Stakes [Pull Up / Put Down]: An Interview with Shali

Shali and I after our interview, outside the coffee shop where we talked. Can you tell we had to stare almost directly into the sun? Neither of us liked this photo. However, we went with it. October 10, 2019.

I conducted this interview as part of Stakes [Pull Up / Put Down]. For more information about the project, read the project overview. To read additional entries as they come available, subscribe to The Letter.

Shali and I met through our French instructor, who paired us for several sessions as conversation partners. For the Stakes project, we talked one morning at a coffee shop in central Lausanne, which made this my first in-person interview for the project.

Note: Shali preferred I use a variation on her first name for this article, given the personal information we covered in our conversation.

How it All Started: Moving from Mumbai to Los Angeles

Shali grew up in the Mumbai suburb of Vasai, in India, in a multigenerational home filled with grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

She and her now husband had dated for four years when he decided to change careers and applied for Ph.D. programs. When the best of several offers turned out to be the University of California, Los Angeles, they accelerated their marriage plans.

Shortly after the wedding, Shali and her husband moved to Los Angeles. They planned to return to India after he completed his degree.

In Los Angeles, Shali and her husband found a welcoming community of fellow students and their spouses, all united by arriving at the same time from places all over the world to study similar topics. “Coming to L.A. opened up so many cultures to me. In just one place, UCLA, I had so many Japanese and Korean and American and European friends,” she said.

“We had a great time,” Shali said. “We went along with student life. Everyone is in the same boat. You travel in groups. You don’t need a lot of money, because everyone is doing everything on student budgets. Those first five years were the fun years.”

Though Shali didn’t have a work visa in the United States, she volunteered heavily at an Indian association and at UCLA.

Moving from Los Angeles to Orlando

When her husband graduated from his Ph.D. program, the best job offers came from outside of India. “When you get an offer from a good university and you don't get the same offer from back home, then it changes things. Going back becomes harder,” Shali said.

Her husband had offers from within the United States and received some interest from European universities as well. Yet Shali didn’t want to move to a third country. She said if they couldn’t go back to India, she wanted to stay in the country she’d come to know.

Of the U.S. options, a tenure-track faculty position in Florida seemed best. Her husband liked the job offer and Shali has an uncle in Tallahassee. They moved to Orlando and her husband started his new job.

Orlando becomes Home

Orlando worked for Shali because she felt somewhat back into the family fold, which she loved and valued so much about her life in India.

Her uncle and aunt in Tallahassee took on a parental role for her, and their son married and started a family. Shali and her husband had their daughter. Her younger sister moved to Connecticut from India and began to have children. Another family member from India moved to New Jersey and started raising children as well.

The extended family gathered regularly for events and holidays. Shali and her husband gave up their Indian citizenship to become U.S. citizens.

And then… Another Career Shift

After about a dozen years in Orlando, Shali’s husband itched for a new professional challenge. He started to apply for other positions at other universities—including universities in Europe.

Shali didn’t concern herself too much with the European interest he received, as she figured interviewing abroad would serve as good networking. She didn’t imagine anything concrete coming from it. She expected that they would need to leave Florida, but that they would stay within the United States.

Then a job offer from a university in Switzerland arrived, which her husband saw as a dream job. It promised all the challenges he wanted in a next career step.

Shali didn’t want to stand between her husband and a dream job.

Shali Moves to Switzerland

After ensuring that the town and its educational opportunities would serve their daughter well, they agreed to come to Lausanne for a two-year trial period. Her husband took a sabbatical from his university in Florida, rather than resigning. They kept their house in Orlando.

Shali worked to stay positive, and she said that her husband’s perennially upbeat outlook helped her. However, the first four or five months hit her especially hard. She didn’t realize her husband would need to travel as much as he did. She didn’t know the culture in Lausanne. She didn’t have any family in Europe, much less Switzerland. She didn’t speak or understand French.

Finally, she met some supportive people, including our French teacher. She started learning the language, which helped. And our language teacher connected Shali with a cultural coach who helped her better understand Switzerland and helped her set her own goals and priorities for her experience in Lausanne, so that she didn’t feel completely adrift in her husband’s life plans. Also, she helped Shali communicate her vision to her husband.

“She helped us understand each other’s priorities as individuals and then address how we align our priorities as best we can and support each other,” Shali said. “She helped us create a shared vision.”

As the two-year trial period concluded, the three-person family weighted in on staying longer. Shali’s husband and daughter wanted to stay. Shali lost the vote.

After All these Moves, Home is…?

Shali feels more settled in Switzerland now than she did shortly after her move to the country, but she doesn’t feel that Switzerland is home.

“Home is where the family is,” she said, “but that’s the home inside the house. Outside the house, home isn’t here. The language plays a role. And the community isn’t there.”

Does home feel like India, where her family still has its communal house and where she spent the first twenty-five years of her life?

“I don’t consider India home,” Shali said. “It’s my parents’ home. It’s the family house.”

Instead, home to Shali feels like Florida, where she and her husband still own a house—they rent an apartment in Lausanne—and where she and her husband had their daughter and raised her into adolescence. Also, they now have a lot of family in the eastern part of the United States.

Eventually, Shali and her husband plan to move back to the United States. She considers herself an expat in Switzerland. “We have the family, the connection, the house in the United States,” she said. “We're Americans, so we’ll go back to our country.”

Shali doesn’t believe she will ever move back to India now. Though she said she feels some sadness about it, she said she’s okay with it—though feeling okay with it didn’t happen overnight. “It was a genuine slow transition over the years,” she said.

It helps her to recognize that the India she left doesn’t exist now, decades later. “We are stuck in the year 2000 when we moved away, in terms of the cost of things and the movies and the lives of friends and the technology,” she said.

Also, Shali said that her family in India doesn’t expect her to move back. “It's a sad but true story for every Indian,” she said. “Resources in India are limited. You have to seek elsewhere. And you get better opportunities outside the country. As long as you are happy where you are, your family is happy for you.”

Increasing Pride in Her Origins

Shali identifies her nationality as “Indian-American,” and she stays very connected to the Indian community.

In Lausanne, she has linked up with the area’s Indian cultural association, which has helped her feel less isolated. She said she has needed the Indian networks in Switzerland more than she did in Los Angeles or Orlando, where they had connection to other Ph.D. students and to family. Here, the Indian cultural association has given Shali a way to meet people and connect over shared traditions.

She said she has grown more origin-proud over her time away from India. She values her culture, its traditions, and her religion. Shali wants her daughter to know these aspects of her Indian heritage, even if her daughter ultimately decides not to practice the religion or follow the customs.

Also, Shali said that people in Switzerland have more interest in her Indian heritage than her U.S. background, so she has a lot more opportunity to share her culture and traditions—and with enthusiastic people. “Others’ appreciation helps me appreciate my culture more,” she said.

Shali added that she hasn’t gotten as positive a reaction when she tells people she is American.

A Change in Perspective and Mindset

Shali didn’t choose to move away from her home country of India or from her adopted home country, the United States. Though she is now at peace with her international relocations, and though she could have refused to move each time, she didn’t personally instigate any of the decisions to relocate.

For Shali, the hardest aspect to moving abroad—on both occasions—was losing her extended family and its closeness, which she values immensely. However, she sees a strong positive in her moves as well in that she has encountered several cultures, people, and perspectives that she does not believe she would have met if she had never moved away from Mumbai.

“I’ve changed a lot over these years,” Shali said. “I’ve become more positive toward life. I’ve realized that it’s one life you get. You decide what you do with it. Either you spend your life suffering, or you spend your life happy. I’d rather spend life happy.”

From Classmates to Friends

Though we no longer take French class together—Shali and I have signed up for separate intensive programs, to try to leap into some level of competency—our discussion brought us closer. We look forward to continuing the conversation as friends.

Thank you, Shali!

For more information about Stakes [Pull Up / Put Down], the project that generated this interview, read the project statement. If you would like to participate as an interview subject or have a participant to recommend, please contact me. To get updates on the project, subscribe to The Letter.