Moving to India just before the crisis

I had to leave America for a lot of reasons, including the cost of living, difficulty in finding work for someone with my mental profile, and especially as a deaf Hindū finding herself even more of an outsider than she already was as a non-Christian American.  I had about $14,000 in debt in 2017 and managed to pay that off, and then went ALL THE WAY back into it by February 2018 because of 3 eye surgeries.  Plus, my employment picture got as bad as it could get, just one step from total unemployment in the course of a year.

When I got here in 2018, I paid off all that medical debt in 4 months and started to figure out what to do with the money freed up from the cost of living in America.  I have gov't assistance because I am profoundly deaf.  People like us AUTOMATICALLY qualify for benefits unless we earn over the monthly income threshold for keeping/dropping benefits, and it is not easy to find work which would allow me to stay financially independent in America's current economic profile.

I'm not a 25 year-old griping about a typical situation for 20-year-olds, but 55 years old.  Before, I was able to be here less than 180 days and exit out for a few days before coming back here each time.  Unfortunately, lockdown has stopped that process, and the virus game is so unstable that there is a chance of being locked out for years if I exit out.  Plus, I have a medical condition that is financially impossible to be treated in America, as it would wipe out all my savings from the last 3 years in just five days or less.

Fortunately, I have until August 31st to remain here, and then I have to see where I'm going.  Dad used to say in the 80s, regarding economic conditions in Latin America, "If I was one of them illegals, they'd have to throw me back every day."  He absolutely understood their plight and put them to work when it was possible.  Here we are, scarcely 40 years later, and I have to say, "I'm am American, and they'd have to throw me back every day."  If I exit-out on the 31st and can't come back in, then I have to go to another country directly.  Something with a similar cost-of-living structure.

I have been trying to find something here in Bhārat that would allow me to earn income on a permanent residency basis.  I heard about what Karl Rock, the YouTube vlogger, did, and that was a no-no, participating in some way the anti-CAA protests, running a business on a tourist visa, and talking about FIREARMS and how to buy them legally. (Indian forehead palm)

Fortunately, I had already made friends and integrated to a great extent by attending the former Hindū temple in America for three years prior to coming here.  You don't just come here because you have work to do and a lower cost of living.  What about the people??  Their culture and history?  Their cultural activities including spiritual and family activities??  The interactions with them??  All of that is important to me.  Unfortunately, the CCP-virus put a damper on such things, and I'm back to living like I did in America, only this time, during the waves, it's the health risk that limits me, not money.  See, I spent most of my working live working part-time.  This meant that I had a lot of down time, especially if you work for a company with profit sharing, which limits your work hours because that is also considered income (for gov't disability benefits).  This nature of a company can impact your ability to stay on full-coverage health insurance.  I had to learn to find free things to do at home, and keep myself occupied for 2-3 days at a time, sometimes two times a week, or 4 days in a row.

Here, I have been finding, buying, and reading Indian-origin comic books this year.  This is the year of the Indian comic books.  Last year was the year of the short books in my library.  Another "job" is a giant library of about 350 books left to read on India, Hindūism, the current environment threatening this country, Swadeshi indology, history, etc.  I am a book curator.  Because I have sustained income from the gov't for the time being, I'm able to give myself whatever job I want to do, to occupy my time until my permanent residence status is known and established.  I look forward to having permanent residency done so that I can feel like I am working among people with whom I have a spiritual, social, and civilizational compatibility, and be able to travel within Bhārat, as it is absolutely rich with history and its beauty.  Otherwise, in spite of my circumstances because of the CCP-virus, I feel at home here.  Many people havbe wrong ideas about Bhārat.

You know how it feels when you think about riding on some spaceship or living on Mars, etc.?  It sounds like a cool idea, but at this time it seems like an impossibility for you.  As a result, there is a link to it that is missing, just a mental idea, that's all.  That is exactly how I'm feeling about returning to America, although at some point, I would have to.  Think about boarding the plane, friends or family picking me up at the airport, etc.  It feels exactly the same as Mars.  Either I will die here, or something terrible will happen over there and borders will be locked down for national security reasons.  The line of the future is cut off at that point.  It's like you know it is over, such as at retirement, and you know perfectly well that you can't go back to work there.  It's a hunch I have.  But when I think about Bhārat and my living here, it seems wide open, as told by my gut feeling or intuition.

What's funny about all this is that everything I have gone through has led up to staying in India for long periods of time and THEN finding out that I have Indian ancestry through a DNA test here.  I feel like I am HOME and have felt emotional when visiting a historical site such as Lothal in Gujarāt.  I feel like Bhārat is one of my ancestral lands.