I was born in Jaipur in 1982, but moved to Mumbai a few weeks later and lived there until 1988. From 1989 to 1990, I lived in Ratnagiri Goa, followed by Baroda from 1990 to 1991, Jodhpur from 1991 to 1994, and Kenya from 1995 to 1996. I returned to Jaipur from 1997 to 1999, then moved back to Mumbai from 1999 to 2003. After that, I lived in Bengaluru from 2003 to 2006, then returned to Mumbai from 2006 to 2008, followed by another stint in Bengaluru from 2008 to 2010. From 2011 to 2014, I lived in Mumbai again, then moved to Bengaluru from 2014 to 2016, followed by a move to Dubai from 2017 to 2019. Since then, I have been living in Bengaluru.

Today, at the age of 41, I have bought an apartment and settled down in Bengaluru. A few months ago, a dear friend and former colleague, who had settled in the UK, introduced me to a serial entrepreneur who was looking to hire a CTO to build an Edtech startup in Robotics. This was something I had done before as an employee at Thinklabs. It was a moment of truth for me. If I said yes, I would be on a flight within weeks.

Having friends from college, work, a neighborhood I like, places of worship, convenience of life, tremendous opportunities, and a high quality of life at a very low cost in Bengaluru, I finally felt a resemblance of roots for the first time in my life. These roots were strong enough to make me say no to the opportunity to move to the UK. The old me would have jumped at the opportunity, but I have come to value the stability and community that I have built in Bengaluru.