Is it strange to feel homesick for a place while you're standing in it?

That's been my first few weeks back in Bangalore. Everything is familiar and everything has moved slightly to the left. Friends have become managers and parents and, surprisingly often, founders. I keep catching myself converting prices in my head like a tourist. But I'm home. I'm close to my family again, and I can't describe what a weight off my chest that is.

Nobody I knew had done this before me. Leave the job, leave the visa, come back, and build something from scratch here. There was no senior to call, no playbook, nobody who'd walked the road and could tell me where the potholes were. I had to do this myself, for myself, for the first time. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I realised the most useful thing I could do with it was make the road a little easier for whoever comes next.

In the months before I came back, I spent a few hours almost every day on Clubhouse, just talking. Teaching people in India about crypto, about NFTs, about what this new internet could mean for artists and builders here. Rooms full of strangers asking questions late into the night. I never kept count of how many people I spoke to. I didn't do it for any reason other than it felt good to help, and I'd rather pass on what I know than sit on it.

A candle doesn't lose any light when you use it to light another candle, but makes the room brighter.

The other reason I came back is harder to put into words, so let me try.

I know what it's like to be the underrated kid. I didn't get the best marks. I didn't get into the college everyone expected. I spent four years in a system that graded me on whether my code matched the answer key, not on whether I could think. There are thousands of students in this city right now who are exactly like I was - curious, inquisitive, a bit of a misfit, with marks that say nothing about how bright they are, for reasons that are none of their fault. Give them real work and they'll surprise you. They're hungry in a way you can't teach.

That's who I want to build with. Not the people with the perfect CVs, who'll be fine either way. The people nobody's given a shot yet.

I'm not naive about it. Building here means some late calls across time zones, some explaining to relatives who think I've taken a step backwards, and a lot of fog around crypto that nobody's cleared up yet. Some days the fog will win.

But it doesn't feel like a step backwards. It feels like I've come home with something to give.

Let's plant some seeds.