circumstances that were alien and often dangerous.
Over the past 5 years, like any journalist, I've assembled many, many stories: about the science correspondents who first took me under their wing in New Delhi, about interviewing Indian policymakers and experiencing the policy process, about seeing stories that I'd written carried on the front page and (in one memorable instance) inspiring questions in Parliament. About the children in a slum school who adopted my iPad (once they realized it wasn't a phone). About jumping out the window when one of my apartment buildings suffered a summer electrical fire. About performing - for the first and last time - in a professional bellydance show. About chasing down reluctant editors and/or developers to form a news/tech community. About late-night picnics around embassy pools. About attending candlelight vigils and street protests for the rights of young people. And of course, about the minor and mundane facts of daily life.
After a while, the question "why did you come to Delhi" evolved. I arrived in Delhi with a standard story. I wanted to be a newspaper correspondent and write long, brilliant stories. As a student at Medill, I learned about the joys of this kind of "real" journalism. When I graduated, I witnessed print journalism's sudden and catastrophic decline. To that extent, I was searching for an opportunity that seemed scare at home. Yes, I could have found writing work in the United States. But the kind of stories I would have been able to write were so, so much less compelling to me than the joys and strangenesses of an entirely new country. Every day that I discovered something or succeeded at something, I felt as if I'd created something new.
But then things changed. I took a job in digital journalism, an evolving field. It had been two years. And people started asking me - or maybe I started asking myself - why am I still here?
A childhood friend sent me a Facebook message that said, "it looks like you're having a lot of fun in Delhi." I bristled at his comment, because to an extent his observation was true. I joined Business Today in 2011. I went from being a struggling newspaper journalist to a far more comfortable magazine editor. In 2011, after 1.5 years, I also started meeting some of the people who would become my regular friends. For the first time, I began to feel like I had a social circle. I went to book launches and gallery openings and parties in nice clubs. I felt confident and free in a way I never had before, perhaps because I was young, single and earning money, and living in a big city.
I'm no longer offended by his comment. Yes, I've had a lot of fun, and because of that, I feel profoundly lucky. If you know Delhi like I do, you'll understand that having fun in it can be an occasionally Herculean labor, not unlike slaying a multi-headed serpent. It's messy, chaotic, violent and often dangerous. But having fun can also be deceptively, delightfully easy. That last bit has nothing to do with location.
Physically, Delhi has undergone an enormous transformation in just a few short years. I recently moved to GK2, a South Delhi neighborhood, and when a local coffee shop shut down, a United Colors of Benetton opened up in the same space just a week later. Then a Starbucks came in. Everywhere I looked, I saw young girls in tank tops and shorts. The stodginess of Delhi, its age, are being worn away by an energetic and vibrant new force. There are dangerous elements to this force, and an unthinking nature to its occasional rapaciousness, but it is exciting all the same.
And then the Delhi gang rape occurred. I wrote about the Delhi gang rape, because I felt like it fundamentally changed my experience of living in Delhi. I don't think I was the only one who felt that way.
But I still didn't leave. Living the millennial's rootless dream, I switched jobs again, this time to start an organization of my own. I went door to door and met editors and journalists. I started hanging out with entrepreneurs and developers. I found direction, uniqueness and focus. And then, through the people I'd met, I got another fantastic opportunity: this time to build a citizen journalism outlet on behalf of a major media house. There are only a few dedicated projects like this in the world.
Professionally, this project put me at the forefront of a global discussion around the future of journalism. I began to meet editors, journalists and activists from SE Asia, from Europe, from Africa, who were concerned about the communities we create on the Internet, and how those communities thrive. We wanted to know how to bring these communities into the journalistic process, and how to build tools that would enable trust and collaboration. We talked about user-generated content, about online activism, about net neutrality, about verification. It was exciting to be part of these conversations, and I swiftly realized that the Indian voice would be essential to the evolution of this global dialogue. I looked at the young people around me and the ways they were interacting online, and I looked at global demographic trends, and I realized that the online voice of young India will be the online voice of the future world. I began to speak at conferences and workshops, and to write about the things I'd observed.
Back in the US, everyone seemed to be waking up to India. John Oliver and Jon Stewart were doing segments on the Indian elections, and BuzzFeed and Quartz set up India-specific sites. Hacks/Hackers New Delhi threw an event focusing on interesting startups in news - yes, they exist, even here. Especially here.
So here's the final question - why am I leaving now?
I love New Delhi, but I know that to an extent, what I've loved about it has been the unparalleled experience I've had while I've been here. Sometime last year, I began to feel like the time was coming for me to go. I couldn't explain it, but the same inexorable force that drew me to Delhi was drawing me back to the US. I began to think about the future, and when I found out in April that I'd been accepted into grad school at MIT (to study the intersection of media + technology!) I felt as if my past experience and my future hopes were coming seamlessly together. I can't wait to study, to make new friends, to experience a new city, and to start work in my lab.
And: I can't wait to be in the same time zone as my parents and sister, to buy great wine at cheap prices, and to go biking in the great national parks on the East Coast (especially when autumn comes). I think about Washington DC, about the National Mall (where I spent hours as a kid, and where I would go running in the early mornings as an adult) and I feel a hunger so acute that it has a taste of its own.
The question "why did you come to New Delhi" suggests that our decisions have a single point of origin, or that one neat impulse can power a varied experience. The truth is, nothing in our lives is neat, and our journeys are never simple. I never expected that I would found Hacks/Hackers New Delhi, because when I moved here in early 2009, Hacks/Hackers (globally) did not exist. I never expected that I would help build a user-generated content portal, because when I moved here, Twitter had no official presence in the country. I never expected I would get to know my grandparents as more than fuzzy voices on the far end of a telephone line. I never, ever expected such affection, kindness, and generosity. But most of all: I never expected I would be so happy here, because I never had been before, not anywhere.
When I first arrived in India 5.5 years ago, I thought I'd stay for 2 years. I didn't know why I'd come, or at least, I couldn't put the reason into words (which is unlike me) and so over the years I developed several inadequate answers to the question "why are you in Delhi?" I was surprised sometimes at the vehemence of this question, particularly when it was asked by other Indians, who seemed astonished that anyone would be in Delhi if they had the option to live elsewhere.
I tried to talk about India's burgeoning opportunity, or the chance to engage with a journalistic market that offers novel opportunities for engagement and depth. I talked about meeting and working with people who are on the forefront, in terms of defining media for a generation of users who will come of age with the Internet. I talked about the personal aspects of finding myself in a foreign country: about learning how to make friends in a city where I had no social history, about learning to rely on myself in circumstances that were alien and often dangerous.
Over the past 5 years, like any journalist, I've assembled many, many stories: about the science correspondents who first took me under their wing in New Delhi, about interviewing Indian policymakers and experiencing the policy process, about seeing stories that I'd written carried on the front page and (in one memorable instance) inspiring questions in Parliament. About the children in a slum school who adopted my iPad (once they realized it wasn't a phone). About jumping out the window when one of my apartment buildings suffered a summer electrical fire. About performing - for the first and last time - in a professional bellydance show. About chasing down reluctant editors and/or developers to form a news/tech community. About late-night picnics around embassy pools. About attending candlelight vigils and street protests for the rights of young people. And of course, about the minor and mundane facts of daily life.
After a while, the question "why did you come to Delhi" evolved. I arrived in Delhi with a standard story. I wanted to be a newspaper correspondent and write long, brilliant stories. As a student at Medill, I learned about the joys of this kind of "real" journalism. When I graduated, I witnessed print journalism's sudden and catastrophic decline. To that extent, I was searching for an opportunity that seemed scare at home. Yes, I could have found writing work in the United States. But the kind of stories I would have been able to write were so, so much less compelling to me than the joys and strangenesses of an entirely new country. Every day that I discovered something or succeeded at something, I felt as if I'd created something new.
But then things changed. I took a job in digital journalism, an evolving field. It had been two years. And people started asking me - or maybe I started asking myself - why am I still here?
A childhood friend sent me a Facebook message that said, "it looks like you're having a lot of fun in Delhi." I bristled at his comment, because to an extent his observation was true. I joined Business Today in 2011. I went from being a struggling newspaper journalist to a far more comfortable magazine editor. In 2011, after 1.5 years, I also started meeting some of the people who would become my regular friends. For the first time, I began to feel like I had a social circle. I went to book launches and gallery openings and parties in nice clubs. I felt confident and free in a way I never had before, perhaps because I was young, single and earning money, and living in a big city.
I'm no longer offended by his comment. Yes, I've had a lot of fun, and because of that, I feel profoundly lucky. If you know Delhi like I do, you'll understand that having fun in it can be an occasionally Herculean labor, not unlike slaying a multi-headed serpent. It's messy, chaotic, violent and often dangerous. But having fun can also be deceptively, delightfully easy. That last bit has nothing to do with location.
Physically, Delhi has undergone an enormous transformation in just a few short years. I recently moved to GK2, a South Delhi neighborhood, and when a local coffee shop shut down, a United Colors of Benetton opened up in the same space just a week later. Then a Starbucks came in. Everywhere I looked, I saw young girls in tank tops and shorts. The stodginess of Delhi, its age, are being worn away by an energetic and vibrant new force. There are dangerous elements to this force, and an unthinking nature to its occasional rapaciousness, but it is exciting all the same.
And then the Delhi gang rape occurred. I wrote about the Delhi gang rape, because I felt like it fundamentally changed my experience of living in Delhi. I don't think I was the only one who felt that way.
But I still didn't leave. Living the millennial's rootless dream, I switched jobs again, this time to start an organization of my own. I went door to door and met editors and journalists. I started hanging out with entrepreneurs and developers. I found direction, uniqueness and focus. And then, through the people I'd met, I got another fantastic opportunity: this time to build a citizen journalism outlet on behalf of a major media house. There are only a few dedicated projects like this in the world.
Professionally, this project put me at the forefront of a global discussion around the future of journalism. I began to meet editors, journalists and activists from SE Asia, from Europe, from Africa, who were concerned about the communities we create on the Internet, and how those communities thrive. We wanted to know how to bring these communities into the journalistic process, and how to build tools that would enable trust and collaboration. We talked about user-generated content, about online activism, about net neutrality, about verification. It was exciting to be part of these conversations, and I swiftly realized that the Indian voice would be essential to the evolution of this global dialogue. I looked at the young people around me and the ways they were interacting online, and I looked at global demographic trends, and I realized that the online voice of young India will be the online voice of the future world. I began to speak at conferences and workshops, and to write about the things I'd observed.
Back in the US, everyone seemed to be waking up to India. John Oliver and Jon Stewart were doing segments on the Indian elections, and BuzzFeed and Quartz set up India-specific sites. Hacks/Hackers New Delhi threw an event focusing on interesting startups in news - yes, they exist, even here. Especially here.
So here's the final question - why am I leaving now?
I love New Delhi, but I know that to an extent, what I've loved about it has been the unparalleled experience I've had while I've been here. Sometime last year, I began to feel like the time was coming for me to go. I couldn't explain it, but the same inexorable force that drew me to Delhi was drawing me back to the US. I began to think about the future, and when I found out in April that I'd been accepted into grad school at MIT (to study the intersection of media + technology!) I felt as if my past experience and my future hopes were coming seamlessly together. I can't wait to study, to make new friends, to experience a new city, and to start work in my lab.
And: I can't wait to be in the same time zone as my parents and sister, to buy great wine at cheap prices, and to go biking in the great national parks on the East Coast (especially when autumn comes). I think about Washington DC, about the National Mall (where I spent hours as a kid, and where I would go running in the early mornings as an adult) and I feel a hunger so acute that it has a taste of its own.
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