Its 5th June and finally day has come, shipping has arrived in Hyderabad and I got a call from my agent that i need to go to there office to authorize the clerance.Office was at Begumpet, went there signed few one liner agreements saying that so and so of so and so company is authorized to receive my shipment on my behalf at the customs office. After that they gave me a sheet which looks like from customs office, and asked me to list all items int 3 or 4 categories and total the boxes. Since we already had organized list of all boxes with codes as E = Electronics, K= Kitchn, G=eneral, B = Books it was very easy. In fact agent himself was surprised on quickness with which we prepared the list and gave them, they responded saying usually folks take 1 or 2 hours and couple of draft sheets before completing it.
Today Morning agent called in saying that I need to be at Kukatpally for custom inpection of my goods and suggested that it may take whole day. I informed office and went to Kukatpally customs godown office by 10:30 AM with my father. In India nothing goes on without playing waiting game. My agent rep came at 1100 AM and went to to check if custom officer is in and didn't turn up until 11:45 AM. At 11:45 I went into godown to get first glimpe of my stuff after 60 days. Well all the stuff is stacked on 4 pallets and completly wrapped with black plastic shrink wrap. At outset things looked good atleast protected from water damage. On looking around, from same Worldwide shipping there were 2 more shipping addresses from GA. Around 12:20 one of the inspector came, but power was out so it wa little dark in the godown, he said to labor staff to unpack all items and arrange on the floor. Again our coding of boxes helped, I asked my agent to separate electronics and set them in seperae row and all others in different group. Also gave list of major electronics items to agent to get estimate on taxes, without any calculation he said generally it will be around 25K to 35K and if you negotiate it will come down by 5K. Immedeatly I felt he is just bluffing and my 6th sense proved to be right at the end.
In mean time while they were arranging the boxes I initiated my PR instincts and introduced myself to cutoms officer to really know how fair/unfair they would be. To my surprise, custom officer spoke very nicely and in very respected manner, we exchanged some details about family, kids, why we returned to India etc etc. After 10 minutes he left saying that he will come back along with another officer and he himself gave an assurance that there wont be any trouble and they will handle everything as per rules. After 30 minutes 2 officers came back and started inspection. One I explained the codes on boxes, he verified non electronics boxes to confirm and he went on with only electronic items. Inspection went on very smooth. He asked about prices and ramdomly checked items. One suggestion is to be pretty clear on year,make and model of all your items. Don't give an impression of guessing on these factors.
Inspection was completed in total 40 minutes. Only items he really highlighted are projector, HT speakers, Telescope and DVD player. He did not pay much attention to Car decks, Computer + LCD monitor. Following are free for one piece:
1. CPU + Monitor
2. One camera
3. One DVD player
After inspection they went for lunch and returned only after 1Hr.
I was called into office to declare my custom tax. I was very very impressed by the procedure, they had list of every possible item once could imagine including mode/year/price. Since they were convinced that my items were used and I did not hide or manipulate anything in giving informaion, they have straight away took 50% out from prices and in some cases they just put 20% of cost. I got away with no bribing at all. Another factor that helped, is that I did not travel or stayed more than 2 weeks in last 2 years. If someone travel to India and stayed for more than 2 years, concession on transfer of residence cannot be claimed. That would be big overhead, so plan accodingly in this regard. I paid Rs. 6000 in total. Once that is done, they issued gate pass and agent arraged a DCM Toyata van for pickup of my stuff for home delivery. Here is the main area which could lead to lot of damages by local labour. Here local labour are not equipped with anything, they don't have any dollies, no ramps, no lifting belts, they will hold in what ever angle they get grip and move the stuff. Only way to control them is to tip them and give the indication of good tip well in advance. Guide them as much as possbileon how to handle the stuff. I spent around RS.1000 just on tips for loading labour and also for the labour who delivered at home.
All in all whole process went on very smooth and stuff came fine but have some damages.
Few learnings and sugestions:
1. DON't compromise, go for FULL CONTAINER
2. If stuff is less to fill container, buy stuff.
3. Stuff like good leather furniture, recliners, massage chairs
are not good here. You do get some limited good stuff but cost is too much and no choice at all.
4. Get all possible kitchen ware and beddings. Especially stuff available here like non-stick etc are very cheap, and only place you see varities are in BIG BAZAAR, which are like Indian Walmart.Quality also compares to Walmart
5. Get as many varieties of shoes, clothes of brands lik Reeboks, Nikes etc.
6. On home theatre side, if you want high end system, than get one. Don't expect to get it here, you do get B&W's, Jamo, Onkyo but very very limited choice
8. Avoid books, you get all of them here and are reasonable if you go for Indian re-prints
9. Car deck is a must to get, even on very high end cars, you need to get the kit and locally available ones are expensive.
10. Things like external hard disks, CDR/CDRW etc are hard to find in around the corner shops. You need to really travel to Secunderabad or koti to get them, I suggest get enough of them so that you wont have to run for them here.
11. Lastly cables, get all types of cables. Even a normal cables I bought from US for cable TV or extension cables or speakers cables are of very high quality. Locally these ones are very cheaply made and hard to find good quality.
I am sure these learnings will help....
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Return to Hyderabad - Job Hunt
Job hunt before R2I ... well in writing the title, it struck me that well its the same thought process everybody goes through when we originally went abroad. We all would have asked ourself these quetion when we left India:
- Which job ?
- What pay ?
- How much enough is ENOUGH ?
- Where do we start ?
- What are loop holes ?
- How much will be the tax ?
- What's the market trend ?
- Which domain/technology to choose ?
Well, R2I process is not any different and one has to go through exactly same process. Based on my experience,I have taken up job hunt for R2I in 3 phases:
1. Explore and get general view of market, areas of growth, what's the pulse of Stock Market. This excercise should be started quite early, but atleast 6 months before R2I. This data can be easily obtained from samachar.com, rediff.com, economictimes.com or in general any popular news website from India.
2. Define your job profile based on personal needs, in terms of Skills, travel, location, education for kids, home, both couple working
3. With research from above 1 and needs defined in 2, start actual process of targetting companies, roles using online job sites and more agressively your friends, relatives working in those segments.
Most important learning I had is that in this global market you stand a chance only if you network. Never loose or shy away from networking friends in malls, festivals, temples etc etc. In my expereince only through friends I got a lead and able to get up to the interview process. No amount of online applications and resume rabbits will help. Only replies from bulk mailing came from recruiters. In fact the present job which is my dream job came through a class friend in my graduate.
In terms of positions any experience above 10yrs are usually channeled to manager role. Still there is no concept of growing career as a completly techie guy in India. As far as i know only 2 companies support such roles Microsoft and Google. In companies like Infosys, Wipro etc manager role is the defacto and ones needs to negotiate based on size of team which may range from 100 to 400 people.
- Which job ?
- What pay ?
- How much enough is ENOUGH ?
- Where do we start ?
- What are loop holes ?
- How much will be the tax ?
- What's the market trend ?
- Which domain/technology to choose ?
Well, R2I process is not any different and one has to go through exactly same process. Based on my experience,I have taken up job hunt for R2I in 3 phases:
1. Explore and get general view of market, areas of growth, what's the pulse of Stock Market. This excercise should be started quite early, but atleast 6 months before R2I. This data can be easily obtained from samachar.com, rediff.com, economictimes.com or in general any popular news website from India.
2. Define your job profile based on personal needs, in terms of Skills, travel, location, education for kids, home, both couple working
3. With research from above 1 and needs defined in 2, start actual process of targetting companies, roles using online job sites and more agressively your friends, relatives working in those segments.
Most important learning I had is that in this global market you stand a chance only if you network. Never loose or shy away from networking friends in malls, festivals, temples etc etc. In my expereince only through friends I got a lead and able to get up to the interview process. No amount of online applications and resume rabbits will help. Only replies from bulk mailing came from recruiters. In fact the present job which is my dream job came through a class friend in my graduate.
In terms of positions any experience above 10yrs are usually channeled to manager role. Still there is no concept of growing career as a completly techie guy in India. As far as i know only 2 companies support such roles Microsoft and Google. In companies like Infosys, Wipro etc manager role is the defacto and ones needs to negotiate based on size of team which may range from 100 to 400 people.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Returned to India T + 45 days
Its been 45 days since we landed in Hyderabad... WOW! I am feeling completly local
already. Joined the new Job a month back, its a dream job for me. The job culture has
changed a lot in India, people have adopted technology and work pressure much
effectively than in US. Here everybody is conversant with all options of Mobile
working, remote working, flex hours and telecommuting much better than what I
felt in US. Life can be defined as per you choices and options but you need to be flexible to move to the location where options are available. For example in Hyderabad if you are a computer/software professional, its better to in and around
Hi-Tech city for following reasons:
- Excellent availability of Internet from good providers like Airtel, TataIndicom etc
- Almost all appartments come standard equipped with generator to handle power cuts
- Cut down frustation and time of city traffic to commute to work place
- You can use max benifit of flex hours
- Work life balance can be maintained very well
- Can lead luxury life with good hotels, restaurants and movies which are within 8 Kms
there are cons for this place:
- Rents are on higher end
- Pay for everything including recrational parks, which are generally free
- Day to Day house hold items can be little expensive
- Will be cutoff from mainstream i.e. relatives, long term settlers who are generally located in other side of city. Public commuting is tedious to travel
from either side
If you inend to continue litle bit of nucluear life style as in US, than living in
Hi-Tech city is good option.
We have moved to an appartment, very near to Hi-Tech city. Commuting distance to work is less than 20 minutes and for kids its 10 minutes.
Kids started school with Orchids International School. Its kind of OK school, even though its called international, but facilities are just OK. Fee wise they are on higher side, which can give you frustated feeling when you actually see the facilities. We made lots of follow up with various schools, but comepetition is very very high and all admissions close by Jan/Feb. We entered into market late (2nd week of May), so had only 2 choices, Orchids and Meridian. Meridian we felt that its tradional style with same fee structure as Orchids and more than that Meridian Madhapur branch is still under construction, so avoided it.
Orchids has very less space and they keep taking kids in school bus to various resorts for field activities and games. On other front they provide breakfast/lunch/snack at school, ofcourse you need to watch first couple of days
if kids are taking there food. Especially NRI kids face a culture schock here on small things like lining up for food, asking for extra serving. Such things are pretty disorganized here and there is always lot of noise, which could make them hesitate initially.
already. Joined the new Job a month back, its a dream job for me. The job culture has
changed a lot in India, people have adopted technology and work pressure much
effectively than in US. Here everybody is conversant with all options of Mobile
working, remote working, flex hours and telecommuting much better than what I
felt in US. Life can be defined as per you choices and options but you need to be flexible to move to the location where options are available. For example in Hyderabad if you are a computer/software professional, its better to in and around
Hi-Tech city for following reasons:
- Excellent availability of Internet from good providers like Airtel, TataIndicom etc
- Almost all appartments come standard equipped with generator to handle power cuts
- Cut down frustation and time of city traffic to commute to work place
- You can use max benifit of flex hours
- Work life balance can be maintained very well
- Can lead luxury life with good hotels, restaurants and movies which are within 8 Kms
there are cons for this place:
- Rents are on higher end
- Pay for everything including recrational parks, which are generally free
- Day to Day house hold items can be little expensive
- Will be cutoff from mainstream i.e. relatives, long term settlers who are generally located in other side of city. Public commuting is tedious to travel
from either side
If you inend to continue litle bit of nucluear life style as in US, than living in
Hi-Tech city is good option.
We have moved to an appartment, very near to Hi-Tech city. Commuting distance to work is less than 20 minutes and for kids its 10 minutes.
Kids started school with Orchids International School. Its kind of OK school, even though its called international, but facilities are just OK. Fee wise they are on higher side, which can give you frustated feeling when you actually see the facilities. We made lots of follow up with various schools, but comepetition is very very high and all admissions close by Jan/Feb. We entered into market late (2nd week of May), so had only 2 choices, Orchids and Meridian. Meridian we felt that its tradional style with same fee structure as Orchids and more than that Meridian Madhapur branch is still under construction, so avoided it.
Orchids has very less space and they keep taking kids in school bus to various resorts for field activities and games. On other front they provide breakfast/lunch/snack at school, ofcourse you need to watch first couple of days
if kids are taking there food. Especially NRI kids face a culture schock here on small things like lining up for food, asking for extra serving. Such things are pretty disorganized here and there is always lot of noise, which could make them hesitate initially.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Return to Hyderabad = T-0
Its here and its happenning ....
Its t-0, today is the day, finally here after years of anticipation, one full year
of planning, months of efforts....
After shipping compnay took all the stuff we were staying in appartment without beds
using sleeping bags. But on other front we have tons of stuff still to throw away. Craigslist did help a lot in clearing lot of it. But still we end up throwing many utensils etc. Be aware some clients of craigslist are like vultures, especially if they are in and around your locality, they keep watching the adv. call up regularly if stuff is still available and land on last day to negotiate for free or making
up stories that forgot to get change or will give the cash to our frinds to mail later etc etc. Its better to cut them off right away even if you end throwing the stuff away. We had to deal with few of them on last day which was irritating.
Anyway, we planned to leave at 1:30 PM and booked the cab with VAN option, we had plenty of luggages to take almost 15 bags among 5 people. I went to rental office cleared all the dues and left few dollors extra so that on closing I don't have to pay extra. Cab came at 1:30 PM sharp, one of our very good friends offered to come upto airport which helped to stuff in few luggaes in there van. Dropped the key at 1:45PM and left to Airport. An emotion of sadness, confusion and kind of shakyness ran through my spine ... BUT MY HOPE WAS STRONG THAT THINGS ARE TURNING FOR GOOD ! with that feeling I just turned one last time towards the apartment and said GOODBYE BOSTON
Its t-0, today is the day, finally here after years of anticipation, one full year
of planning, months of efforts....
After shipping compnay took all the stuff we were staying in appartment without beds
using sleeping bags. But on other front we have tons of stuff still to throw away. Craigslist did help a lot in clearing lot of it. But still we end up throwing many utensils etc. Be aware some clients of craigslist are like vultures, especially if they are in and around your locality, they keep watching the adv. call up regularly if stuff is still available and land on last day to negotiate for free or making
up stories that forgot to get change or will give the cash to our frinds to mail later etc etc. Its better to cut them off right away even if you end throwing the stuff away. We had to deal with few of them on last day which was irritating.
Anyway, we planned to leave at 1:30 PM and booked the cab with VAN option, we had plenty of luggages to take almost 15 bags among 5 people. I went to rental office cleared all the dues and left few dollors extra so that on closing I don't have to pay extra. Cab came at 1:30 PM sharp, one of our very good friends offered to come upto airport which helped to stuff in few luggaes in there van. Dropped the key at 1:45PM and left to Airport. An emotion of sadness, confusion and kind of shakyness ran through my spine ... BUT MY HOPE WAS STRONG THAT THINGS ARE TURNING FOR GOOD ! with that feeling I just turned one last time towards the apartment and said GOODBYE BOSTON
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Return to Hyderabad T-3
Its T-3 THE DAY ....Shippers are comming home
I won't call it D-DAY (this title is reserved for day when we receive the shipping!)
Got up really early and moved every box to living room, checked, re-checked the labelling. For labelling we followed a process, at first as we packed each box, we marked the box with category code example: E =electronics, H=Household, G=general followed by a number of box in that category. Just a day before shipping, entered all the boxes in excel sheet with a serial number. Finally marked each serial number on the box with total number of boxes for shippers. This whole process gave total of 58 boxes for me including mattress/spring counted as 2 boxes
Yes, shipper came in as scheduled, but one glitch no one came for loading the truck. I insisted in getting the loading help, truck went back and came after 2 hours with a loading staff. 2 guys moved all stuff in about 2 hours and did excellent job without any bumps are draggings. In fact felt if same 2 guys can come to Hyd to unload. Finally shipping truck left at 6:00 PM leaving us completly empty house! LOOKS LIKE ITS TIME FOR SOME INDOOR CRICKET :-)
I won't call it D-DAY (this title is reserved for day when we receive the shipping!)
Got up really early and moved every box to living room, checked, re-checked the labelling. For labelling we followed a process, at first as we packed each box, we marked the box with category code example: E =electronics, H=Household, G=general followed by a number of box in that category. Just a day before shipping, entered all the boxes in excel sheet with a serial number. Finally marked each serial number on the box with total number of boxes for shippers. This whole process gave total of 58 boxes for me including mattress/spring counted as 2 boxes
Yes, shipper came in as scheduled, but one glitch no one came for loading the truck. I insisted in getting the loading help, truck went back and came after 2 hours with a loading staff. 2 guys moved all stuff in about 2 hours and did excellent job without any bumps are draggings. In fact felt if same 2 guys can come to Hyd to unload. Finally shipping truck left at 6:00 PM leaving us completly empty house! LOOKS LIKE ITS TIME FOR SOME INDOOR CRICKET :-)
Friday, April 27, 2007
Return to Hyderabad T-5
As per standard I did pretty well in getting rid of van. At first colleague in office said he is ready to pickup but need to secure loan, somehow it didn't work out but on same day another American couple came saw the car, took a test drive. All the time they were focusing on seats, interiors, dents etc, while I was trying to impress based on low mileage, engine pickup etc. Finally they made an offer. I took a day to decide and call back. Yesterday they came and paid the bankers check, changed the plates and drove off. But there was a small glitch, when I signed the title I printed name on wrong place i.e. on purchaser's name (looks like I am selling car to myself!) so to correct I need to get notarized correction form. Managed to get it on same day and everything is finalized... overall I likeed the way it went. Now with major task done, moving on to rest of packing.
Shippers and Shipping
I choose worldwide shipping company for pallet type shipping. I have following items,
- Leather Sofa, love seat, recliner
- Floor standing speakers for Home Theater
- Bike
- Elliptical machine
- 1 Queen, 2 twin mattress
- Additional 40 boxes medium size
Original estimate is around 350 cu.ft. Based on extensive blogs and research, I avoided buying any huge furniture here in US. Lot of friends who have returned suggested same. It seems in Hyderabad, Malaysian furniture is a good bet to get good quality furniture.
Tomorrow shippers are going to come and we are running hectic in completing all stuff. Since I choose to do all the packing, it’s kind of tiring especially to securely pack sofa etc. For all electronics, I first used bubble wrap and second layer of shrink wrap. For most of them I used original boxes and original form pads. Where ever required poured foam peanuts for shock protection. Coming to furniture
I bought stuff from UHaul furniture pads, they are pretty good. SO, its basically 3 layers, first with furniture pad, wrap it with bubble wrap and finally wrap it tight with shrink wrap layer. I am not sure how things will arrive finally but my commented that they do look like mummies and packing looks quite professional.
Finally for mattress and spring, just used our old quilts and securely tied with ropes.
Now waiting for day for shipping.....
Shippers and Shipping
I choose worldwide shipping company for pallet type shipping. I have following items,
- Leather Sofa, love seat, recliner
- Floor standing speakers for Home Theater
- Bike
- Elliptical machine
- 1 Queen, 2 twin mattress
- Additional 40 boxes medium size
Original estimate is around 350 cu.ft. Based on extensive blogs and research, I avoided buying any huge furniture here in US. Lot of friends who have returned suggested same. It seems in Hyderabad, Malaysian furniture is a good bet to get good quality furniture.
Tomorrow shippers are going to come and we are running hectic in completing all stuff. Since I choose to do all the packing, it’s kind of tiring especially to securely pack sofa etc. For all electronics, I first used bubble wrap and second layer of shrink wrap. For most of them I used original boxes and original form pads. Where ever required poured foam peanuts for shock protection. Coming to furniture
I bought stuff from UHaul furniture pads, they are pretty good. SO, its basically 3 layers, first with furniture pad, wrap it with bubble wrap and finally wrap it tight with shrink wrap layer. I am not sure how things will arrive finally but my commented that they do look like mummies and packing looks quite professional.
Finally for mattress and spring, just used our old quilts and securely tied with ropes.
Now waiting for day for shipping.....
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Return to Hyderabad T-7 and counting
T-7 and counting
We have reached T-7 and things are getting to
closure and on track so far. Biggest items that were bothering were selling car and
disposing off major furniture. Based on experience start planning to sell
car/van well in advance.
Van Sale
I posted adv on craigslist.com and cars.com for selling the Van. From cars.com
no response at all even though they charged $40 for the service. Craigslist is simple and best network available out there. Only risk with craigslist is that often you will end up with lots of non-committed buyers asking too many questions. On craigslist adv is active only for a week, so keep refreshing it and every time you refresh there is sudden active responses. Regarding pricing, I used standard Kelly blue book (KBB.COM) and Edmunds.com websites. Edmunds is more close to market value and if you can close it around that price,its a good deal. Its better to start the process well in advance, atleast 2 months in advance if you want to strictly do private party sale. Selling it to dealer will be a ripoff and especially if they know that you are moving out of country. Few highlights to successfully sell car is that most of the people who come to see you vechile make the decesion within few minutes based on how neat it looks, its kind of LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT syndrome and it WORKS! So make sure car is cleaned throughly
We have reached T-7 and things are getting to
closure and on track so far. Biggest items that were bothering were selling car and
disposing off major furniture. Based on experience start planning to sell
car/van well in advance.
Van Sale
I posted adv on craigslist.com and cars.com for selling the Van. From cars.com
no response at all even though they charged $40 for the service. Craigslist is simple and best network available out there. Only risk with craigslist is that often you will end up with lots of non-committed buyers asking too many questions. On craigslist adv is active only for a week, so keep refreshing it and every time you refresh there is sudden active responses. Regarding pricing, I used standard Kelly blue book (KBB.COM) and Edmunds.com websites. Edmunds is more close to market value and if you can close it around that price,its a good deal. Its better to start the process well in advance, atleast 2 months in advance if you want to strictly do private party sale. Selling it to dealer will be a ripoff and especially if they know that you are moving out of country. Few highlights to successfully sell car is that most of the people who come to see you vechile make the decesion within few minutes based on how neat it looks, its kind of LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT syndrome and it WORKS! So make sure car is cleaned throughly
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