The human side of global mobility

May 27, 2026

Dieter Withoeck

Belgian expat Dieter Withoeck — over 14 years in India across three assignments, and married to host Sabiya Pathan Withoeck — returns to Rooted and Routed for a conversation about collective vs individualist societies, and the way the two of them have quietly swapped roles: he feels at home in India, she often doesn't. They discuss the rarely-talked-about difficulty of returning to your home country, reintegration for NRIs, and the wave of Belgian brands now building locally for the Indian market.

About

Sabiya Pathan Withoeck

Host & Creator of Rooted and Routed

Sabiya is the voice and curator behind Rooted and Routed — a podcast for the people whose lives don’t fit on a single map. She brings the kind of curiosity that only comes from having lived the questions herself: what does it cost to belong in more than one place, and what does it mean to root yourself when the ground keeps shifting?

Each episode is a real, unfiltered conversation — not relocation tips or expat checklists, but the emotional and structural reality of building a life across cultures, countries, and systems.