‘I do not need a lawyer to approve my life’: ex-H-1B holder on moving back to India

A Redditor who recently left the US and moved to India permanently described a small but powerful moment while applying for a job on an Indian portal: scrolling to the bottom of the page and finding the familiar visa question, only to answer it differently this time.

“For over a decade in the US, that question was my nightmare. ‘Will you now or in the future require visa sponsorship?’ Every single time I had to check YES, my stomach sank,” the person wrote, describing how the answer made them feel “like a burden, like you are an expensive complication instead of a talented professional.”

This time, the Indian system asked a similar question about international relocation and work authorization. “I clicked NO,” the Redditor wrote. “I cannot even describe the rush of emotion that hit me. I literally sat back and just stared at the screen for five minutes. It felt like a massive weight rolled off my chest.”

“I do not need a company’s permission to live here. I do not need a government lottery to decide if I can keep my house. I do not need a lawyer to approve my life,” the post continued, adding that clicking “No” brought “this incredible feeling of power and relief” and was “the first time in my adult life that I felt completely in control of my own career.”

The Redditor, who spent 11 years in the US pursuing what they called the American Dream, said the anxiety of being “one layoff or one lottery rejection away from packing your bags” never fully went away on the H-1B visa. Now sitting in a cafe in Bangalore weighing corporate jobs against building something of their own, they acknowledged the reverse culture shock is real, from the traffic to the humidity, but concluded: “It is good to be home.”