Our R2I Diary from Georgia, US to Bangalore, India. I must say that this is an excellent forum that I have come across which gives so much (
rather I would say too much) of information for anyone who is planning and executing the move to India. The wealth of information that this forum provides on any topic is amazing, though I have moved back to India I still feel that I have not yet read and consumed information on various topics (Car purchase, US/India TAX, and so on) which I plan to during my initial settling phase. Kudos to the Administrator and other key members who are consistently maintaining this FORUM and keeping it live, it's becoming more and more popular in hours/days/months/years! Good Job and keep it up!
I thought it's my turn now to share my experience of R2I to other fellow R2Iers and hope that the information that I provide based on my experiences may be helpful and useful to others as well. You are more than welcome to PM me at
[email protected] if you have any questions/clarifications with anything related to your R2I thoughts, planning or execution.
Little Background about myself: Have been out of India since 1993 (16+ years!!!), came to US as a standard software consultant through a so called body-shopping company and then changed jobs which involved mostly doing product development type of work (I love doing product development, new release, new functionalities, new technologies what more to say.... I simply enjoy it...)
Little Family Background: Dear wife working as a software consultant, two sons aged 8 and 6, both are US born.
Reason for the Move? Very obvious and pretty much the same reason as most of the R2Iers have, missing family back in India, kids education, wanted to spend last few critical years with old aged parents/in-laws and help them as much as we can from our side, had everything what I needed back in US (good stable job, good position and responsibilites, always worked in good technologies and domains, relatively few good friends and so on...) but inspite of all that life started becoming very monotonous, Working M-F, weekend busy with shopping, house cleaning, kids outing, friends get-together, lawn/house/car maintenance and other general mundane work... added to all that past few years suddenly started getting the feeling that there is some emptiness inside, dear wife also felt the same, something (some strong force) was pushing us from inside to go back to India and hence the move..... best of all both of us as parents felt that THIS IS THE RIGHT TIME FOR US TO MAKE A MOVE TO INDIA!!!
A little background about USA Undoubtly USA is a great country, I must say that I learnt a lot of good things after coming to this country (how to be punctual, curtious, soft, respect others/peers, customer care and satisfaction and so on....) especially when you are single/bachelor this is a great place to come, study, explore new places etc, great for newly married couples as well, as the country gives ample opportunity to become independent and self-sufficient which gives so much confidence and strength to start a family life!!!. You have kids after some years again till kids go to school you have a great time in this country, problem really starts when kids grow up and we also slowly start aging, we start to worry about kids education, cultural issues, kids have to be like american at school and indian at home, too much for them to digest, for us (with most of us in IT) with age work only increases and never decreases, there is extreme competition and world is competitive. With age it becomes difficult to balance work and family life, parents /in-laws on other side get older with more health problems, what more to say...
Housing Situation in USA: Most of my initial part of my life stayed in an aparment, after marriage also we stayed mostly in apartment, dear wife got sick of changing apartment everytime and requested if we could live in a house for some time? How can I turn that request of my dear wife so I purchased a SFH 8 years ago (I feel now that I made a big mistake here...as this is a big ticket item currently a burden for us to sell in this market), house is on sale and currently it's under an Agent who is looking after the house, people have come and seen the house but no offers made yet so far.
Back in India we have a land in Coimbatore, T.N, and we have constructed a house near Mysore, I plan to retire and live in this house after my retirement (or may be voluntary retirement if I get sick of working in IT field).
We both are USC/OCI, kids are USC/PIO.
Reason to come to US Followed the crowd, IT Boom in US, ample opportunities, good career growth, earn good money and try to achieve financial independence (I wouldn't say we have been successful here...), lived in various cities and thoroughly travelled different part of US by driving and really enjoyed the natural beauties that this country is blessed with!
R2I Trigger and Planning: Trigger happened in the begining of this Year 2010 that it is time for us to go, wife proposed the idea and I also started thinking about it around the same time, Planning began in the month of Feb 2010. Decided to go with Internal Company Transfer, since I stayed with my current employer for good number of years it was a breeze for me to get Internal Company Transfer, my boss quickly agreed and his boss as well, then what the first hurdle for me is over as I got the assurance of Job Transfer to our India office and did not have to worry about applying for a job.
Then came the Planning Phase, as part of this we decided upon the date when we would like to move, kids school ended in May, we did not want to put them to school right away in India and instead wanted kids to enjoy the summer vacation they deserved, so we planned to move end of June 2010. So, we fixed the data of our Move and booked one way ticket for all of us! So, THE DAY AND DATE was decided and confirmed!!!
What's Next? Shipping Household Goods or Not? Now that the date is confirmed and tickets booked, the next step for us was to decide whether to ship all household items or sell of everything here? We first decided to sell of as many items as possible, so sold kids bunk-bed, dining tables, chairs etc... Emotional moment for us when kids came back from school and asked what happend to their bed and also to dining table? Where they will sleep and where they will sit and have dinner? We were interrogerated by both sons if their books, toys and other items will be sold as well? 8 and 6 years old kids but their questions made us think again if we are doing the right thing? Impulse decision we took and decided let's not sell anything any more and ship every thing...
So once we made the decision to ship all household items, then next thing I was looking was for a good shipping company, again here this forum help me a lot in narrowing down selected shipping companies (21st Century Relocations, Universal Relocations, Sky2air), of these three we liked 21st Century Relocations (highly recommend... please further my experience..), contact person Yogesh Thakkar is a great person to talk to, he patiently explained all the details of shipping and provided a detailed quote. So booked a Full Container.
Luckily we got the container very quickly so we have less time left to pack, dear wife packed most of the small items professionally by purchasing boxes from U-HAUL and also good number of durable plastic tote boxes from Wal-Mart. We took 21st Century Relocations help for packing large household items like TV, Entertainment Center, 2 living room sofa/love seat sets, mattress and bed. The container arrived on time and mover packed (large items) and loaded all boxes to the Full Container. After container left our house, within a week Yogesh provided the tracking number so that we could track our container, Yogesh said the ETA for the container to reach Bangalore would be 2 months and exactly around that time container arrived in Bangalore. We took Door-to-Door service option with 21st Century Relocations.
House Hold Items shipped, what's next? Now that all household items are gone what's next? Suddenly our SFH looked very empty, we shipped our goods in May and moved with family to a friends place so that we could avail this lead time with doing necessary cleaning in the house (painting, cleaning kitchen cabinets, carpet cleaning, minor repair works in the house). This was great with house being empty we were able to do all the work without any stress (I could imagine what would have happend if we stayed in the house?). Sold our Car at a good price, sold Washer/Dryer and put the house on Sale officially in June!
R2I Execution, The DAY! After one month of stay in our friends place, finally the day came when we were to leave US, during this one month met some of our old friends to say good buy, lot of time we were very emotional and thinking that we are going to miss the great place and good friends, but hey the decision we made together is FINAL so no looking back, said goodbye to all the friends and left US for good.
Back in BANGALORE Left US end of June with family and arrived in Bangalore 1st week of July, took some time off to settle in, company took care of accomodation and transportation during this time and I must say it was an excellent help!
SCHOOL: Looked into couple of schools and finally admitted our kids to a CBSE non-international school (The Samhita Academy), reasonable fees, excellent infrastructure, big campus with lot of playgrounds. It's been 3 weeks since we arrvied in Bangalore and kids have already started going to school, they enjoy the bus ride and are excited to get up early in the morning everyday. Both of them have started learning Hindi and they both seems to have picked up Hindi very well. The bus comes to the door step to pick up and drop off kids.
HOUSE: Plan to rent a house, the rental house needs some minor renovation to meet our needs so currently staying temporarily with my parents.
MISCELLANEOUS: Started going to office, taking office shuttle every day, haven't got the guts yet to look for a car and drive by myself, slowly will do that. But looking at the traffic and the time it takes to go to office, I am inclined to using office shuttle as the bus is very nice and I can sleep or read something everyday for 1 - 2 hrs going to office and coming back journey. In one day bank account got opened (this was so quick!!), got debit cards, check-books etc, applied for PAN card, Drivers License yet to get, once the house lease paper is obtained will get the Driver's license done as well. For near places I am using my good old Kinetic Honda scooter! It's amazing that I was able to drive the Scooter without any problem in the traffic. Bikes once learned one will never forget.
HOUSEHOLD GOODS:As expected 2 months later the shipment container arrived in Bangalore, a week to 10 days before the arrival 21st Century Relcocations person came to my house to do all necessary paper work, this helped a lot as the custom clearance was a breeze (though offically i had to pay some duty on my 55 inch SONY LCD TV). Since my rental house is not ready I booked a local container for rent on a daily basis and transferred all the items from the international container to local container. The cost is quite reasonable than public storage places, I looked into public storage facilites in Bangalore and I never liked any one of them. Decided to go with storing everything in the same 20" Local container. After all goods were transferred I put my own two locks for safetly reasons even though the container was sealed in front of me with a lock.
DAY TO DAY LIFE IN BANGALORE SO FAR:TRAFFIC: So far I have been enjoying very much every bit of my stay in Bangalore, my only concern is the traffic, six months ago when I was here on official work the commute was bit shorter but now everyday it has increased and it is because of construction of many flyover bridges and metro. I feel that once the construction is over one will definitely feel ease in traffic. Hey why am I complaining? Back in US also my commute time used to be 1 hr each way! Anyway....
CLIMATE: No complains about it! Bangalore climate is fantastic! Throughout the day it is cool and nice. I love this weather.
SHOPPING: For good there are so many malls coming up, the malls are simply amazing for Indian consumers. You get everything you want once you go to a mall. There are chains of electronic stores where you get Washer/Dryer/Refrigerator and many other small electronic household appliances. Indian consumers now have wide variety of makes/models to choose from right from Bike, Cars, TV, Washer/Dryer, Fridge and many more... things have really changed a lot for good.
FOOD: Do I need to say anymore, you have ample choices for food, go anywhere in Bangalore you will come across so many traditional fast food as well as western fast-food centers, juice centers, pani-poori walas, I really love the street side pani-poori nothing can beat the taste. My kids first hesitated to try pani-puri from the street vendor but after they tasted one they just loved it so much and said "
Dad, these Pani Puries in India taste much better than in America and here they make everything and give you where as in America we have to break the puries, put the fillings and add the water" ! They both have become a big fan of Pani Poories now... We are very careful in selecting the pani-puri vendor on the street and look into the hygine in and around the area before letting our kids have the pani-poories.
OFFICE: Since I work for a MNC Product Development company, from work perspective I don't see much difference, as I have visited our India office before and worked with most of the people here as well so adjusting myself into the work culture is not an issue at all (in fact I am finding it more relaxed here than in US as I have people here to do the work and after work I don't have to worry about driving as the office bus takes care of the ride, so I just sit back and relax and enjoy the bus ride).
Overall so far I am really enjoying my stay in Bangalore... one advice to any one who is in confused state whether to R2I or not? Whether this is the right time or not or when is the right time? I tell you just come back and you will definitely not regret of making this decision. Better Late than Never!
From R2I decision perspective...
"When you are confused don't make a decision, however once you make a decision don't confuse yourself"