r2i forum

I have been an on and off visitor to the R2I Club with limited posts/replies. This forum has lots of information and definetely will help plan a successful R2I. Thanks for all the forumites, who shared their experiences and thought I will share my experience too...

We lived in USA for little over 10yrs mostly in FL and D.C. metro. Me and my spouse worked almost 10yrs in US and we both collected our 40 SS credits. We started planning to R2I since early 2005. We visited India in mid 2005 to buy a place to live when we R2I in 2007. Our preference was to buy a piece of land and build a decent home, however dropped that idea as we could not find any clear title plots in the areas we wanted to live. Then started looking for villas/apts that will be ready by early 2007. We came across very few gated villas which were 1Cr to 1.5Cr, which we did not like due to location and infrastructure surrounding those gated communities. Finally bought a 3BD apt in a highrise gated community in Gachibowli, Hyd.

Made another visit in late 2006 to get school admissions. Visited most of the schools around Hi-Tech city in Hyd and took admission for our two kids in Meridian school.

Packing,Shipping and Customs:
Started packing our stuff about five weeks before the pickup date. As I stopped working couple of months before our R2I date, I would say packing went relatively smooth. I used small and medium U-Haul boxes for packing. Packing the kids toys and kitchenware was little time consuming. Used plastic trash bags as lining for packing clothes and electronic items.

We took the 20ft container with sky2c from D.C. area to Hyd (door2door). Container arrived on time, however the local packers were very slow (sent only 2people as against promised 3 or 4 people). I thought I had enough stuff for the 20" container but could not fill completely, was about 20% empty.

It took about 7 weeks for our container to arrive in Hyd. I let it stay there in the storage/warehouse for about two weeks as my apt was not ready. Sky2C's hyd agent handled all the paperwork and I went to customs clearence on Friday. I was very nervous until they opened our container, as it was not full. I was very relieved man when I saw the stuff inside was intact and wasn't moved an inch. Had our container de-stuffed and unloaded into inspection area. Few people came and opened all the boxes, unwrapped most of the furniture and lined all the stuff for inspection. Two inspectors came with the packing list and checked every box and verified the items in the boxes. I had prepared a detailed packing list and that helped me explain what each box was filled with.

I had one LCD tv, some new furniture, microwave oven that were dutiable and the inspectors assessed the duty as Rs.20K. My agent came up with alternative of paying only 12K with official duty being 5K. I did not want to encourage any bribe and refused their offer and decided to pay the full duty of 20K.

By the time inspectors assessed the duty, the bank was closed and I had to go back next day afternoon and pay the challan for the duty. After paying the duty, our stuff was loaded into two trucks and delivered at our apt withiout any breakage.

Local movers were very experienced and professional, did a decent job in bringing our valuable furniture without a single scratch.


Settling down:

As we have already secured school admission in our previous visit, glad we made that visit, we had one less thing to worry and we had to go to school only to inform them and collect school dresses, books and supplies. We gave our kids little over a week rest and started sending them to school. Our kids liked the school from day one, except for the toilets. Our younger one used to refuse to go to toilet in the beginning, it took good two to three weeks for younger kid to adjust to the toilets.

We stayed at our parent's place in the beginning as we did not get the interior work done. Finding an interior designer/decorator was herculean task, everybody fakes that they did so may interiors, while they hardly did one or two. Finally decided to design/decorate the apartment ourselves and used the carpenters who did work for our relatives. Procuring material was a challenge as it was quite new for us. We were lucky to get the skilled Carpenters to understand our ideas/designs. It was really tough to get work done with painters, plumbers and electricians. It took about 3 months to get
the apartment ready for our liking. We were quite happy after we placed the furniture we brought from US. It was quite an experience to get the interior work done.

We feel like we settled comfortably after we moved into our new apt. Our community is quite, has all the facilities we wanted with reasonably good maintenance and security. Most of the people in our community are in IT and in our age group. We have couple of playgrounds within the community and lots of kids gather in the evenings and enjoy till late into the night, while the parents chit-chat. I would say our kids are enjoying our R2I the most, till now they never said that they wanted to go back to USA.

Job Search:

After we felt comfortable living in Hyd, I decided to look for a job and posted my resume on Job sites. As I wanted a job only in Hyd, I got only limited calls and attended some interviews. Interview process seems to be little strange, and way too lengthy. Initial HR interview, then technical round, PM/practice head interview then senior management interview and finally HR interview again. I didn't understand why some of them don't get together and reduce the number of rounds. Got few offers ranging from consultant to Project manager roles,but all of them asked atleast 30 to 50% of on-site work. I refused all the offers that I got so far as I do not want any on-site engagement. Still searching for an opportunity that does not require on-site stay, though I do not mind short visits to client site.

I think I mis-calculated the job scenario here in Hyd, most of the companies don't seems to have many offshore opportunities, at least in ORACLE APPS arena. I was upbeat about the job market and placed job search at the end of our post R2I to-do list. We are still very happy about our R2I, will get only better once I start getting regular income. My advice to future R2I'ers is is that, if you plan on to work post R2I, try to get a job before your R2I.

I Will try to write more about cost of living in Hyd, extra curricular activities for kids,etc in my next post...

Congradulations on your R2I. Good candid post.

nmrhyd, Congratulations on your r2I. Thanks for sharing your experiences, it is very useful.

Hello MMRHYD, GSHANKAR,
Would you mind sharing how old are your kids and which school are they going? Also are you staying close to their schools? How are they commuting to school? How are doing in their studies? Your replies are appreciated. Thanks.
BR2006.

wow_hyderabadi -- Thanks for your offer to help me out, I am looking for tips to approach companies. I will call tommorrow to get few tips. -- Thanks.

BR2006 -- I have two kids 7 and 4, they both go to Meridian school and take school bus which comes to our community for pickup and dropoff. We stay around 6KM from the school.

mmrhyd,

Thank you for sharing your experiences! Good luck

mmrhyd,

Congratulations and welcome to Hyderabad.

Which local movers did you use to unload at your home. Please give me contact info and amount paid if it is OK with you.


Job market in Hyderabad is pretty slow, may be because of Holidays. Hope you will get your dream job pretty soon.

hi mmrhyd,

congrats on your successful R2I. I have also R2Ied in May from UK (took an internal job transfer to Chennai). Since we are settling down in Hyderabad, I quit the job (My company doesn't have a branch in Hyderabad) started my job search a month ago. Not much luck so far.

My elder daughter is going to Chirec and hoping that the younger one will find a place in Nursery there next year.

Hope u(we) will get a new job soon. send me a pm if you would like to meet some time.

Wannabe_r2i -- Good to hear that you also R2Ied this year, I hear that market will get better in India from mid Jan-08. I sent a PM to you, please check your PM.

Raja123 -- Sky2C's hyd agent arranged the local movers, you may contact them at 23818031/32 and ask for Krishna or Srinivas.