Chapter 6

2016/17

In 2016, two years after moving to Chennai, my body could no longer cope with the toll of professional cricket. The injuries caught up with me, forcing me to walk away from the sessions and matches entirely. I hadn’t made much headway with Nat, though she remained in the back of my mind, and missing out on the H1B lottery meant my dreams of Silicon Valley were fading.

Around that time, Lloyds Banking Group became a Wipro client, embarking on a massive digital transformation over the next few years. It was arguably the best opportunity for web engineers outside of Apple at the time. Having proven myself at Apple, getting onto the project wasn't difficult. They needed a group of us to relocate to London, and once again, a simple childhood hobby was about to launch me onto an entirely new trajectory. After yet another rigorous training program, I packed my bags for a one-year assignment to work directly with the client at the Lloyds Bank office in London.

When I signed up, the INR-to-GBP exchange rate was around 80. Earning a £27K senior role in London felt vastly superior to a 5 LPA job in Bangalore, and I was desperate enough to take the leap. I figured that even if I didn't manage to save a single penny, the mere opportunity to live and work in London was an offer I couldn't refuse.

With my next chapter decided, I returned to Chennai one final time to wrap up my affairs. I packed my belongings, couriered my bike home, and said goodbye to Vin, Kan, and the rest of the circle. A few days before leaving, I made a last-ditch effort to see Nat — it was now or never. On her birthday that year, I headed straight to her office in Guindy, hoping against hope to find her. After hours of waiting and tracking her down, we finally met. She was kind enough to grab a coffee with me. Exactly two years after I had moved to Chennai to save our relationship, our parting words were simply a final goodbye.

On October 2, I embarked on my one-year assignment to London, arriving with just £200 in my pocket. I took a four-hour flight from Trivandrum to Mumbai, where I faced a nine-hour layover before the onward flight to London. Instead of exploring Mumbai, I chose not to risk getting tangled in the city's traffic, opting to explore the massive airport instead. It was during that layover that I received a message from Nat that completely blindsided me: after two years together in Kochi, two years of absolute silence in Chennai, and our final goodbye on her birthday, she was suddenly open to giving us another shot.

London during those first few days, however, was nothing like I had imagined. I had connected with a Gujarati property manager online who placed me and a couple of others in a completely rundown, rat-infested Victorian house sitting directly opposite West Ham United’s historic Boleyn Ground (which happened to be hosting its final matches around that time). Roughly ten guys were crammed into that house, two to a room. Over the next few weeks, I scrubbed my tiny corner of the room and reluctantly settled in.

A few days later, I traveled to a post office in Reading to collect my Biometric Residence Card, having foolishly listed my company’s registered address there. The postmaster took one look at my home address, immediately recognized it as a notorious hotspot for football hooliganism, and deadpan recommended I watch the movie Green Street Hooligans. Sure enough, I went home and watched it. I learned a brutal, lasting lesson that day: trying to cheap out always lands you with the absolute worst life has to offer. I stayed in that house for three months before finally relocating to a slightly better place shared with just one other roommate. Even in London, my sharing woes followed me. Going from a comfortable middle tier on the financial ladder in India, I suddenly felt like I was scraping the very bottom of it in the UK.

But I focused on what I could control: working hard and squeezing every ounce of value out of the opportunity. I joined the Statements team alongside an engineer from Greece named Pol, who quickly became a close friend. Over the next three years, I worked harder than ever. I would often come home, convert an ironing board into a makeshift standing desk, and code and study late into the night to sharpen my engineering skills. Still, living in London on a £27K salary made saving incredibly difficult. It was a severe lifestyle downgrade. I was too naive and young, blindly following the flow without doing proper research on the cost of living in a global capital.

To combat the isolation, I threw myself into social events — free hugs experiments, "laughing on the tube" meetups, pub crawls, whatever I could find. At one such event, I met Cri, a tourist from Germany. We spent days exploring the city using a London Pass, squeezing in free entry to every major landmark over a ten-day stretch.

Meanwhile, I began rebuilding things with Nat on a long-distance basis. She wanted to escape her grueling night shifts, learn web development, join my project, and eventually move to London. And so began a rigorous mentoring journey. She already held a Master’s in Computer Science, and after months of punishing late-night study sessions — navigating a 5.5-hour time zone difference — she mastered the stack, moved to Bangalore, and joined my project.

Her success became a massive point of pride for me, though the dynamic inevitably strained our relationship. We found ourselves talking exclusively about career milestones and code. I grew restless when she struggled with complex concepts, fiercely protective when others questioned her. Yet she persevered through it all and triumphed. I haven't mentored many students like her since; looking back, I realize that love is the core ingredient required to push someone entirely across the finish line. We kept our relationship alive, silently carrying the weight of the same old caste uncertainties, agreeing to keep mum until the inevitable reckoning arrived.

Because my initial London visit was booked as a one-year corporate assignment, I hadn't worried about complex tax implications; I viewed it as an all-expenses-paid trip courtesy of the company. Living frugally allowed me to build on the savings I had started accumulating back in India. Having clawed my way up from zero debt and zero savings with my first job, my bank account in the UK finally started looking healthier.

At work, I carved out a stellar reputation for myself on the team. I was in my element, and the foundation for everything that came next was finally locked in.