My experience of living in India for 30 years
Honestly, I don’t know what the meaning of life is anymore. I’m going to turn 30 this November, and I feel like I haven’t achieved much. My net worth is around ₹22 lakhs. If I exclude my parents’ money, that’s all I have. I’ve been working for over three years now, I started at the age of 27 but I already feel exhausted now.
I’m tired of life. I’m about to turn 30, yet I don’t feel I’ve achieved anything significant. I don’t know what the purpose of this life is. I’m not happy with the way I’m living. My life revolves entirely around work just work and more work. There’s no motivation left to live.
I’ve decided I don’t want to get married. I have a very negative feeling about India. I’ve lived here, I’ve seen how people struggle even for basic necessities. I don’t want my children to live like that.
My parents are government employees. My father is a Class A officer, yet I’m still struggling in my career. Opportunities in India are limited, especially for someone from the general category. Every day feels like a struggle here. There are very few opportunities, and most people have a crab mentality they don’t want others to rise.
The cities are polluted. Unemployment is rising. The government doesn’t seem to care. Corruption is everywhere. People are selfish and opportunistic; no one truly supports another. Everyone is busy pulling others down. Society still carries a colonial mindset. Deep down, many Indians subconsciously believe that the Indian race is weak and subservient, though they’d never admit it.
Each year, the country is getting hotter due to global warming, and I believe India will be one of the worst affected. Being located in the tropics and surrounded by the Himalayas, India traps heat. The Himalayas block the cold Siberian winds from entering, which makes the country even hotter. Climate change will only worsen this in the years ahead.
I also feel that foreigners don’t respect Indians and Indians themselves don’t respect one another. There’s competition for everything here, even for basic needs.
I live in Gurgaon, and there’s hardly any place to relax or visit. The city is overcrowded. There are very few parks, and even those are poorly maintained. Garbage is scattered everywhere. The municipal authorities are deeply corrupt and fail to maintain even basic infrastructure.
At work, people try to put each other down. If I speak in a meeting, others interrupt me or try to prove that my communication skills are weak. It’s frustrating and demoralizing. I feel quite dissatisfied with my life and truly dissatisfied.
I know that even if I go abroad, I’ll face racism. I’ve seen posts on X (Twitter) showing how racist many people are toward Indians. But the sad part is, even Indians are unkind to one another. There’s constant leg-pulling, jealousy, and competition. Opportunities are scarce, and both government and private sectors are filled with corruption.
Everywhere you look—government offices, banks, institutions, private companies—corruption runs deep. Everyone’s main motive seems to be personal gain. A government officer works to make money for himself. Politicians and political parties exist to maintain power and enrich themselves. The same applies to private companies too.
There are very few honest people left. India has become a low-trust society. People don’t trust one another because everyone fears being cheated of money, of opportunity, or of freedom.
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Bro one line advice for you: Get offline and touch grass.
It's not as bad as media makes it look. Yes people are struggling to survive but those same people are fucking like crazy and making 4-5 kids. If you ask them, they won't say their life sucks. You are too much in your head, get out and see the real India not just the news and the looks of it. Actually speak to the people.
What's makes you think that getting married and having kids is not a kind of distraction we are doing to cope from the ground reality. It's like having shit on your shoes but you choose to not look at it because it's disgusting. It might be not disgusting at all when you don't look at it but that's only in your head.
That the same illusion they lived in back then untill they were subsequently invaded by Persian, greek, mongol, mughal and finally britishers... and a single generation had to pay the price. He doesn't need to touch the grass, u need to touch the reality.
Whenever I feel such things, I serve people in any NGO or meet Army people. By tht I get the reality of being a social animal and sense of responsibility.
Koi bhi desh perfect nahi hota hai..... Ask yourself what hv you given back
Nobody is asking for a perfect nation but looking at other nations despite high taxes they are getting something in return in terms of healthcare, education, food safety, security, infra. Here nobody cares about almost anything. No stringent food laws, no infra, no healthcare, no quality education atleast for the rural. Many people are ready do many things back but in their a proper ecosystem for it. Answer is NO
How someone sign in for NGO support like once in awhile?
Very well written. Each and every point is what I feel on a daily basis. The root cause of most problems is the narcissistic mentality of Indians. People just want to rise up even if that means crushing others down to ground.
For some reason I feel this is a failed country and would be doomed in a few years - similar to what happened to south africa post apartheid.
Any country exploiting only a small section of people to run the entire economy is bound to fail and that's what's happening here.
But i thought people like u who do mba enjoy life we they don't have to do coding and earn high salary, mba job is just ppt slides excel right
These are all very valid points. And I oscillate between feeling this way and the other.
But as someone who has lived abroad and moved back, I’d say, make your choice after deliberating all possible scenarios. Living abroad is also not all rosy as people show it to be. Yes, basic necessities are all met. But there are problems like loneliness, medical facilities and bills being accessible, racism, kids being exposed to all sorts of stuff much earlier than you’d want to. And then the eternal struggle of trying to fit in and still feeling like a second class citizen.
The only pros here are some affordable and easily accessible medical facilities and the rest of the cons are very much in India too.
People here too feel like second class citizens once they move to a different state where people treat us like shit, judging just by the language we speak (North to south/ south to north), way that we look (Northeast) and the religion we believe in.
Not invalidating your experience though.
Yeah that’s why I said deliberate on all scenarios. Each of us have different experiences and different priorities / preferences defining a happy life, isn’t it :)
To everyone reading this, especially to the ones in the comments section being vocal about the issues we all are facing in our day to day lives,
Has anyone ever expressed or have been vocal the same way in real life, in-person? If you haven't, its high time you all do. The netas and corrupt know that people are all busy with their lives and they won't say anything and will just try to adjust and forget about it.
Lets take E20 scam for example. We all know that it's an absolute scam. The only people benefiting is the govt, Nitin Ga🤬 and his sons. We also know how its affecting all the vehicles that are not compatible with the fuel, wiz like 97% of the total vehicles in India. Yet, only a handful of us are being vocal about it. The rest all are just commenting online. Virtual support isn't enough you guys. We drive the majority of the economy in this country despite being a minority in terms of total population.
Nah, just leave.
Even I feel the same way. Genuine and deserving people don’t get what they meant for. No civic sense and sensitivity remained. Reservation has eaten up the true potential and now people find it to live better outside of country to live than here.
I doubt future will be better. I really regret my parents had s*x and I was born. I can't imagine bringing a child into this nation. If you do, you need to make sure, it gets good opportunity. My parents didn't cared about me and had high egos. Only I know how I suffered. People here only care about themselves.
Elites have already left the nation.
Casteism exists between all the communities whether upper castes or lower or middle : each one act like separate nation hostile to others.
No politician thinks about long term and politics is a very very good business.
Democracy can work in homogenous society with low population
I totally agree with each and every word. Indians think too much of themselves when in reality they stand nowhere. Even places like srilanka, bali, etc people have better civic sense than india. On top of all that, Everything is tied to religion here. People take pride of being tied to a religion, caste. Nobody wants to reflect within themselves and question what theyve been taught by their elders is correct or not. Everyone wants to be a morale police but no one really has morals. Its doomed. I’m tired of it too.
Yesterday a strange incident happened in Gwalior. Lady police officer with surname Khan tried to stop the group who were making a lot of noise due to religious activities. They were not having proper permission so the lady officer was telling them to stop for now.
When the people in the group found out she is muslim police officer, the first thing they did is - Bring Hindu/muslim point.
They started asking her - If she can't say Jai Shree Ram then she has no understanding of the love they (group) have for Shri Ram. So she should not teach them to stop the religious activity.
Surprisingly she happily said - Jai Shree Ram.
Group was shocked listening this from Lady muslim officer. But they had to stop the nuisance.
😁
She herself said - I don't mind saying Jai Shri Ram if it allows me to complete my duty without any damage to anyone.
But yeah... Religion above all - the main issue we have which China doesn't face.
My advice: get out while you are still young. Yes, you will have different problems there but net-net it will still be better in many aspects. That's what I plan for my kid. Don't see any scope for things to get better here.