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Personal:
Travel to USA: 08 Jan 2000 - MS (Comp) - Job from 2002 to 2010.
Return Date: 17 Sep 2010
Destination: A Small town 90k south of Hyderabad
Job: None! Arrived with couple of multi-year projects at hand. Now have 8 people working for me.

Status When Arrived in USA - F1 - Single
Status when returned: EAD/AP, Family: 2 kids and one better half :-)

Backhome:
Family status when arrived in USA: Good & supportive; I was a big part of them
Family status when returned to India: No comment & kinda supportive; I/we are some weird people who should simply go back and not bother them to some crazy R2I plans.

Mental aspirations of my R2I'ing family:
Really satisfied at what we achieved, feel proud of our route in the life; still feel that its the right move in spite of significant change in the "backhome" family treatment.

... And now:

After about 10 months, I wanted to write this diary - not because I have tons of time, but to let people know how things have changed here in India - for better or worse.

Writing this diary is going to be challenging for me. I first have to struggle for time, then have to struggle for presenting a multi-dimensional life here. However, In one sentence, I never thought that I/my family would go through what we have been. It was literally building back our lives and identities with very assertive, yet meaningful way.

For today, this intro is good enough! I will write brief portions of my/our past 10month life here in india. My kids want to play with me. Bye for now.

Sep 17, 2010:

On the day of departure for India, we were all excited not because we were returning to
india, but because we were returning to India with a lot of satisfaction and sense of
achievement. We not only had financial independence, but set aside good money to carryout some religious and charity work backhome.

We were fortunate to have the opportunity to choose everything: The destination, lifestyle, neighborhood, work.. just about everything. That is why we chose a destination as a small town near Hyderabad to avoid polution, but within confortably drivable distance; remodelled my parents house at this small town to provide all facilities and comfort of a typical US home, build the business fully decentralized to maximize family time.

With a LOT of help from my neighbors, we finally vacated the apartment and started for
airport. Landed in the airport with a lot of luggage; prepared to pay more for the additional luggage, but the LH airlines ticketing agent said that the flight is too full that he can't take that luggage even if i pay more for the same flight we were traveling. I thought it was absurd and wanted to talk to his supervisor. But, with the chaotic situation we had with one 4-month infant (keeping my wife busy) and a toddler with too much of luggage, I could not "hunt" for the supervisor in the ticket counter to talk.

Finally, the same guy came back to us and said, he'd do me a favor if i pay him $200. I was shocked for his guts. This Vietnamiese guy really had nerve to demand bribe for booking my luggage even after i am ready to pay more. I refused and demanded that he should call his supervisor to the counter and let him handle the situation.

He then sent his indian/south-asian colleagues to persuade me and finally reached a
compromise that I'd pay him $100 and no extra money for the luggage; And I'd carry more than 2 items per person into cabin as I need to make sure the infant and toddler has sufficient stuff for the whole journey in the event of flight delays/cancellations. He agreed. I am ashamed and felt weird that a person like me who refuses to bribe small time traffic police in Hyderabad, finally was paying this guy to book my luggage for free. But, I had no choice.

With that kind of luggage and kids, with too many valuables in carry-on luggage, it was
easier to get things going and move to terminal with boarding passes.

Once in the aircraft, really felt relaxed. Thanked the USA for all the things it gave us and
wished her the best.

great going Sir!!! Thanks for sharing your transition!!! Anxious to know how well you have settled down(or settling down) in Hyd.

A day before the travel was a very hectic day with packing, repacking and reopening the packed stuff. Its a challenge to relocate as a whole family. Its advisable to first drop the family back home and then do the packing and moving at a later time.

However, in my case, my better half insisted that we move as a whole. BTW, we are a closely bonded family that we were never apart for more than 2 weeks since we got married. I didn't want to upset her and thus agreed to relocate in one-shot. That is a challenge in itself and then add a 4-month infant and a 5 yr. kid; I had more than I can manage.

Gave away most, dumped some, left some in the apt, and finally we had a half-hall full of suitcases. I was cautious to hire a familiar mover who helped me earlier. He is a strong, but kind hearted black man, and his daughter and my son used to play when he used to help us with our moving needs.

The guy came right on time at 7:30 AM on 17th Sept. to pick us and drop in the airport with luggage. I just went to sleep at 6 AM on 17th Sept. after repacking the stuff. My wife took over and made sure all the luggage was loaded in his pickup truck and was properly packed. By the time I woke up at 9 AM, everything was loaded, kids done with breakfast. Got myself ready and started for airport at about 10 am or so for the LH flight leaving in the evening.

18 sep 2010
Landed in Frankfurt and had t catch a connecting flight to HYD leaving in next 55 min. We were given B63 as the gate number in the B'passes. By the time we got out with the kids and luggage and my MIL, we are left with about 40-45 min. to departure time. The gate agent gave us the directions to and we tried to rush to the gate B63. Out of 30min of available time, we might have spent about 15 min at security check. Since we had a lot of valuables in our luggage, the security guys at Frankfurt were looking at each of the carry-on and its contents. We reached B63 at about 15min. before the departure time, and guess what - the gate is changed to B20/23 or so. Had to run, but my MIL was so tired that she could not move fast enough! And we missed the bus that takes to the flight by 5 minutes.....

Well! there we were at Frunkfurt airport with a 4-month old infant. Rushed to ticketing counter at the airport to get tickets to next HYD flight. The agent that that missing the flight was our mistake and we had to pay rebooking charges. The ticketing counter at Frankfurt reminded of fishmarket environment. There were about 200 people who were in the similar situations and there were about 5 agents to help them. The agents only "tell", do not listen. So, by the time my turn came, my elder son was bored and desperate to get out of that airport. The agent told that the next flight to HYD is after two days, but they can get us to B'lore in the next day flight. The choice was not hard to make. Rebooked tickets to B'lore and went back to the Gate. The whole episode took around 3-3.5 hours and my wife started to worry about my whereabouts.... it was a great lesson for us and was very hard on the infant.

The night at Frankfurt airport was horrible. The airport got so cold that we had to make sure children were put to sleep and were sufficiently warm. We took only minimal warm-ware for the in-flight temperature, and that was not at all sufficient for the airport temperature. We made sure that children were put to sleep. None of the adults could sleep as it was too cold for us to sleep. The night was very tough on all of us. We hated the LH, Frankfurt airport, and wondered why I ever booked flights with so less connection time.

Nextday, we were all tired, had good breakfast, and moved to gate for B'lore. Boarded the flight and slept. We pretty much don't remember anything from Frankfurt to B'lore journey. I called the family backhome to get us at B'lore, instead of HYD. And we were just happy to be "home".

My father came to B'lore to get us back to Hyd. The day was very pleasant with lot of clouds and drizzle. It was a very welcoming weather after spending 10 years in arid Dallas area.

The NH7 from HYD to B'lore now appears and feels like any other highways in the US. The drive was/is so smooth that my littleone slept for most of the drive. Also, the highway is kinda special to me as all my life in India was around the towns on that NH7 highway and it connects all the little places I had been through. The drive was perfect to forget all our hassles at Frankfurt. We stopped the vehicle couple of times to visit some of the temples of importance to my family. The Krishna bridge near Beechupally Hanuman Temple was one of my favorite places.

Reached the small town we wanted to settle down in the afternoon. Everyone were expecting us at Hyderabad. But, we didn't want to go Hyderabad as the small town was good enough for us. We instead requested everyone to come down to the small town to see/meet us. Everyone of my immediate family came down to the small town by that night and that was the first time our entire family spent time in that house for the first time since it was built 22 years ago.

First couple of days went away even before we realized. Then, started to think about my clients and their work. The availability of internet in India is really amazing. With the help of wireless internet packages, one can get at least 128kbps (just good enough for emails) pretty much anywhere. My father picked one of such wireless USB modem from reliance and it helped me to keep in touch with everyone i am concerned at US.

Later, visited BSNL office for a highspeed internet connection. I am still amazed at BSNL's ability to provide as high speed as 8 Mbps speed at virtually any town or village. The staff and JTO were very helpful and made sure that I get the phone + internet connection in 24-36 hours. Internet connection was very reliable (to my surprise) that I felt comfortable cancelling backup wireless USB modem with reliance after a month. The internet speeds are typically at 65-70% of the promised speed. But, it was not of too much concern for me as I had more than necessary speed at any point I cared to check.

After couple of days, we started to think to visit the temple site that we owe to renovate. Picked a day when it was less cloudy and that happened to be one of the auspicious days. Went to the temple site which is about 10 KM from the small town. The days was Sep 23rd, 2010.


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The temple on top of a small hill was inaccessible with a lot of bush and trees.

The deity is Lord Sri Venkateshwara Swamy. The saying is that his shape came out of a huge stone on the top of the hill and has been there for at least for last six generations. The temple is located on the shore of a creek and the scenic beauty of the area is very pleasant. The deity is considered to be very powerful among our families from the near-by villages and his expression or demand is typically associated with appearance of large cobras obstructing the way until the family head promises a visit to the site (It might look like a story; but its true!). While everyone of our families pay a visit to this site upon any and every shubhakaryam in their family, no one ever bothered to maintain or look after this temple.

So, there we were at the foot steps of the hill. People cautioned of large black cobras and not to enter the temple premises alone; suggested to go with villagers, etc. When we drove to the temple site, to our surprise, there were no male in the village; all we had were some house wives and small children. They said that everyone went to work in their farms and would return in the evening. It was a rainy reason and everyone was at their farm. Not willing to wait until the evening, we moved on. My dad, my kids, my wife and me. We carried the kids to the top of the hill while my father lead the way with claps to scare away any snakes or other reptiles. We firmly believed that there was a reason why we were there and there won't be any obstruction to our wish.

There were small and big bushes side the temple. The deity had been kept without any pooja or rituals for at least 35 years or more. Elderly in the Village recall someone staying on top of the hill and performing pooja before 1975/78 or so and since then there had been no priest nor any nitya pooja. The temple has an associated Lord Shiva temple at the foot hill. The Lord Shiva temple is later identified (we brought in district director of Archeological Survey of India to date this temple) as belonging to Chalukya Dynasty and there were some stone inscriptions dating back to 1100 AD.

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Soon after we entered the temple, we realized that we didn't bring water for cleaning or performing pooja. Bringing water to hill top will be a challenge given the difficulties of terrain. I went down the hill and to bring some of the drinking water bottles we got; but on the way, met with a farmer who offered to bring water in a pot from the creek flowing in the front of the hill. He brought the water up the hill and we quickly realized that pot of water was not really sufficient to clean the temple. The farmer offered that he'd teamup with his colleagues and bring-in six pots of water from the creek. We were very happy. We cleaned the temple with the farmers' help and did some pooja. Then, asked those guys if they like to work for me to remove the bushes from the temple premises on the hilltop. They were happy to do so. And that was the day the renovation work began - 23 Sep 2010.

At home in the small town, we had all the facilities - a cook, maids to take care of everything, boy to do outside work, etc. My wife fully could focus on taking care of the baby and my elder son, and I could fully focus on temple activities during the day time, work during the nights. The days were very pleasant in the beginning until our commitments engages each of us to a level that we could hardly talk until the kids went to sleep and the clients were happy enough to not to bug with phone calls.

This started to showup in frequent loss of temper, impatient behavior from both of us. We started to wait for a break within a month of moving back; both tired and with no time to talk! My parents were also living with us in that small town. They appeared to be happy with all the comforts and to live with their son and grandchildren.

I slowly started to see if my involvement at temple activities can be reduced from 7:30 am to 8 PM schedule to something easier. Before going further, I should explain why such a heavy involvement was necessary in temple renovation activities.

The villages in India are no longer the same ones we grewup with. In villages, now-a-days, you can only find two types of people: Lazy drunkers and old incapable people. When I wanted to start temple renovation activity, I got in touch with a local powerful family that also believes in that Deity and previously tried to do some work. This family lives in Hyderabad, but has considerable say in the village. Note that the village is not my native, but is a neighboring one across the creek. The family head came down to Village and setup a committee of volunteers (of 10 people) to help me organize labor and make them available to me. The tasks before the committee of volunteers was 1. electrification of the temple and its pathways and 2. water supply to the top of the hill - and the time given was two months.

The two-month time was too much for me. I was thinking to get Navaratri celebrations in the temple and the celebrations were barely 10-days away. Within these 10-day period, I have to make this temple habitable place for - 1. my family, 2. the priest, and 3. of course of the rest of the villagers. When the volunteers reported me next day, half of them were absent. They showup only when the family head is in the village. In the rest of the volunteers, four left within an hour of my arrival on the next day. I quickly realized that there was no way that I could depend on these people to get required labor. The only one person who continued to stay with me was capable enough to get me to the villagers before they left for farm work. I used to be in the village by 7:30 AM to gather people for the temple work. These people were paid labor, but I needed to be present there to get them to come and work with us.

Used to collect 25-40 people (pretty much every willing person in the village) by 9 AM and put them to work. The work needed the involvement of people from Electricity department of AP. The only-volunteer was/is a capable person who served as "surpanch" of village few years ago. So, he knew exactly who could do what and how to find them. Got hold of right people and learnt that the electricity permission for that temple was given long ago and monthly nominal charges have been piled up for that site for many years even if no one ever bothered to connect the temple site to the nearest transformer, which is about 1/2 km away. The reason was that electricity dept didn't have funds to run the conductor wire for 1/2 km just to connect the temple site. Things were much easier after I made it clear for the electrical dept that I'd bear all the costs of electrification and all I needed was the line-men to finally connect the wires to their grid. Placed order with full payment for the wiring, poles, other necessary equipment and the line-men were entrusted with the task to be completed with in three days - that was on 24th Sept 2010 night about 9:30 PM. The next three days saw an effort that surprised everyone involved - including the electricity dept. line-men. People tried for several years to to see what they saw on 26th Sept 2010 - full lighting on the hilltop temple - including the street lighting on the way to the temple.

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While the work at temple site kept me absorbed, by the time I reach home, it used to be 9:30 PM or so in the night. After that, most of the time, used to have conference calls with clients until midnight or so. This used to consume significant part of my time and energy, and kept me away from the family. We could take care of electricity and water to kick start the renovation process in such a short time that the committee of volunteers was dissolved in a matter two weeks as they "achieved" assigned tasks. While the situation was very exciting, I started to slowly loose focus on the project work as temple renovation work demanded almost all the available time.

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As the Dassarrah was coming closer, there was a need to find a priest to perform navratri puja at temple. Search for priest began while work at temple site was going at high pace.

The temple is located on at a height of 320 feet and the only means of transporting material up the hill is human labor. On the average three-days of material transport uphill gets one-day of mason's work on the top of the hill. We tried alot to rent/buy mules to send material up the hill, but of not much use.

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We used to gather pretty much whole village with about 40 people working at various levels on daily basis. Planning and execution of work used to be the hardest part. The area has too many huge boulders and with steep slopes.

While I maintain the chronology of events since I returned to India, I am happy to announce that We (I and my wife) have taken a decision to start an orphanage-old-age home combo facility in the vicinity of the temple site.

I owed to myself to start this facility no latter than a year from the date of return. While the actual process of "giving care" might happen only after the year deadline, the facilitation process, resource acquisition process, planning, required documentation/authorization work will be starting in next couple of days. We should be able to accept kids in a matter of a 2-3 weeks time. Here are some of my ideas that I wrote down more than a year ago.

This facility will be absolutely free to all needy kids of all ages (birth to 15 years only) and proportionate old people will be admitted to the facility to take care of kids and of course themselves. We will be funding the whole project and currently do not have mechanism to accept tax-free donations. This is an experiment that might work or fail, but a decision is taken to go ahead with it regardless of outcome.

Its already been almost a month since I last posted and nothing has been done reg. the orphanage. The Telangana agitation virtually brought all the Govt. system down and could not initiate/complete procedural process to register a trust to administer the orphanage.

Its very frustrating, but will have to wait for the registration process.

Meanwhile, more support is growing within the village heads to seed and cultivate such charity institutions. While some people are counting on to take advantage of, others are wondering if it can be sustainable. The very person who worked on finding out the process is doubtful if it is going to be successful.

BTW, tomorrow, Sept 25, marks the last day of temple renovation work. Have a bunch of photos to upload showing the final look of the temple on top of a hill; I will have to make some time to first find my camera cable to pull these pics from camera to my computer and then upload to R2I site.

thanks..plz do share snaps...

me2_r2i;412305Its already been almost a month since I last posted and nothing has been done reg. the orphanage. The Telangana agitation virtually brought all the Govt. system down and could not initiate/complete procedural process to register a trust to administer the orphanage.

Its very frustrating, but will have to wait for the registration process.

Meanwhile, more support is growing within the village heads to seed and cultivate such charity institutions. While some people are counting on to take advantage of, others are wondering if it can be sustainable. The very person who worked on finding out the process is doubtful if it is going to be successful.

BTW, tomorrow, Sept 25, marks the last day of temple renovation work. Have a bunch of photos to upload showing the final look of the temple on top of a hill; I will have to make some time to first find my camera cable to pull these pics from camera to my computer and then upload to R2I site.

Finally had a chance to get photos out of my camera and here they are...



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Viewed from outside - down the hill

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As viewed from 300 ft from the ground. The door you see is the main entrance.

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As viewed from 300ft from the ground, its the beauty of the place. There is a water creek in the front on which a check-dam is being built.

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Front door of the temple - from outside

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Front-door as seen from inside

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The hall and mandap in the temple. The hall has an auditorium type elevated dais to facilitate marriages, and other spiritual activities.