Back after a looooooong silence

Finally found some time to write, Been back to India since Dec 2012 and the ride so far has been awesome. Cricket, Politics, Mangoes, Biryani, Weddings... list is endless.

India has definitely become even more congested and expensive since our trip in 2007-09. Most of our good friends had moved out or a little away so it was tough to get back in touch. Got kids adjusted to school, moved into a rented apartment and by the time we could settle a wave of weddings came out way. 5 weddings in 2 months. That too all in close family..

Why India will never Change

Since our 2 year stint in India I have come back with a firm conviction that India will never change (and I guess that's what some people like about it). There is a lot of talk about progression; new generation; change; whatever...
The problem I think is systems here try to conform to the attitude/behavior rather than change it. At times it is also seen as a great customer experience.

Of the several reasons here is an example why attitudes/behaviors won't change...
If you have been in a security check line at any of the domestic airports you will hear airline reps screaming for passengers who are late for their flights. If someone is supposed to be on a 7:00 AM flight to Hyderabad and its 6:30 AM and you are the 110th person on line; this Jet Airway (or any airline) dude will come screaming: "Any Passengers for Hyderabad or Jaipur flight??", and the person like a Hero/Heroine (mind you not ashamed) will walk out of the line. Then (s)he will be escorted in style ahead of all the passengers who have some respect about time (not many exist); jump through security and promptly taken to the aircraft.
Now why on earth if such an awesome system exists that instead of penalising latecomers actually makes life easy will anyone come on time? Most certainly I won't.

Because I am no Gandhi to "be the change I want to see". You know why? Because every time I want to see the change, jokers like mentioned above happily are served better. Either Gandhi had it easy by having only 300 million folks of which most of them had a common purpose; or I don't have the patience to change 1 billion (of which 300 mill are of the "joker" category mentioned above). I think the later is true ;)

We are back to the USA

In line with my previous post where I say that time flies when you are having fun, I guess we had so much of it that 2 years zipped by. The last year must have been specially more fun as I didn't even get to blog :). Though I always had things in mind to write never got to type them.
Anyway we are back and settling down. I personally am glad to be back, the family is still mentally back home. My little one in fact didn't even wan't to come back and was OK with staying with her Grandma. My boy had enough of India though and was looking forward to come back. Pallavi, don't even get her started.
I will pen my experiences back home more often, though after the fact.

A Year Already:

They say when you are happy time flies. I guess that’s what it must be as we didn’t realize that it was already a year since we left and what a year it has been.

I had promised myself that I would write frequently but after about 6 months into it other events took over and I started finding less time for this activity, or should I say for myself.

Positives:

• We are all totally settled out here. Most of our neighbours know us and we have Saturday movie gatherings and potlucks. Our kids know pretty much every kid in the community and I use the kids as a directory when I need to find someone’s apartment number.
• We do not ask for Bottled Water in decent restaurants any more.
• Sickness, touch wood has been to bare minimum and limited to colds and the usual stuff.
• Anurag and Anushka can now carry on a full conversation in Hindi. They always have some or the other friends to play with, so they are really enjoying “childhood”.
• Pallavi drives the car freely and even to the crowded parts of the city. She actually can drive to Himayatnagar and Kachiguda (only folks in Hyderabad can appreciate this).
• The maid has turned into a full time maid + part time cook. The trust factor has increased to the point where she has access to the house even when no one is there.
• Pallavi has started working part-time, and is enjoying, and things seem to run fine, even better in the new routine. She is happy she gets more time every day to do the things that really matter, rather than housework, driving, etc.
• We can plan a few weekend trips to go visit family in different parts of India.
• Ability to watch live sporting events that you love. We watched the IPL cricket game, junior hockey Asia cup semis and finals, AFC challenge soccer games. I still have bad memories of being dragged into a baseball game that never seemed to end and lack of action in that sport.
• Can’t help mention the 24X7 cricket and MTV, VH1 desi again
• Way too many good restaurants have opened lately and we have been enjoying each one of them.
• Because we were in India, we were able to attend Pallavi’s brother’s engagement. I don’t think we would have flown down from the US for the engagement.

Negatives:

• Put on 15 kgs since I came back to India
• Traffic still remains a nuisance and I just cannot get over it. Only thing that has gone down is road rage when I am in the passenger’s seat.
• If things break down may God save you! My broadband connection had issues and it took me couple of weeks of calling twice a day and constant argument to get it fixed. Or our friend’s new washing machine broke down, and its been more than a month since they have been waiting for the company to fix it.
• Power cuts. Right now we have 4 hours of power cuts. The generators in the community run on diesel and right now we have a diesel shortage. So we have to climb the 8 floors by stairs during those four hours, apart from other nuisances.

Annoyances:

• The never ending 5 minutes. When someone says that he will be there in 5 minutes or something will get done in 5 minutes it could take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 days or may be months.
  
• People cut lines: does not matter how professional or upscale the environment is.

Why do people cut lines:

One of our colleagues who is from Hongkong and has spent a lot of time in the US is also in the India office for a one year assignment. Because of him we have started noticing that people cut lines a lot. Every single day that he has been here some one cuts the line he is standing in when we are at the cafeteria. He gets very pissed off and yells at the person. That started a discussion on this topic. Here are some of the reasons that came out:

• People don’t value and respect others’ time.
• This is a cultural problem in India
• There is a lack of resources in India and hence people have to fight for everything.
• A lot of people that work in the professional environment come from a background where they don’t have exposure to the so called “civilized” way of life. So these habits still remain with them no matter where they go
• Everyone likes to do a little bit of mischief and break the rules once a while.
• The fittest will survive is true in South Asian countries which leads to this kind of behaviour.

I would love to see more reasons here in the discussion forum.

The FRRO Process:

March 5th 2008 - Since I entered the country as a foreigner I had to get myself registered at the FRRO. Shalini, the IOS consultant, was helping me out with the process. She helped us out in our relocation also and is a lot more than an IOS person to us almost like family. She gave me the good news that we don’t have to go all the way to old city for the process. Cyberabad has a new office now and documentation requirement is also a lot less. The form was to be filled online and it all seemed so 21st century until we reached the office. No matter how much technology and advancements you have once you have to deal with people not much changes. The ACP who is supposed to be a work around 10 never shows up till 11:30. We got there at 11:30 as Shalini knows the drill. Then you go in and the folks there validate information you entered online with the supporting document you carry. The person doing it seemed like he was seeing the computer for the first time. So after a painful half an hour and help from some other guys we got through it. One of the questions in the form is Place of birth, for which I entered SANGLI, my birth city. Now this moron is trying to match SANGLI with his document that requires INDIA. So I told him SANGLI is in Maharashtra. He goes: which COUNTRY is that. I didn’t know whether to roll with laughter or kick him so hard in his brain that he remembers some history and civics lessons. You really cannot make technology work with these kinds of jokers. Then they take a picture of your IRIS. Another half hour to figure out how to do that. The printer in the room was not working so they had to print it in some other room and fetch the documents. It took them 15 minutes to get the documents so I think it also includes a tea break. Then two other folks sign/stamp it and pretend to check it. After this entire circus we have to go to the ACP’s office for the final signature. He is a bit agitated as we were interrupting an important TV show he was watching. He looks at the documents and points out a mistake of the expiry date of the FRRO permit. Apparently the program has the classic developer’s bug where you don’t clear/refresh a field before populating it. If you don’t clear it and leave it blank then the old values carry over and that’s what happened in my case. At least the ACP justified his salary by pointing it out but what were the two morons being paid for. They signed, stamped and pretended to validate my docs. Our tax money working really hard. So went down and then they decided to do a manual override. But guess what, it was their lunch time by then. So another delay of about an hour and after several attempts they finally had the documents ready. So we go to the ACP again. Well he is still watching another TV show. Takes our docs and starts signing. After 3 out of 5 signatures another dude walks in. I am sure he was more important than me as the ACP starts a dialog in Telugu for good 5 minutes. Finally it is all done and we come down. So something that should have taken about 30 minutes took us 6 hours. The consolation was the manager below apologized for the delay by blaming it on lack or resources and technology. Wasn’t technology supposed to simplify life? It will, if the right people use it. Mera Bharat Mahan.

Journey back to India:

Feb 21st 2008 - After getting the passport I had to get a visa, and not just any kind, I needed an employment visa. What an irony. 12 years ago I came to the country with my H1B visa and now returning back with an H1B for my own country. The process wasn’t as painful but I had to spend 4 extra days. My return ticket was for the 20th and got the visa that afternoon. So we went to the city with my entire luggage, picked up the visa and went to the airport directly. Srini left and I had about 4 hours to kill. Made a few phone calls. There was a weird feeling all along. The same feeling I used to have when I used to come back from India each and every time after a vacation. The feeling of why do I have to go back. I didn’t know which country I could call home anymore, back home really means different now.