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Retiring in America
By
Arun Misra, Ph.D.*


Many of us have thought of going back to India to retire. In old age income goes down, pension benefits are smaller, and cost as well as insurance-premiums for health care services rise. It then makes perfect sense to move to a less expensive place. Household help is readily available at cheaper rates in India. The cost of medical care is modest in comparison to USA. Availability of family members and childhood friends, if you pick up a suitable place, is another attraction. Hence we have been contemplating, for years, to move back to India, when it is time to finally rest and die.

But the story of Hans from Germany made us to think differently. In 1970s, Hans went to visit New Delhi, from Bonn. Hans liked India very much, met an Indian girl, Anita, fell in love with her, and got married. Hans came back to Germany, sold and disposed of his assets, and was back in India with plenty of capital to establish a factory near Delhi, and the couple, as they say, ’ lived happily there ever after‘.

Once Hans and Anita approached retirement, they came to visit USA. They fell in love with this country. Both researched and concluded that USA was a good place to retire. Of course USA is a nice place to live, but the cost of living is so much higher than in India. USA does not have adequate social services for elderly people, like Europe has, but is much better than that of India. Cost of health care is higher than India and Europe, but the quality of services are far superior. The pollution, filth and other inconveniences of India are non-existent in the US.

Thus it dawned upon us that ‘Retiring in America’ is better than ‘Retiring in India’. If you have enough funds, retire in America. If you are poor, retire in India. This is why Tatas are treated in Paris, not Mumbai when they fall sick, and are cremated in Switzerland, not Mumbai, when they die. Hence, Muslim Aga Khan makes his abode in Paris and not in Pakistan.

Reflecting on what I achieved in the last 30 years or so of my stay in the US, since I arrived here in my late thirties, I came to some interesting conclusions. Being fired from one job to another, and being transferred from one place to the next, in addition to being unhappy with the working conditions, in India, I came to teach and do research in Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering in the US, exactly during the same years German Hans moved to India. I had already lived for years in Europe (especially Hans’s Germany) and Australia, and had visited US couple of times prior to coming to live here.

In India, even if you do not perform your duties properly, if your colleagues and supervisors do not like you, you never get fired. Just get transferred, may be to a remote place, in a similar job. This is considered enough punishment in the service career. Me being fired and transferred, again and again, makes me kind of unusual. I was pretty different, had relatively plenty of success in teaching and research at a young age in Biology. I became a college professor at age 19, and was the Dean of the school at age 31. I wrote several books and published dozens of research papers, during this period. But what I wanted to do and achieve, was not coming forth quick enough for me, hence I took many risks in my jobs, resulting into demotions, firings and transfers.

With this baggage, I arrived in USA where opportunities were plenty, and the freedom to carve your own niche, encouraged. It took me just few months to realize that I came from ‘frying pan into fire’. The bosses in US are so very powerful, treat their employees like slaves and getting fired was so easy. Hence I came across a spate of ‘firings’, early in the US. Anywhere I started, in teaching or in research, every time I got fired a few weeks later. I acted strange for my supervisors, found my colleagues very mean, and my bosses were crazy. Be it New York, Chicago, South Dakota, Miami, St Louis, Mississippi, and Atlanta, I was fired and dismissed from numerous schools again and again. Being on temporary visa, which were generally issued for a specific job and a particular employer, I had to run to Immigration authorities time and again, to stay legal and avoid being out of status, for years. I must be lucky as well as smart, since I always found a job within a few days of being fired, every time. The visas changed into several kinds over the years.

But I never gave up, and survived again and again, moving from one job to the next and from one city to another, many a times within a few weeks, carrying all my belongings into a suitcase in Greyhound Buses.

In India, where I came from, you can not be fired, just get transferred, if you are no good and/or you are not liked by your superiors. Here in the US the firing was so easy, so quick and so strange to me. ‘You can be fired if the Boss does not like the color of your socks’, I was told. Scary stuff. Many warnings I received, before being fired, did not affect me much. I considered them scare tactics, like ‘speed checked by detection devices’ along the roads. In India we called them, ‘love letters’. I did not realize that those were kept in my files for making a legal case for eventual firing, which may not be easily contested.

By the time all this occurred, it was too late. I was too old to change my ways. Employers found a pattern in my behavior to get rid of me quickly.

But when my wife and three teenage children arrived from India, couple of years later, I had to change, be docile to the bosses and fit into the mold. I could no longer pick my stuff in a suitcase , scream at the boss, and just leave. I had four more adults to carry along, which was impossible, and would have shattered their American Dreams. Hence I transformed myself into an obsequious fellow, pleased my bosses, colleagues and students at colleges and universities, and eventually received an employer sponsored coveted Green card, permanent residency, for the entire family, to stay and work in the USA. This is considered a great loyalty to the employer, as well establishes one’s merit to substitute a US citizen in employment, by being superior to the available talent in the country.

Those 3-4 years were hell for me. I was not my own, but a devout, obedient part of a big ‘slaving-machine’,
with no brain, no personality, no independence, no freedom. I just worked for someone or some organizations, at low wages for years, and never complained, to reserve a berth in the American capitalism.

I left academia and joined the business world. My productivity and money generating ability was going to be the measure of success for me, I was told. People would tolerate all my idiosyncrasy, if I generated plenty of business, and was profitable for the establishment. I excelled in business, got numerous awards.

This was similar to my publishing numerous research papers, writing books and teaching interesting courses, when I was in the academia. But the business ventures were also short lived. I did not last for more than 4-5 years, same time period, 5-6 years, of the academia. I was so very wrong about the capitalism. Business had its own norms. Making profit was not enough. One has to be likable, part of a team, be popular, work slow, be teachable, and follow instructions. Brilliance, and disregard for rules and regulations were not tolerated. Both academia and business had similar systems to follow, both had their own politicking to encounter. I was again on a roll, being fired from one company to another (in insurance, investments, real estate, mortgage etc), had no office to go to, no fancy business cards, and nothing to do. I acquired US citizenship in the meantime though.

I then started solo, became CEO of my own company, started selling and servicing whatever I could, especially insurance, investments, real estate and mortgage. This has lasted for over two decades now. I never had too much to do, but I always made a decent income, and enjoyed my journey of life. It is obvious, if you work hard, have some talent, there are many avenues in the US to survive and succeed.

I am at a stage where I can retire peacefully and enjoy the fruits of my deeds.

I never really found a proper job, nor had a vocation or profession, have been running from pillar to post, for the last twenty years or so, like a rolling stone that gathers no moss.

But I have thoroughly enjoyed, what I did.

Like Ghalib, I could say, ‘hazaron hasraten, … jin pe dam nikle, bahut nikle, … phir bhi kam nikle’. (I had numerous goals and ambitions, some came to fruition, but many more were never realized/achieved.)

Thus, when people ask me now, What have I done, and what I am doing lately ? I simply say, ‘I really came, over 30 years ago, to retire in America.’

______________________

* Financial Planner & Realtor
Phone 770/232-7447, fax 678/840-0070
Web : www.arunmisra.com , E-Mail : misrausa@yahoo.com