Moving back to India
With that break up, it felt like it was time for a change. And I decided to leave London for good. There was one more major reason to making the move. It took me 3 years into the life in London to realize that the visa I was on (Tier 2 ICT) did not qualify for residency in 5 years, whereas there were other visas like the General visa which did, but I still had to pay the same rate of Tax, National Insurance and Health Surcharge. In the chaos of doing well at work and succeeding in love, I never thought much about residency in the beginning. But when one pays so much into the system over many years, he then starts to wonder where all the hard earned money went. And when they keep changing the rules about immigration, taxation etc from time to time, one really begins to question his presence.
The answer was clear - Great Britain's rise was over after WW2. And it was declining as an economic power. And to be able to support its social schemes, the money had to come from somewhere. If only there was a way to get workers who created more value and replenished the public funds while never being eligible to claim them as benefits. The ICT visa was a genius stroke of policy for a nation looking to extract value without offering stability. It allowed immigrants to pay into the system for years while remaining permanently ineligible for benefits or residency. If they left, or were sent back, they lost everything they had contributed. Many employers utilized this framework to its fullest extent. By adhering to the visa’s rigid salary structures, they created a two-tier workforce. Watching others perform the exact same role on General visas securing their path to residency while I remained stagnant - was the breaking point. I realized I was in a dead-end lane. So, I resigned immediately and moved back to India, choosing uncertainty over exploitation. I wondered why I was never told of this or nobody questioned it.
Most people move for economic reasons without ever knowing how the system is designed. I hope more people really scrutinize these kinds of systems before making big, irreversible decisions about their lives. On 31 July 2019, Nat dropped me in Heathrow one last time.
A month after, she left London for good and went back to Chennai. She worked for a few years in Chennai, got herself promoted, and then married and moved to Dubai where she lives happily. There cleared an interview there and found a great job which makes me very proud as her mentor. She’s also the proud mother of a child. We stayed in touch for a while. We met a few years ago on one of my trips to Dubai and we lamented about how if only I was a bit more strong, we could have had a different reality. But we both made peace with our decisions. She was a bold and daring girl who was unfortunately born into a family who did not dare to challenge the prejudices of society fearing ostracization. Life taught me that society aligns to the bold. All their ideals fade away at the face of a confident person who challenges conservative values. But they will easily overpower the gullible. Our paths in life diverged after that and will likely never cross again.