My R2I, A Bitter & Sweet experience

R2I_Vijay · Post by **R2I_Vijay** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 3:27 am

History: I came to US in 1991 to get my MS in CS and then got the job, married, settled and had two kids, now 8 and 4. Back of my mind I always wanted to go back but never thought it was going to happen, I guess I was too scared to start my life all over. I visited India in early 2005 and when I came back I felt it was time for me to move back. Some of my friends moved back to Hyderabad few years before and were living happily and doing better financially and also their kids were going to good schools. Most of my cousins were well settled and were encouraging for me to come back. Also I was getting close to my 40?s that was another concern that I wanted R2I to happen well before that. Also my older kid was finishing his Kindergarten and another one was getting ready for the school. Some of the reasons may not be a big deal but, I guess I made up enough reasons for myself to be convinced and also to convince my wife, who was not very interested in R2I.

Planning: We didn?t really plan a whole lot, all we did was put our house on sale and started packing some stuff and stopped buying any new items. I took out some money from the home equity and made some investments and started talking to my parents and family about our return. Initially we didn?t have enough luck in convincing people but slowly thy have started understanding our feelings and started encouraging our move. Looking back after one year, the worst decision I made was to move my family in June 2006 and planned to join them when our house was sold, as of today I am still stuck here in US. Meanwhile I made couple of trips to India and started feeling the stress of staying away from the family, luckily my wife is not complaining too much. We had an offer on the house in early December and moved all our stuff to India in a container and then the sale fell through. Finally I made a decision not to wait for the house any more and things started falling in their place. My advice to the rest of you who are thinking about doing what I did is, please wait until you are ready to move. For me staying away from my family was the toughest and one of the lowest points of my life.

House:We purchased a 3 bed room apartment in 1999 in Hyderabad and that was the best thing I ever did to make my R2I dream come true. We had it rented for last 6 years and we are going to move into it in a month or two. My wife and kids were living with my in-laws for the last 10 months.

Moving/Shipping:We have used Sky2C for the move and they have done a decent job until now. Our stuff is arriving in Hyderabad in a week or two, I will have more info for you once we receive it. We have moved most of our stuff including big refrigerator, 36? TV, 37? LCD, most of the furniture, beds and lots of boxes. 20 Feet container was filled to the brink and our challenge will be fitting all that in our apartment.

School:This was the easiest decision(s) of all, since some of my friends kids were going to Oak Ridge International, we have asked my friends to help us getting the admissions and that?s all. Since our younger one just turned 4 at that time he got admitted into PP2 (UKG). But the older one was 7 at that time and he finished his 1st grade, we thought he will be better off with his age kids than in the younger group (6 year old kids study 2nd Grade in India) and requested the management to give him admission into 3rd grade. We had some doubts but he didn?t have too much trouble adjusting but I think it can get difficult after that age group (8+) to skip a grade.

Job:I was working as a consultant (contractor) for last 8 years and planning to do the same even in India working for US companies remotely or on site, on and off. Also I am looking at some business opportunities doing some IT projects. After decided to move by the end of this month, I told my recent employer (started this contract about 3 months back) that I am going back to India for some personal reasons at the end of March and will work for them if given a remote opportunity. They have agreed and I will start working from India in April, this project may go at least for another 6 months if not longer.

Finally, I would like to thank each and every member in this group for sharing so much information and the Admin team for their endless efforts to make this forum better each day. My special thanks goes to RRK and the rest of the admin Team and Desi_Samurai, skumarit, Gator, Nattusbs1 and the rest for their many valuable postings.

Best of luck to each and every one of you for your R2I or LIA dream?

DesBhakt · Post by **DesBhakt** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:05 am

Good job ! and Good luck!

Vid_Bangalore · Post by **Vid_Bangalore** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:08 am

OP,
Congratulations on your return! Hope things will sail smoothly for you and your family..:)

Just one quick question - how much did you pay for shipping (did you do the entire packing? what about loading? was it door to door?)..a seperate break-up for packing, loading, shipping, etc would be very helpful..

Thanks
V_B

Nattusbs · Post by **Nattusbs** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 5:24 am

R2I_Vijay

Thanks for the wonderful post. I wish you & your family all the best.

Please do update us from time to time since your experiences will influence some who are sitting on the fence.

Cheers

Nattusbs

chilipi · Post by **chilipi** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:08 pm

Thanks for sharing your experience, especially your advice about not sending the family back early.

Congratulations for the successful R2I and best of luck in your new life.

Desi · Post by **Desi** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 7:31 pm

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Wish you all the best.

b2b · Post by **b2b** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 7:42 pm

Thanks for sharing your R2I experience. Nice post.

Good luck

vijay · Post by **vijay** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 9:11 pm

from one Vijay to another, congratulations

R2I_Vijay · Post by **R2I_Vijay** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 12:40 am

Thank you all for the wishes…

Packing/Shipping in detail:

We packed most of the stuff except the large items, furniture, TV, Beds etc. In my opinion packing all the small stuff yourself will be safer and also financially a better choice. We spent at least couple of weeks, daily few hours packing, since we had plenty of display items, kids stuff, bar items, kitchen items and household stuff. I got lots of boxes small and medium size boxes (from work etc...) packed all the small items in the small boxes with bubble wrap and packing paper then packed the small boxes in the big double walled boxes that I got from U-Haul. Also I used their glass packing boxes for the bar glasses, I think it is lot safer that way.

I used Sky2c people for the big items packing and loading the container. In my opinion you should use local packers to do the job, you can have 2 or 3 different companies to come to look at your stuff and give you a quote. Sky2C charges pretty much double the price than what the local packers charge and also they have no control on the labor, since they sub contract them. In my case out of the 3 people who came one was a 65 year old guy, a female and middle aged guy with some good experience. They took more than 5 hours for packing the big stuff and also another 5 hours for loading the container, also they didn’t bring enough material for packing. The middle aged guy was the only one did some major work and without him I would have been in lot of trouble.

I paid $600/- for the material and $1080/- (9 Hours * $120) for packing and loading, they gave me an hour discount for my gripe about the labor. I spent another $4000/- for door to door shipping, excluding insurance. I would have saved at least $500/-, if I used local labor.

It is good to have a numbered lock or a good size lock handy to lock the container, they didn’t provide any in my case.

RRK · Post by **RRK** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 1:03 am

Vijay,

Nice post.
Please share with us your post-return experiences.
It will be helpful for those in the planning phase.

Good luck to you.