Incomplete NRI: A travel memoir to India stitched together with humour, heart and controlled chaos

Incomplete NRI is a heartfelt, humorous, and deeply reflective

travel memoir about what it means to live between two

worlds-and never fully belong to just one.

What begins as a carefully planned two-week trip to India in

the summer of 2025 slowly unfolds into a month-long

journey filled with missed timelines, extended stays, and

unexpected detours. With a U.S. visa deadline ticking loudly

in the background, the author sets out to complete a

daunting checklist: revive an inoperative PAN card, apply for

Aadhaar, navigate banks and registry offices, sell a decades-

old apartment heavy with memories, and reinvest in a new

home that reflects changing aspirations. All of this unfolds

across cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi, Ranchi, Bokaro,

and small towns in Jharkhand-each with its own rhythm,

chaos, and quiet truths.

But Incomplete NRI is not a book about paperwork alone.

Between airport lounges and paperwork gymnastics lie the

moments that truly matter: playing cricket with nephews,

celebrating Raksha Bandhan at home, sipping tea during

monsoon rains, sharing late-night balcony conversations, and

rediscovering the comfort of simple meals that taste

unmistakably like home. These pauses-often

unscheduled-become anchors in a journey otherwise ruled

by deadlines.

Written in a candid, conversational voice, the book captures

the emotional reality of modern NRI life-where one can feel

professionally settled abroad yet unfinished on paper, rooted

in two countries but fully owned by neither. Thoughtful, self-

aware, and quietly funny, Incomplete NRI speaks to anyone

who has lived across borders, carried multiple identities, or

learned that being "incomplete" is sometimes what keeps us

moving forward.

For anyone who has one passport, two homes, and a heart

split gently in half.