The Christmas Letter

DEC 25, 2016

Dear Friends and Family,

Christmas means different things to different people. For some, it is a religious day. For most, it’s a chance to spend some quality time with family. For me, it is also a day to reflect on the year that passed and a chance to plan for the years to come. It is a chance for some honest self-reflection, to reevaluate my life and make some decisions to affect changes. 

I re-read an article recently – you know one of those that pop up on your Facebook feed from time to time – written by a palliative care nurse who describes the top five regrets people have, when they are faced with their own mortality.  Most people wished they had the courage to live a life true to themselves, not the life others expected of them. Most people regret the things they could not or did not do rather than regret something they did. When I look back at my life so far, I can see how certain moments have convinced me to make a difficult decision to do something so that I do not regret it later. Often it was a great conversation with an old friend, sometimes a memorable birthday trip to a new country.

Janvi and I send you warm wishes for this holiday season and wish all of you the very best for the upcoming year. With these holiday wishes, I wanted to let you know that Janvi and I have decided to do something we have been thinking about for a while now, because we both know we would regret it if we didn’t at least try. We have decided to move to India. It is a move we are making assuming that it will be a permanent one. But after a year or so, we will take a call on whether to continue staying in India or come back to the US and hit the play button once more on our lives here. 

Life has been very kind to me. I have supportive parents who are open-minded and have not lost their hunger to learn and grow. They will always be the benchmark I measure myself against. They have taught me the two virtues I hold dearest, honesty and humility. My incredibly fearless wife, who has been my number one fan, has given me the strength to always be true to myself. She surprises me, infuriates me and makes me fall in love with her more times than I can count. With her on my side, I feel like I can achieve whatever I set out to do. My aunt and uncle have been champion surrogate parents during my formative years, and they will always have a special place in my heart. I have learned how to be truly compassionate from my aunt. My uncle has been a shining example of how to respond to life’s cruelest adversities and has prepared a boy to be a man. My brother and sister-in-law have given me their unconditional love and have inspired me to be a better person. In my mind, they are the best at what they do, which, in a family full of brilliant doctors, is saying something. I know this because many a times, when my inner hypochondriac has ruled my mind, they have always been my first phone call. My first cousins are the kind of lot that would make the Braverman family wish they were more like the Laheris. Having to be the older sibling for the better part of my childhood, experiencing the joys of being the youngest in the family during adolescence was made even sweeter by their love and acceptance. My heart will always yearn to be with them every Thanksgiving and Xmas, because the numerous holidays I spent with them will forever be some of my fondest memories. I had the privilege to be a part of the lives of my young nieces and nephews and influence them in my own small way. When I think about them, my heart always fills with pride and I know that they will always be my favorite people. 

The friends I have made along the way have colored my life with richness that I could never have imagined. My friends have filled my life with adventure, laughter, wonder, camaraderie and immense joy. They are the family I got to choose and the pillars that propped me up when I fell down. Amazingly, at this point in my long winding professional journey, I have also found an employer who is more a close friend than a boss, an amazing mentor and a confidante. Over the past two years, him and I have shared many conversations over a drink of bourbon and many high-fives after a job well done. 

I am writing this letter to you because you are one of these people on the above list, and I care that you understand my decision. I hope my actions over the years have shown you the love I have for you and I hope this letter expresses my heartfelt gratitude for the part you have played in my life. But ultimately, I found the courage to write this letter in the hopes of paying it forward and inspiring at least one of you to take a risk to be truer to your self.

Ever since I moved to the US, I have always struggled to understand my personal identity. When I was in college, this struggle came to the forefront as I found myself pulled towards a more Indian environment and at the same time wanting to learn more about American culture. Over time, I kept the parts of being Indian that I liked and adopted the parts of America that I was drawn to. In some cases, parts of India never left me whether I wanted to or not. And in come cases, I adopted the American way, whether I wanted to or not. I could relate to friends and families from both these identities, and I saw no reason to try to change that. I also did not deem any reason good enough for me to force any change in the way I saw certain things, either through an Indian or American lens. I saw things through MY lens, whatever that turned out to be and I accepted that. 

Once I started working, I realized I was also struggling to understand my professional identity. More accurately, I was struggling to decide what I wanted my professional identity to be. What did I want to achieve in life? In the article I mentioned earlier, one of the top five regrets was that people wished that they had let themselves be happier. If happiness is the ultimate goal, how much did ambition and professional drive factor into MY happiness? These questions have always driven me forward; they have challenged me to keep trying to reinvent myself and seek what truly keeps me ticking. A good friend recently remarked, knowing me intimately, that I might never find work that I truly love doing. Maybe my friend was right, and I may never find my true calling. But I know that I will never stop trying to find it. No matter what my next step maybe professionally, I know there is one thing that does make me happy: Family.  I don’t know if every man thinks about this, but I have thought a lot about how I want to have my own family. I have dreamed of bringing up my kids in the same mold that I was brought up. I promised myself that if I ever get the opportunity and the means to do so, I would muster the courage to do so.

But, as someone who has logged in every six minutes of my work for the majority of the last eleven years, I know that timing is important in almost every aspect of one’s life. Taking the right step at the right time can be the difference between success and failure. Janvi and I have thought about moving to India for quite some time. We both have a desire to spend more time with our parents. We want our parents to be a bigger part of our lives and influence our kids’ upbringing the way our grandparents influenced ours. For me, it is a chance to make up for lost time, and to be there for my parents when they may need me the most. It is also a chance to get to know my parents-in-law in a way that living in the US would never afford me to do so. And most excitingly, it is a chance for us to reconnect with our hometown and our roots. Although the seed of this move had been planted from a long time, it was provided the necessary nourishment recently.

I spent a very memorable 35th birthday this year with two of my closest friends in Mexico City.  My friends work for the US embassy there and have uprooted their lives every two years to move to a new country and start over again, even with two young children. I was in awe of how easy they made it seem, and how happy they were to be doing what they really wanted to do, even if it meant rebooting most aspects of their lives again and again. After I came back home from that trip, I became increasingly dissatisfied with my life in the next few weeks. Seeing them has inspired me to let myself be happier and try to do what I really want to do. My heart was really not in my work, because I knew what my heart longed to do. So, after Janvi got back safely from her fellowship, we finally decided that it was the right time.

Janvi and I are apprehensive, as anyone would be with such a big decision, but we are mostly optimistic and excited. We plan on staying with my parents until we are certain that we want to stay in India. The universe seems to have conspired to help us this move easier, as Janvi is one step away from securing a great opportunity in Mumbai with a San Francisco based non-profit organization and become their first employee in India. As for me, I have taken a leave of absence from my law firm, and my partner has been a steadfast supporter throughout this uncertain time. I am looking forward to helping my dad with his business and explore some other options once I am settled in Mumbai. I want to try and execute some plans that I have been working on for a while, and give myself some time to discover the next step in professional journey. I am also ready for failure, because if I am afraid to fail, I would not be able to take the risks required for me to really make the best of this opportunity. 

Our friends and family here, you may be absent from our daily lives but will always be in our hearts. The world seems a lot smaller nowadays, so I am sure we will be in touch. But it is bittersweet to realize that some of you will not be a short car ride or flight away. Our loved ones in Mumbai, we would not have taken this step without the assurance of your presence in our new lives. Here’s to an exciting and fulfilling 2017!

Cheers,

Rumit