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.

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

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 :-)

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.....

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

R2H - Return to Hyderabad - T-25

Today, lot of things accomplished. Finalized on movers, spoke to them to confirm on date. Researched a lot and enquired many options, based on all the inputs and comparing side by side, I found that my stuff is less for full container. In terms of cost of full container versus pallet shipping, it was around $1000 which is still big amount for me right now. So I decided to got with pallet shipping. The shipping company assured me that, based on stuff I listed, they estimated 400 cu. ft and would fit on 2 or 3 pallets. In case, it exceeds 400 cu. ft, they quoted $2.5/cu. ft which I thought reasonable. Confirmed on pallet shipping. On packing front I decided to pack myself, espcially my high end home theatre speakers, telesope etc. Adopted following material for packing:

1. Got a huge roll of bubble wrap from Staples
2. Informed Walmart over the weekend usually close to midnight to store some packing boxes. Went in the morning at 7:00 AM, and they stored really good boxes much better than what you pay at U-Haul and in total 40 boxes
3. I wrapped every item into bubble wrap and over it tightly shrink wrapped it, this should give both shock absorbing and water/moisture proof.
4. Once I put them in box, poured foam peanuts aroung and closed it.
5. Especially for electronic items, I shrink wrapped outer box itself (little too much carried away with fool proof packing... yes I can get crazy ALL THE TIME!-)

R2H - Return to Hyderabad, India

T-30 for R2H. Excitements is high also and "TODO" list seem to ever grow and grow.

Still waiting on selling my Van, TV and lots of miscellenous furniture. Everyday is passing on in filling up boxes and sealing up. I am still depbating on following:

- To BUY or Not to BUY LCD
- To buy laptop or desktop

On other front, most of the purchasing is done. Out many intresting things, I could highlight are:

- Refractor telescope
- Polk Monitor floor standing speakers

Hope things come in proper shape and will definitely rock my Home theatre at Hyderabd. Keep visiting at some I am planning to write detailed article on setting up advanced Home theatre ... more to come. Need to run now

New Year Thoughts

Oh! well, new year is just around the corner and can't beleive it that its already another year. Holiday season as it is referred here in USA, this time of season everything around the streets, malls are gorgeously decorated and it is really a splendid view to capture some good pictures in USA. I strongly beleive anybody visiting US should be here during this season and sure will take lot of memories and grandeur in mind for many years.

What wakes me up everyday

This thought wakes me up every day ...

"everyday day I wake up to discover a new day with clouds of previous day still clearing to the rising sun of today wondering what's in store. As I kick those sheets off my legs and get into the rythym of to do's, I want this day to throughly use me to work, to serve, to smile and share the moments with my loved ones, to help everyone I meet to meet their needs and assit any way I can to make a difference. At the end of day let there be thought to do more for tomorrow and slip into dreams to recharge for next day. I dont want to treat my life as melting candle spreading lesser and lesser light, but a growing flame which lights up hearts and flame up spirits and spread it to unknown horizons and unseen vistas"

My View of Grand Canyon

On my recent visit to west coast the most memorable and would be forever is the view of Grand Canyon. No matter how much ever I look at the digital pictures taken during our visit, the vastness and panoramic vistas of nature's wonder I felt at the place cannot be replaced. Nature always sends you signals and want it to be discovered. It happens every moment and at every walk of our life, it can be a simple un-polluted smile to your kid or tender leaf on your cars wind screen or mystic mist of morning sun. But in the hustle bustle of daily chores we never tune into it or plainly ignore it. But a visit to places like Grand Canyon will trigger it instantly the beauty, the vastness and eternal scale of the world around us. Grand Canyon looks different to different people and also churns different emotions based on how you look at it. It can look like powerful force reverberating the warm soulful humming sound of OM or it will look like wild beaten, desolate destiny of end of world or just miles and miles of vast emptiness somehow showing the scale of infinity.

Mystery Spot

Recently I been to west coast tri state trip to California, Arizona and Nevada on a family visit. Out of all places once spot that is still intriguing and strange is "Mystery Spot" in San Jose, CA.
It is a place where people experience strange gravitational anamoly. Laws of physics seems to break and still there is no convincing explanation to it.

To only make things funny theories were OZONE layer hole is just above the spot, some alien machine still runninng inside the ground etc etc. Every visitor has to take guided tour at this place. Tour starts with brief explanation about mytery phenomenon where height of people changes within the mystery spot by 6 to 8 inches. Later you will guided to walk a steep hill where in you feel more stress to climb the hill as thought some kind of extra force is pull you down. On the top of hill there is a cabin that is slanted which is centre of attraction. All visitors spend major part of tour here. Initial demonstartion involves rolling ball against the gravity including some objects from visitors like lipstick or batteries etc. Later you will enter the cabin itself. More notable as soon you enter with guide, is that the guide is standing on a small table and she is slanted by almost 20 to 30 degrees. On the left side of her table, there is pendulum which is also perfecly blanced at an angle instead of vertical 90 degrees. Once you come out of cabin there is demonstration to display height changes .

Overall its quite a place that leaves you wondering and thinking about it for a long time. In fact my wife felt the dizziness even after 2 days of trip to mystery spot.

Physics does not have reason to explain it, Does any body has any thought ?

Dosto

Dosto Welcome to AURBOL blogger

Lets stream line our thoughts, minds, issues, visions to this forum.

Dil khol ke, jo raaz chopa hai ose khol
Jo dil ko chu jaye aise kuch ....AURBOL!