“The Bihari in me said, ‘I’ll come back when your President invites me’”: When Sharad Sagar left US to work in India, people laughed, but he manifested the future

When Sharad Vivek Sagar was finishing his education in the US and preparing to return to Bihar, some of his American friends could not understand his decision. Why leave behind the possibility of a well-paid job, a Manhattan high-rise office and the lifestyle that came with it?A decade later, Sagar has recalled what he told them at the time - a line that sounded more like a joke than a promise.“The Bihari I was, I would tell them, I would come back when your president invites me,” Sagar says in a video shared on Instagram, recalling the years when he was studying in the US.That invitation eventually came. On September 16, 2016, Sagar received an invitation from the White House to attend a special gathering hosted by then US President Barack Obama. Sagar revisited the moment through an instagram post and recalled it as one of the most unexpected turns in his journey.“In September, around that time, I was in the state of West Bengal,” he recalled in the video. “That morning at 5 a.m., I received an invite from the White House saying that the president would like to invite me to a special gathering of leaders.”The invitation was for South by South Lawn: A White House Festival of Ideas, Art and Action, an event held at the White House on October 3, 2016. The gathering brought together creators, innovators and organisers working on ideas aimed at improving people's lives. Contemporary reports identified Sagar as the only Indian invited to the event.For Sagar, however, the significance of the invitation went beyond the White House address. “I was the only Indian invited, and it was just such a remarkable honor,” he says in the video.From Bihar to the White HouseBy the time Obama invited him, Sagar was already known for his work in education and youth development. He had founded Dexterity Global in 2008, at the age of 16, with a focus on creating opportunities for students and helping young people develop skills and access higher-education opportunities.In 2016, he had also graduated from Tufts University in Massachusetts, where he studied international relations and diplomacy. The Telegraph reported at the time that Dexterity Global worked to create opportunities for students through programmes focused on entrepreneurship, leadership, skills and access to universities.But Sagar's latest recollection begins much earlier - with the reaction of friends who thought he was giving up a more conventional version of success. “When I was graduating and coming back, returning to Bihar, my American friends would tell me that you are such an idiot,” he says.He remembers the argument they made: after receiving a strong education in the US, why return without first earning money and building a conventional career? “You just received such a great education and you're going back without earning money and like working out of a Manhattan high-rise building, getting those fat paychecks, driving those German cars,” Sagar recalls them telling him.“And when would you come back to the U.S.?” His answer, he says, was characteristically direct. “And the Bihari I was, I would tell them, I would come back when your president invites me.”The 5am White House emailThe remark might have remained a memorable exchange between friends had the invitation never arrived. Instead, years later, Sagar found himself waking up to a message from the White House.The timing made the moment even more striking. He was in West Bengal when the invitation came.“In September, around that time, I was in the state of West Bengal. That morning at 5 a.m., I received an invite from the White House,” he says.The invitation was not for a conventional political meeting. Obama’s South by South Lawn was designed as a gathering around ideas, innovation, art and social change. The White House event was described at the time as bringing together people who were working to improve lives through their work.For the young entrepreneur from Bihar, the invitation also represented an unusual full circle.In an interview published in 2016, Sagar said Obama had influenced him as a leader and described the invitation as a great honour.A decade later, his recollection focuses less on the glamour of the moment and more on the improbability of what had happened: a casual-sounding promise made to friends had, against the odds, come true.Sagar had chosen to return to India after his education rather than follow the conventional path his friends expected of him. His work through Dexterity Global had kept him focused on education and opportunities for young people.And then came the invitation he had once jokingly set as the condition for returning to America.“The Bihari I was, I would tell them, I would come back when your president invites me,” he says.Ten years after that invitation, it is the line that perhaps best captures the story he now looks back on - not simply of reaching the White House, but of a young man from Bihar deciding that returning home was not a step backwards.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ testGet the latest Lifestyle News and more. Download the TOI app.