'Bihari in me said I’ll come back when your President invites me': He left the US for Bihar, years later, Obama’s White House came calling

For Sharad Vivek Sagar, returning to Bihar after studying in the US was not supposed to be the obvious career move. His American friends could see what he was apparently walking away from, a job in Manhattan, a large salary, a corporate career and the lifestyle that came with it. Sagar, however, was more interested in what he could build back home. When they asked him when he planned to return to the US, he gave them an answer that, at the time, was meant partly in jest. He would come back when the US President invited him. Years later, that is almost exactly what happened.

Sagar has now revisited the story in an Instagram video, recalling how a decision that baffled his friends eventually led him back to the US for an invitation from the White House.

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Sharad Sagar's unusual answer to his American friends

Sagar was studying in the US when he began thinking about returning to India. His friends reportedly found the idea difficult to understand. Why leave after getting an American education? Why return without first earning a sizeable salary? And why give up the possibility of working from a Manhattan high-rise?


Sagar remembers them questioning his decision in blunt terms.

“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,” he recalled in the video.

They also wanted to know when he would come back to America.

That was when Sagar gave them the answer that would acquire an entirely different meaning years later.

“And the Bihari I was, I would tell them, I would come back when your president invites me,” he said.

At the time, there was no obvious reason to believe that would happen.

The invitation that changed the punchline

In September 2016, Sagar was in West Bengal when an email arrived early in the morning. It was around 5 am, he recalled, when he received an invitation from the White House.

“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 saying that the president would like to invite me to a special gathering of leaders,” Sagar said.

The invitation came from the administration of US President Barack Obama.

Sagar was invited to South by South Lawn: A White House Festival of Ideas, Art and Action, held at the White House on October 3, 2016.

The event was designed to bring together people involved in ideas, creativity, innovation and initiatives intended to make a social impact.

For Sagar, the invitation had an additional distinction. He recalled being the only Indian invited to the gathering.

“I was the only Indian invited, and it was just such a remarkable honour,” he said.

The line he had once used to explain why he would return to the US had suddenly stopped sounding like a joke.

Who is Sharad Vivek Sagar?

By the time the White House invitation arrived, Sagar had already spent years working on education and youth development.

He founded Dexterity Global in 2008 at the age of 16, building an organisation focused on helping students access opportunities in education, leadership, entrepreneurship and skills.

His work also took him to the US for higher education. In 2016, Sagar graduated from Tufts University in Massachusetts, where he studied international relations and diplomacy.

A Telegraph report published around that period highlighted Dexterity Global's work with students and its focus on areas including entrepreneurship, leadership, skills and access to universities.

So while Sagar's friends had imagined him building a conventional American career, he was pursuing a very different route, one that kept his work centred on young people and educational opportunities.

Why returning to Bihar mattered to Sagar

The interesting part of Sagar's story is not simply that he eventually entered the White House.

It is that he did so after choosing not to stay in the US in the first place.

For his friends, returning to Bihar could look like surrendering the advantages of an American education. For Sagar, it appears to have been the point of the education: to take what he had learnt and use it to create opportunities elsewhere.

That decision became particularly striking when Obama’s invitation eventually arrived.

In 2016, Sagar also spoke about Obama's influence on him as a leader and described being invited to the White House as a great honour.

From Bihar to Barack Obama's White House

There was an almost cinematic twist to the story. A young student from Bihar had been told he was making a foolish choice by leaving behind the possibility of a lucrative American career. His response was that he would return when the US President invited him.

Then came the 5 am email. The White House invitation did not come because Sagar had followed the conventional path his friends had imagined. It came after he had built his own path through education and youth development.

And that is why the story has stayed with him.

His old answer was never really about predicting a White House invitation. It was a way of telling his friends that returning to Bihar did not mean he had closed the door on the world.

A decade on, the joke has become the most memorable line in the story.

“The Bihari I was, I would tell them, I would come back when your president invites me.”

This time, he had the invitation to prove it.


Inputs from TOI