r2i forum

My Turn to give back to this community :)

Come June it would be a full year since our R2I happened. Cannot believe it is almost a year. Half of my stuff is still in boxes!! Time flies for sure. How do we feel now?? great and so glad we R2Ied!!
Do we miss USA? .. oh yeah!! at times. Do we miss it so much that we want to R2A? definitely NOT!!!!:D
A Bit about us.
Been in US for 13 years and Husband for 15 years. F1/H1/GC/CITZ/OCI been there done that. Children 5 and 3 years old. Own a SF home in Centreville VA (Fairfax area). Before R2I Older child in preschool and younger in daycare. Wife off and on with jobs, so basically single IT income.
WHY R2I
It all happened in October 2006. When out of the blue my spouse declared that he wanted to move back so he can be close to his parents and (FIL has been sick and getting worse since 3 years). I heard it and wasn?t sure how to react. All these years of wanting to go back and being behind him to go back went futile and just when I was getting comfortable to the ways of life in US and built my cocoon this thing pops up. I was not sure if it was a fit of emotion or an informed decision that he made. Once I made sure he meant what he said we announced to the world. I was both happy and scared now. All these years it was an idea now it is reality.
HOMEWORK
Started reading R2I club articles and others experiences. That eased our comfort level and also a lot of planning. Thanks RRK for being in the foundation for this. Lot of our folks thought we were crazy for doing this to ourselves just when everything was in top gear for a fuller career. By Thanksgiving 2006 the decision got cemented. I booked my tickets to India to do some homework as visit trips were different from actually having to live there. More over I had school admissions to take care of.
LEG WORK (Dec 06-Jan07):
*Bangalore or Hyderabad big question?. More job opportunities in Bangalore, more family and our generation family lives in Bangalore, we know the language and some area of the city. But given the health status of in-laws and our general familiarity status with the city (Iam a pucca hyderabadi), Hyderabad got voted hands down.
*Got children admitted 5 and 3 ROOTS school (grade 1) and CHIREC Kondapur (nursery) respectively. Experience about this is another story.
*Checked cars out ruled out big cars as possibility Hondas and Toyotas are more expensive in India than US. It is going to be small cars for us. Especially I love to go into the gallis of Sultan Bazaar, Koti, Begum Bazzaar, and Patthergatti. ;-)
*Shopping check, almost everything costs about as much in US. (Compared everyday items to stuff u get in Wal-Mart). OUCH. During visits it seemed cheaper as we were still earning in $$ and spending in RS that too in a small visit. But living here and earning in RS I dunno!!! :confused:
*Learnt that Rs100 doesn?t take you very far!! Not even from Kondapur to Punjagutta. One thing I have noticed about myself is that I am not able to comprehend the current costs. Until 5 years ago Rs500 meant a lot in terms of purchasing power. Now step out and your 1000rs note vanishes into thin air and you don?t even know what you spent on?:emrosesad:
*Getting electronics from US is a big waste. Everything is available here.
*Furniture options have improved a lot in Hyderabad I have seen some good quality furniture and contemporary styles too. They cost about as much as it does in US. Okay maybe a little bit cheaper but not by much.
Now back to home in US
Logistics in US.
Own a SFH in Fairfax area, ?it will have to go into spring market as waiting for summer might invite trouble? said my real estate broker. RE is already slowing down in winter market did not see many closures; rates have dipped from last year. Our estimate was the house would be on market for 6 months. R2I will happen only if the house sells and our citizenship comes thru!! That?s for sure. Citizenship it about time, we should be getting our call letter.
If house sells in 2 months the whole family moves else I and kids move and my husband will continue here until it sells. If it does not sell in spite of 6 months then we are back. Husband wants a 3 month vacation, which means no relocation package we pay for the whole move.
To take stuff or not well with stuff we have collected over years that itself will take about half a container. To sell all our furniture for pittance and going and buying for a higher price did not make sense so, we decided to carry 2 bedrooms worth furniture. We sold my formal living and formal dining furniture and give away the kids bedroom furniture to my cousins. That still left us with enough furniture for a house to fill up in India.
HOME FOR SALE
FEBRUARY 07 --- getting the house ready for market. De clutter, paint touch up, some repairs, yard mulching nothing major. Most of the big jobs happened unexpectedly last year. Had the kitchen upgraded with flooring changed throughout the house! This de-clutter was a blessing in disguise it helped us pack half our stuff ahead.


March 5th the for sale board goes up and my heart sinks with the thought that I will never own a house this big ever in India with that I get emotional? :emcry:
With 2 kids it is a chore to keep the place spick and span so we temporarily live in at our friends house close by. First week we get lots of calls and shows. Second week too we have some repeat showings, but no new showings. Now we go back living in our own house (first 2 weeks are important). Third week no movement (exactly as the broker explained how it happens). Fourth Week bleak start and a grand finale!! Thursday noon we got a call from our agent saying we had an offer and an okay enough to consider. We went thru the details and countered the offer. One of the clauses in there was a timeframe for closing?. That?s where we stumbled.
We did not expect the house to sell so fast so we did not make alternative arrangements to live interim. And I was not ready to leave for Hyderabad in April or May as I wanted the older kid to complete school and not going home in Summer(silly enough but I wanted the beginning to be pleasant not on a HOT BURNING note).
Anyway we countered along with other stuff for a later closing date (they wanted April, we said May) or a rent back option. Good News came next day with acceptance for May 7th as closing.
The same day we get our much anticipated citizenship interview call. (Looks like even GOD is trying to push us out of the country before we change our minds). Everything is happening like a well oiled machine.
SHIPPING and MOVE
We set the move date for 4th May with World Wide Ocean Shippers. We pack most and they pack big items and FCL. Cost almost 5500$ door to door including baksheesh etc. They were nice and very communicative. I would definitely recommend them. They sent 3 guys with material. They were efficient and it helped them that we were also ready with all our boxes numbered and itemized. This made cross checks easier. They took almost 10hrs to finish up.
COUNT DOWN TO GO BACK.
Fly date was set to May29th. Now all we needed was get our passports by then (USC) and sell our vehicles and iron out all the last stuff like bank accounts etc. We sold our van and car in no time. One unanticipated hitch was getting the Title. We did not expect that it takes almost 4 weeks to get the title, and we did not receive the title in time of our departure so we had to give a power of attorney to a friend and settle that transaction.
HOME SWEET HOME
It was hot, hot and hot. Did not move out of the AC room for a week! Fortunately by then the rains relieved everyone. June 2nd week we move into a rented space and kids start school.
A new chapter of our life begins?.

New Life experience I will post soon roll all the way down.......

We land in Hyderabad on May 30th and weeks pass by in a jiffy while we settle down.


Older child is having teething troubles at school because of her transition cursive writing and hindi are loaded for her and feels the chore. I spend an hour with her everyday with these. She likes her school very much though. She was beginning to have acceptance problems in her school in US where she alone was an Indian and her girl friends thought she looked funny. Here she is the group leader in the apartment complex. She is lot more confident and vocal here than there and it shows in her performance at school too. One day she even got scared that we might go back and was refusing to go.


Lot of socializing for a couple of months and spending weekends with In-laws. August we received our shipment. I knew all along what boxes went into the house and what had to go straight to my In-laws store room and the boxes got separated accordingly.My itemized list during packing helped.:emsmiled:



September first week I load our final box in my in-laws house and the same evening our father in-law bade everyone a final goodbye. It was completely unexpected. We thought maybe that?s why a strong force guided us to make this move. We are glad that the kids now know who their grandfather was and how they had spent time with him. Chances of our R2A are very grim now. Not that we even considered those thoughts.:emcry:


By December my older daughter has completely caught up with the schooling and now on the roll along with others and gets A+ scores in Hindi and other languages. I guess kids at this age catch up fast.:emsmile::emteeth:

:emrose:Factors that made things smooth for us:-

Location: Hyderabad I know the city by its length and breadth even by its height ;-). So right from shopping to knowing the local lingo to get your job done became very easy.
Parents: Having parents living just a block away was so much help especially with all the running around we had to do for setup and also manage health issue of in-laws.
Attitude: We set realistic expectations for ourselves before r2i especially about many things ranging from unprofessionalism to nosy relatives. In fact we kept an absolute low expectation threshold in all these areas and actually got surprised that it really wasn?t that horrible. However the road and traffic still gets us by the throat!!
Help: People in US are friendly and do help when asked. But here for some reason I feel the same help has warmth and unconditional warmth to it. I feel comfortable asking for help in this land of mine.


:emangry:What do I miss rather what irritates me:

Customer service: Or the complete lack of it.

Quality: Mediocre Chalta hai , Jaane do attitude. In every job taken up by anybody they work hard at the job and when it comes to finesse and finishing?. Jaane do yaaron!!

Accountability: individual sense of responsibility towards a job is rather disappointing even in non blue collared jobs. They cannot work without being prompted, nagged or supervised.

Personal space: That door bell rings so many times in a day some days I wish I stayed in US where many a times I did not even remember if I had a door bell.

Lung space and big space: Unless you are loaded with money this is a mythya/dream. In US I pampered myself with 3000sft home and a 5000sft yard both of which I loved and enjoyed and nutured. Here I live in 1500sft home with neighbor?s noises with your reach and it gets my nerves jerking at times and makes me claustrophobic.


YET?..
Kids are far more happy here than there. I am able to get some break from myself because of friends and family being close by. Both sets of parents in the city so kids spend quality time with family. We are lot happier.


To sum it up here is the unprovoked response of my 3 year old when it came to defining a family.
Family is ? Amma , Nanna and Akka? this is US.

8 months later in India. She says

Family is ?amma, nanna, akka, tata, ammamma, nannamma, tata, peddananna ?..etc and quotes all the names she knows?


We have achieved our R2I goal!

-->Family is ?amma, nanna, akka, tata, ammamma, nannamma, tata, peddananna ?..etc and quotes all the names she knows?

I am sure they appreciate you when they grow up!:)
It's good for children and their grand parents etc.

Nice expressive posts! Keep them coming!

mk2007;86947
:emangry:What do I miss rather what irritates me:

Quality: Mediocre Chalta hai , Jaane do attitude. In every job taken up by anybody they work hard at the job and when it comes to finesse and finishing?. Jaane do yaaron!! [/quote]

My wife complains that's what I become the moment I step in Hyderabad. Isn't that what a Hyderabadi is made up off... Life is fun! Take it Easy and Enjoy!

Janne do Yaar!

Great blog mk2007!!! Your knowledge of Hyderabad and insight into Hyderabad schools is amazing. You are the Dosai_Lvr of Hyderabad or should he should be called Biryani_Lvr of Bangalore :)

cyberabadi;87011Nice expressive posts! Keep them coming!

My wife complains that's what I become the moment I step in Hyderabad. Isn't that what a Hyderabadi is made up off... Life is fun! Take it Easy and Enjoy!

Janne do Yaar![/quote]
cyberabadi,
Once you say those words, you are fully assimilated and R2I is complete . You defy RRK's principle of one month in India/year of US :emsmiled:.
For me I am expecting it to be gradual... After the initial rumblings, it would be "Jaanee Bhi Do Yaar" and probably after a year "Jaane Do Yaar" finally

The bindas attitude and Nawabi style, thats what makes Hyderabad special.

cyberabadi;87087Yes! lots of my friends and family are suprised but, thats me. Its Home! and will always be.

Although, I left India as a 21yr old more than a decade ago and lived & worked in couple of countries.. I consider, this all temporary.. A visit to study, work, earn some money and have some fun too. Only its taking this long to go back home. 'To each his own' isn't it. BTW, ILuvHyd.:emteeth:[/quote]

Its school admission time again I still vividly remember the entrance test my daughter had to write for entering First grade.

The test administered itself was very simple and my daughter had the complete understanding of the concepts in question. However what varied is expectation of the precise answer to the questions asked.

Kids coming at this grade from US especially if they have not completed kindergarden have a certain inability to write to long because they are not used to too much writing skills in pre-k program.

Traditional schools entrance tests are slightly more complicated in terms of expectation as opposed to other schools.

So what do they ask in aptitude test for first grade:
Math:
[INDENT] Writing numbers before and after upto 200.
Writing number names upto hundered.
Greater lesser and equals.
Picture additions.
Reading number names and writing the number indicated.[/INDENT]English:
[INDENT]Matching plurals.
Circling vowels and Consonants
Picture composition: given a picture they should be able to write 3 sentences about it.
Writing Vegetable names, fruit names , week names etc
Given a picture: The child must write about the picture using "this" or "these".
[/INDENT] My daughter had no idea to write this way, she was just beginning to write simple sentences for about a month. She was give a picture having 3 cups in it. She coolly wrote 3 cups and I was impressed with the fact that she paid attention to detail. I in her place would have written just cups.
Later I was told that my child could not secure admission for her inability to write sentences. In this particular case she was expected to write "These are cups".

My child promptly flunk all written test the first time:emsmilep:. Somehow I found a school that took her and she has had a good start. This year I find myself hunting for a better school for her again. So the flurry of written tests .....
only Mahati now understands the concept of exam and a question paper. So she is comfortable with it.

So what do they ask in aptitude test for second grade:
Math:
[INDENT]Writing numbers before and after upto 500.
Writing number names upto five hundered.
Greater lesser and equals.
Additions Subtractions (some schools have carry forward and some don't)
Multiplication tables upto 10
Reading number names and writing the number indicated.
Simple story additions.
Place values.
Writing numbers in expanded form ie 145 = 1 hundered + 4 tens + 5 ones.
Pattern matching.
Simple time: on the hour and half hour.
[/INDENT] English:
[INDENT]Matching plurals.
Identifying the articles
Filling with present and past tense
Picture composition: given a picture they should be able to write 5 sentences about it.
Identifying the nouns, verbs and adjectives.
Reading comprehension.
Using present continuous form.
[/INDENT]Hindi:
[INDENT]Varnamala: writing alphabets
Maatra: being able to write words with a specified maatra
Completing words with either appropriate akshar or maatra
Writing a word given a picture.
Writing 5 words for a given theme like flower/vegetable/fruit/color

[/INDENT]Well though many new age schools who do not have heavy workloads like Chirec etc still have a similar aptitude test. Expectation (though they do not spell it out) is the same as that of the traditional schools.
My child is trying for 2 grade admission in Chirec. They said that there are no vacancies available as of March 1 however 30 students have taken the entrance test. Given there are 30 students per section and 3 sections in the school for this class her chances are extremely competitive:eek:. So I think preparation of the child helps all though its not fair to put pressure on them.

MK :emteeth:

#9 mk2007, Great post again.

So much for entrance tests :eek:. In case your daughter finds difficulty again, let me know and she can ace a PM position in our team easily :emwink: