Realization of one of the dreams (Farm House)

One thing I have always loved is outdoors and have always pictured myself living in a place sorrounded by trees, plants, water falls, lakes etc. It is hard to create such an environment for yourself on a permanent basis unless you are living in a national park in US or a village in India bordering western ghats. However, I have come close to realizing such a dream for myself and my family.

When I moved here, although it was in the back of my mind, did not ask any agent to look for a farm house. However, the other day out of blue came this proposition if I was interested in buying a farm house? Out of curiosity, I said I am open to take a look (my interest was more to see what they look like and how much do they cost). . The place was off of Kanakpura road and I was told right next to Rishi Valley School. Since I had heard about this school, I thought it will also give me an opportunity to go see that too. Little did I realize how lucky that day was going to turn out and couldn't help later thanking God for providing with this opportunity. The place is 2km off of Kanakapura road. The side road seems like goes nowhere into this rolling hills (just beautiful greenery on both sides) and then at the end of the road stands Rishi Valley school. Right next to the school is this 20,000 sq ft of land. with tall shrubs acting as fence. Once Bhavani and I stepped inside, we instantly fell in love with the place.



The beautiful landscaping and a really antique looking house was just the perfect thing I could have asked. Although the house was built just a year back, they had carefully planned it to look like a house straight of a small village. They had even used the same pillars that were once used in village houses to give it that authentic look. Inside it was little more contemporary but still had some touches of a bygone time. One visit was all that was needed for me to decide on that property.

After that I took several people on different occassions and everytime there was only one comment that "I was very lucky to have found a place so close to city yet so rustic, so peaceful in the country side".

In India only a current agriculturalist can buy an agricultural land. For someone like me I had to get a permission from the government. It turned out that the agent who was facilitating this deal had a contact high up in the government using which we got the permission in 4 days as opposed to some people bribing 1 lakh and waiting for couple of months. Every time these things happen, I look up and say "God, Thank you". The way this whole thing happened reminds me of few other big things in my life where almost nothing was planned from my end, just went with the flow and result was simply beautiful.

Once the deal was concluded, I had to arrange money some in the form of a loan, some over the table and some under the table. That process itself was a challenge to manage having to make several trips to banks and lawyers. Since I had hired a competant attorney to help me vet the document, I also learnt quite a bit in terms all the terminology, the different documents that exist and what to emphasize. Our agent was the single factor who made this happen since he really took lot of pains to go secure the kind of documents that the lawyer was asking for and furnishing it to him.

I also was pleased to learn the use of computers in e-governance. I am sure it is just Karnataka and Andhra who have done lot of work in this regard but still worthwhile. All the previous documents have been digitized and stored on CD-ROMS. So, finding for an old document and getting a copy of it is lot of faster although you still have to bribe the person. All new transactions are done using computers, where the documents are scanneed, photographs taken using a web cam and thumb prints also captured using digital devices. All these become collaterals in making sure the transaction is genuine or atleast there is a way to trace it back to the correct people. All in all it was good to see some use of technology in these kinds of state govt. offices.

The sale deed happened on Dec 16, 2004 just ahead of our 15th Anniversary. Now that I have the property, I need to do lot more work in improving the landscape. More on that later. For now I am sitting back in a more relaxed mood after 2 months of running around (although, I have to admit I was very lucky and had a fairly easy time as compared to the horror stories that you generally hear in India where even after you have bribed everyone, they make you run from pillar to post)

Delightful Diwali

Diwali turned out to be a really delightful festival for us. We decided to invite all our close family to come celebrate with us and much to our pleasant surprise every single one of them turned up. We had quite a few guest for few days and it was real family bonding amid the exploding fireworks. Because this was the first Diwali for kids here with an opportunity to blast fire works, I went overboard with the purchase of the fire works. Inspite of the fact that I had quite a few kids in our house they still could not finish all the fire works that I had bought for them. We still have a bag left.

Anirudh and Anisha truely enjoyed blasting fire works, especially the rockets and flower pots. The coolest one for them was a simple pistol with a roll cap to play cops and robbers with neighborhood kids. We have about 7-8 kids in our neighborhood all of about 7 - 10 yrs of age and they had lot of fun blasting fire works together. Luckily for us there were no accidents and everything turned out to be really enjoyable.

Looking forward eagerly to Holi now.

India will turn you into a unnecessarily rude person

You must be wondering what do I mean by the title. Most people on whom you rely on for service lack professionalism to the core and especially evident in services where education does not matter. Examples of this are, servicing your appliances, carpenters, plumbers etc. There are other cases where big companies operate their tech support teams and you will find most of them will put a pea-brain to shame. I am talking about companies like Citibank, Tata Indicom (phone) etc. As long as you owe them money, the attention to service or detail is at its highest. The minute they have to provide you the service for the money that you have already parted with or have to issue refund, things are 180 degrees out of whack. So, everyday you are praying to yourself that hopefully nothing goes wrong in your day that requires somebody to come and assist you. Because of the way they behave, the next time you will start off very aggressively and so end up becoming rude for no good reason. I don't need extra incentive to be rude to someone but even I get challenged. You can only imagine people like Bhavani who are so composed but are required to scream at people. If you want to hear more interesting stories ask someone like Sathish who had to deal with lots of such people in order to build his house. Not only are the stories good entertainment (after the fact and over a beer) but you can only imagine the persons state of mind when they are going through it.

So, beware of people who paint a very rosy picture of things here because you do have to deal with some ground realities. The solution, hire a house manager and let him deal with all the hassles.

Problem of Theft

While in US, I was so used to keeping valuables around the house (including cash) and that has costed me dearly here. In US, even when we had cleaning maid come in, the cash was never touched. Many a time we had things outside of our house (like the office bag with laptop) or kids bikes all night and were never stolen. However it is amazing to see what people steal here and how. I have in the 3 months lost 3 mobile phones (costing around $400 total), a Ray-ban glasses ($70) and had it happen inside the house!! We naturally suspected the house maid and filed a police complaint. When you buy a phone here, it comes with insurance but claiming that is such a hassle I have not bothered to claim the insurance money. The police came and took her to the station and questioned her and she kept to her guns of being innocent. Obviously I did not have the heart to proceed further due to lack of proof and asked the Police to let her go. I felt really sick that day thinking, what if she had been really innocent and I made her go through the agony. Since then, we have become extra careful and follow the housemaid every step of the way, which is a huge waste of our time. Recently, like everyday, we kept the trash can near the gate for the trash lady to pick it up. However that day she instead of keeping it back inside the gate left it outside. The trash can disappeared in no time. Because we live in a very established neighborhood, these things are relatively infrequent. I can only imagine what it is like if you live in one of these upcoming layouts. People here have lost all sense of morals. The lesson, watch your back and trust no one unless you really know them. The problem with theft is more than financial loss, it kind of hurts you that somebody invaded your privacy and that is a problem hard to reconcile.

Sports Meet

I ended up taking Anisha to Kanteerava stadium for inter school atheletic meet as she was representing her school in the under 8 girls 200m and 4x50 m relay. The meet was organized by KPMG and there were about 170 schools that had signed up sending in a whopping 5000 kids. It was quite a scene seeing so many kids from so many schools. The traditional marchpast was very good and I was impressed by the size and efficiency of the organizers. One of the things that surprised me was a sea change in how schools/parents/kids approached these things. Most schools had their own colorful sports uniforms and many kids were dressed up in spikes for the races. I couldn't help wonder about when I participated in sports and ran on barefoot. There were many kids from govt schools who were participating in the races on barefoot. I was wondering what went over these kids minds seeing their more affluent competitors (since I certainly know what would have gone through my mind if I was there).

As most of you know, a 200m race goes round the curve and in order to compensate for the curvature, they have kids in the outer lane placed ahead than the kids in the inside lanes. Anisha was in the second inside lane and while she had bent down to take off, a thought went through which unfortunately ended up being true. The thought was, most kids of age 6 do not realize that they are all running the same distance although the participant on the outer lane seems little ahead of you at the start itself. As soon as the gun went off, the kids got off the block and when she saw the kid in the outer lane already so far ahead, she lost hopes and slowed down. She came crying saying that the other kids got a head start and I did not have the nerve to explain to her the geometry of why. I really felt sorry for her but the kind of girl she is, she forgot all that and went for her relay the next day. Her team mate ended up falling thereby affecting the team's chance. It was a good experience for Anisha watching and competing against so many kids and hopefully she walked away with something more than just memories.

Getting started with Investing

I recently decided to start exploring on how to go about investing in Indian stock market and so far have found the following two choices straightforward.
1) Sharekhan.com: This was suggested by my friend Sudarshan and is turning out be a real good company. Their web site is comprehensive enough and their service is excellent. The particular gentlemen I deal with is very responsive and never takes more than few hours to resolve any issue. Sharekhan is conveninently integrated with several online banks (ICICI, HDFCBank, CitiBank etc) to move your funds back and forth at the click of a few buttons. Applying for IPO as well is just an online process and ususally takes less than a minute to complete.
2) ICICIDirect.com: ICICI provides a 3 in 1 account (savings, demat and trading) just like most US brokers and is pretty easy to operate and move funds around. For those of you who do not know what "demat" means, it is holding shares in electronic form at your broker instead of physical share certificates under your mattress. For folks from US, it has always been in demat form and so no biggy except that you get confused when you hear this term for the first time.


TCS (Tata Consultancy Service) put up thier IPO and that is going to be my first investment here in the Indian markets. BTW, one of the interesting facts for those following Google IPO is that all IPO's now in India are being run on the dutch auction format (the same kind Google is planning) and so was surprised to find out, the general awareness on how this works.

Simple Pleasures

The other day I went to get a hair cut at the corner barber shop. One thing I have always felt and experienced it again, is the fact that, you have to give minimal instructions to the barber here and he invariably knows what you want and rarely screws up. In US, no matter which barber I went to, I always had to be very specific in providing the instructions and still there were these screw ups. Anyway, getting back to the story, after the hair cut was done, he asked me if I wanted to get a shave. I felt at my scratchy beard and gave him a go ahead. At the end of the shave, he asked me if I wanted to dye my hair which I promplty refused. However as soon as he mentioned about oil massage (to my head) I thought I will give it a try since I have always enjoyed the quick head massage before. After I had picked one of the 3 choices of oil, the oil did wonders in terms of cooling. It was as if, you had eaten mint using your head instead of mouth! The massage to the head was the best part. At the end of it, he suggested that I try steaming my oily head to stimulate the scalp. By now, he had me eating from his hand and I just suckered into one more of his service. He put this dome (the kind used on females for doing perm) and blasted some good steam all around the scalp for nice warm up. At the end of it he massaged the head again and had me walking out of the salon with a very light headed feeling (pun intended). The surpise was the cost, only Rs 100/- (hair cut + shave + oil massage + steam) which would have had been my tip in US for a regular hair cut. I went away promising myself a routine service with this guy but haven't had time to go back to him since. Even here, it is the same story; You may have a facility right next door to you but making time to use it is the hard part.

Service Improvements

In general the quality of service has improved in Bangalore and I am told that it is very much contained to Bangalore and not other cities.

Most offices will facilitate certain tasks like getting a mobile connection, phone connection, internet connection, opening bank accounts etc. My suggestion is to use your office help as much as you can since for all these tasks, someone will come to your doorstep or office instead of you going over there and chasing different people.

Most institutions employ surplus mobile individuals who for almost everything are willing to come to your doorstep to get your work done. Use that facility as much as you can since the experience otherwise can be quite frustrating.

Asking for passport size photographs is the latest craze here and so get some 50 or 60 photographs printed as soon as you come here since you will run through them all in few months.

Buying goods has become much easier although you will still encounter sales people who can't for their life tell you the truth about availability in stock or delivery time etc. Even if someone promises a delivery on a particular day, be prepared for partial delivery of delayed delivery since they are never in control of the information themselves.

One of the things that really impressed me was the quality of workmanship in all the new constructions. We saw several newly built homes of our friends and family and the workmanship is simply too good. Apparently now the contractors want to finish the job sooner than later unlike the past and generally do a clean job of it. Extensive use of marble (some imported) is very common in most new constructions. Also, the use of glass has really picked up. For eg. the entire back wall of our rental home is complete glass (floor to ceiling). The privacy is provided by the tall compound. If there is one non-stop activity in Bangalore that is construction. The choice of tiles in bathroom design is simply mind-boggling.

If one has enough money to spend, constructing here can be enjoyable is what I am told. As for us, we are not yet decided on Flat v/s home.

Pleasant Surprises at government offices

One of the pleasantly surprising experience has been at the various government agencies unless I have been too lucky.

Railways: I found the railway ticket counter clerks and reservation clerks working so hard, I was simply amazed. The process of reserving tickets was very orderly at the Jayanagar branch. People were provided with seats to sit while they waited for their turn to be called for reserving. Small things that we take for granted in US, but a big relief in India in a govt office.

RTO (DMV): Getting a license was the easiest part and once again I was amazed by the efficiency of the staff. You can get a driver's license very quickly if you have a US license. The process was very simple

1) Fill out the Form 4, 2 and 7.
2) Provide 3 passport size photos
3) Pay Rs 350.
4) Provide address proof (utility bill, rental agreement etc)

5) Once you provide the above, they take a digital photograph (no clue why they ask for 3 photos if they are anyway going to take your picture) and capture your signature on a digital pad.

6) Once that is done (takes about 45 min) you can get your license the next day evening.

My suggestion is get the license done first since it will serve as your address proof and photo Id, which are asked everywhere you go.

Customs: This one blew me off. The customs officers were so friendly and so helpful you were wondering if you were in another country. The inspection of the container was about 30 - 45 min. Because I had already provided a detailed inventory list, he only set aside the boxes with electronic items. Of all those boxes, since some of them were new and I had declared them as such, he did not even open them. Only 3-4 boxes were opened. After the inspection, the officer told me, how much he hates to levy duty on goods brought under TR(Transfer of Residence) and so proactively discussed it with his boss on best to reduce the duty. What surprised me wa, the boss was equally helpful giving some pointers on how we could club certain items into a general category and let them pass duty free. In the end they asked me to pay Rs 25000 which was so reasonable considering all the new things I had. Every thing was done in a day. Although we were there from 11 am to 5 pm, it could have taken even less time if not for the clearance agent (appointed by the shipping company) who was busy handling another customer.

Here is the custom clearance process:

Once the container reaches Bangalore, the shipping company and the clearance agent locally will inform you of its arrival.
You will then have to go to the clearance agent and provide him with copies of all pages of your passport and PIO card.
The clearance agent takes care of all the paper work.
Get to CCI (Container Corporation of India) near WhiteField (near ITPL) by 10:30 am. Carry your passport with you.
Before the inspection, be truthful and declare everything as is. If you have receipts take them with you.
After the inspection, the customs officer will tell you about the duty. You can negotiate with the officers to lower it (not by bribing). In our case we did not have to since they proactively did it.
Do not use any kind of agent or broker.
It is better that both husband and wife go together since it will give the officers a sense of your family and they are likely to be more considerate when they a decent looking couple.
Do not try to drop names of other superior officers or bring any kind of influence since it is not worth it and more likely to piss of these younger officers who do not like to be influenced the old way.
I have seen the younger officers at both airport and container clearance to be very understanding. Best approach is to be honest and sincere.

Getting back to the process, once you agree with the duty, pay it in SBI right next door (if you do not have cash, go to ITPL (2km) where you have all banks ATM).
After the cash is paid, the agent gets the signatures done, and the final step is the passport endorsement.
After that, depending on the time left you may get your goods delivered the same day or the next day.
Have atleast 3 people be at home when the goods arrive. One person needs to be near the truck making sure all the boxes are brought in.
The second person needs to check each box against the inventory list while the third person can be directing and escorting the movers to various rooms.

Definitely tip each mover individually, who make hardly any money.

Try to report any damage to the good within 2-3 days to the shipper you hired in US.

Travelling

In the one month that we have been here we travelled once to Mysore and the other time to Hubli. Both of them were by trains and experience was mixed.

On our trip back from Mysore to Bangalore we were travelling in unreserved compartment and people were stuffed every nook and corner of the compartment. Anisha and Anirudh found out how inconvenient travel can be in India but at the same time were amused by the fact that you could climb onto to the top bunk and sit there.

The journey to Hubli from Bangalore was during night and was pleasantly surprised when they handed us blankets, sheets and pillows. I later came to know that it is only for AC and 1st class compartments. The journey back from Hubli was during daytime and the biggest nuisance was the catering vendors. All the 8 hrs on the train there was hardly a gap of 1 min between when the first vendor left and the second one showed up. SO, for 8 hrs you were smelling food or hearing the musical pronouncement of the food from these vendors.

The good thing at Bangalore Train Station is you now have pre-paid taxi and auto service like they have it at airports. This protects the tourists and also there is no scope for Autorickshaw to refuse to come to your area.

As for travelling within Bangalore it is nothing short of HELL. Unless you are travelling early in the morning before 9 am or after 8 pm, life can be miserable especially certain heavily used roades. Don't even think of going to Majestic.

There is lot of flyover construction in Bangalore which has caused major disruptions. The dividers and 1-way has definitely helped regulate the traffic but missing a turn can really cost you.

Because the traffic is so heavy , crossing the road is next to impossible since nobody gives you an inch and that is the part that frustrates me most, since every time you cross the road on foot, you are risking your life. I want to do something about it but not sure how to go about doing it for now.

The Schools and the Education

Schools are dime a dozen in Bangalore but yet they all are all overbooked. Very little has changed in the way the older staff reacts to parents or students in school. They feel they are always right and people are expected to listen to them. The younger staff is more open for discussion.

One of the myths of Indian education is "Indian educational standards are higher than that of US". The fact is "Indian standards are actually lower and especially in the areas of MATH!!". If you are surprised so was I and 3 other parents who relocated to India this year. I am not sure how the curriculum compares to US in the higher grades but at the grade levels (2-5) it is definitely true. So, if you are planning to relocate for educational reasons think again. I am making this assertion because I am comparing CBSE 4th grade syllabus to what Anirudh studied in the 2nd and 3rd grade in US.

The other myth was "There is better discipline in Indian schools than in US". Once again this was a surprise to me to find out from Anirudh as to how students behave when class is in progress. According to Anirudh several of the students would have been sent home in Millikin or Delphi if they had behaved the way they were behaving here.

However, to the credit of the other students, Anirudh finds kids here to be more friendly than in US especially towards new students although he did complain about how they made fun of his accent.

These days schools in Bangalore are very commercially oriented and just to give an idea, we spent about Rs 5500 (> $100) on Anirudh's uniforms (have to buy it from school) because all his outfits are Levi's!!! I am not kidding the school uniform is

Levi's Jeans
Levi's Polo Shirts
Levi's Belts
Levi's Socks
Levi's Shorts and workout T shirts

Anisha's was more reasonable but the quality of the uniform dresses was poor (I cannot say the same thing about quality for Anirudh's uniform)

Just a FYI, Anirudh and Anisha are enrolled in 2 different schools and we will switch one of them depending on which one we feel is the better school.

The hard part has been the second language, which was expected. So far they are handling it OK with some extra tutoring near home. Although the schools promised to provide extra language tutoring they have been very inconsistent. So far I have heard only once the use of the phrase "Yes Yaa" from Anirudh.

Lesson on the Flight

On my flight back to India, I was watching an episode of "Frasier" and there was a particular comment that the character Frasier made which made me question my motive and is something that still haunts me.

In that episode, Lillith (Frasier's divorced wife) comes to a Frasier after Frasier Jr. had grown up and left home for his college studies. Lillith wants to have another baby with Frasier and sells him the memories of how fun it used to be rearing their first baby. Frasier initially falls for it and then realizes that it is not the right thing to do and makes the following statement "You cannot use the past to fill what is missing in your present life". It never works since memories good or bad are always intimately tied to the place and time and you cannot retread those in another time.

The reason it made me question my motive was, I was suddenly wondering if I was relocating because I wanted to re-live my past and assuming my kids will have the same kind of fun that I had growing up in India. I still do not know the answer to that and that is why it still haunts me.

The Going Away Parties

If there is one thing I truely consider as a personal achievment is the circle of my friends. I mean to include everyone the boys gang, the lovely wives and top it all the kids. Although it is ones actions that determine the outcome, there is also what I believe in "destiny". I have not heard of another group that had so much fun when in college (some of us slept on the same bed and had fun but not the kind you dirty minds are thinking about), went onto work for different companies in different cities and ended up back together is the same area to be able to meet for lunch every week! First it was just us boys (mostly homogeneous in personality and thinking) then the wedded ones brought in variety and kids really kicked it up a notch.

We were lucky enough to be hosted to a quite a few parties and a few BNO (Boys night out). I wasn't feeling emotional (one way or the other) during these parties except the one I went to right after the container and shipped out and Bhavani and kids had left California. I felt sad the last day when I walked out of the house for the last time knowing it wasn't mine anymore and I could not go back there. Although that house holds lots of memories and I am a person who generally dreams a lot, not once has any of the past in that house has come in my dreams so far.

I was lucky enough to spend the last 2-3 days with friends and not alone and that not only drove home, how much these relations mean but also how much I was going to miss out. Especially if you ended up spending those last few days with the best drink-mixer in our gang who makes sure your glass is always full. So, next time you go to his place ask him to fix you up with Hypnotica, the blue drink.

The Logistics of Move

Once we had pulled the trigger on the move, the first thing we did was to speak to a real estate agent and get the house ready to be put on the market. The other activity was to hire a shipper. After speaking to couple of the shippers and hearing the first hand experiences of our friends we decided on Sky2C (sky2c.com) for our shipping needs. The house took exactly a month to get sold (little longer than I expected). We had in the meantime arranged for rental as a backup. Some of the personal items sold pretty quickly and especially the vehicles took longer. Finally I had to sell them below fair market price for lack of time. I found CraigsList.com to be very effective for selling personal household items and of course eBay if you have the patience to deal with shipping.

Sky2C did a great job in packing and shipping. Our household stuff fit into a 20ft container end to end. We decided to bring with us all our furniture, although after coming over to India I realized that some stores in Bangalore (FamilyMart) sell very contemporary furniture for much less than what it costs in US.

I found that the hardest task of this move was getting rid of things. After the container left on May 1, Bhavani and kids left for New Jersey on their way to India. There was so much of stuff left around the house including in all the garage cabinets, I constantly spent 2-3 hrs a day disposing it off to either charities or just dumping it. Dumping is not easy when you don't live in an apartment. So, what do you do? Put the stuff in the van, go to an apartment complex and dump it ;-)

I will write about the experiences at customs in India on a separte post

Why the Move?

The move is primarily for family reasons. What do I mean by that? Our kids lacked a sense of an extended family or belonging since most of the time it was just me and Bhavani. The once in 3 years trips to India or visits by their grandparents defined their family interactions. We wanted them to have more regular contacts both formal and informal and there was no substitute to it other than being physically closer to those people.

The other motivating factors were the much more realistic experience the kids were going to have in the areas of
- lack of resources
- lack of comforts
- seeing people up close who are less fortunate

Why is the above important? I feel that, often extreme experiences will help mould the personality better than a more homogeneous experience they typically have in US with all their friends and neighbors being of similar socio-economic background.

The third factor was the fact that it will be easier to become multi-lingual which has lots of advantages and very few disadvantages. It is hard to become multi-lingual in USA because of lack of people who constantly converse with you in that language.

When did this start?

First of this is my first attempt at blogging and I have to thank my friend Santosh (aka DaRaj) for actually encouraging me to start putting down my thoughts so that I can reflect back on this whole project several years later and/or something that he or my circle of friends (aka The Gang) can use to harrass me later if I said something contradictory.


Going back to India has never left my mind ever since I came here in 1989. The seriousness and intensity of it changed over the years but never really died down. Back in 2000, had given a very serious thought but failed to pull it off because Bhavani wasn't convinced. In retrospect, she was right since I would have done it for all the wrong reasons of going back and retiring at an age when I should have been contributing to Society in form or another. The wiping away of the all the wealth in the Stock market helped bring me down to reality. The events that took place later also rekindled my penchant for spiritual knowledge which was also something always of interest. I now began to reflect on the more substantive aspects of life and this has definitely brought clarity to my thoughts. Getting back to the timeline I started seriously thinking and actually taking some baby steps back in Oct 2003. I started making contacts and discussing the issues involved in the move and by Jan 2004 was pretty sure that the move was going to happen before June. It was now upto me to pull it off. Things were progressing slowly on the Job hunt and by March I decided Job or no Job I will move. The final no-turning away decision happened on March 26 2004.