10 reasons behind a successful R2I

It's been almost a year since I returned to India.  So far, I have never regretted my decision to R2I and my family members feel the same.  Today, one of my friend in the U.S. asked me how I made a successful one year journey in India.  I thought out deeply and introspected the top reasons behind my successful one year after R2I and emailed him in detail.  I thought it might be useful to others as well.  So here are the 10 reasons behind my successful one year of R2I:

1. Strong Motivation to R2I:  I always had a strong motivation to R2I and settle down in India.  I knew deep in my heart that this decision to R2I is in the best interest of myself and my family and our combined future.  This strong motivation to R2I kept me going and adjust myself to the new environment despite some of the everyday challenges I faced in India like pollution, traffic, uncivilized people, corrupt government officials etc. 
2. Affectionate Parents, Siblings, and Relatives:  The is one of the primary reasons behind my R2I plan.  I love and owe them a lot for their kindness and affection.  It's time to give back to them by being close to them and take part in all good and bad.  We never missed any of our family functions or celebrations.  It's so much fun to be there in person and be part of that celebration, joy and happiness.  This is something we missed big time in the U.S.
3. My wife supported me:  My wife and my son never complained about their life in India.  In fact, she was the one who motivated me to consider R2I sooner than what I had planned for.  Moreover, they are leading a much happier life here in India than in the U.S.  My son gets to play with his cousins  and grandparents everyday.  My wife also gets support from maids at home.  So she has plenty of time to take care of my needs and her's too.  She also gets to meet her parents, siblings and friends often.
4. Overlook everything that's not pleasant:  India is still the same India that was 10 years back when I left to the U.S.  Almost everything is still the same - no public toilets or unclean toilets, bad roads, traffic, congestion, pollution, corrupt officials and politicians, bureaucracy, beggars, lack of cleanliness, standard of education in the schools and hefty donations etc.  However, these things were there in India even before I went to the U.S.  So these are nothing new to me.  I changed my attitude to not complain about any of these issues unless I do something constructive about it.  I stopped looking at the glass being half empty but happy that it's half-full.  For example there are more parks that are well maintained within the reach of my home where I go for jogging everyday, there are more flyovers and bridges being constructed to avoid traffic congestion, public transportation is getting better - call taxis, sub-urban trains, share-autos, metro-train within the city.  I can pay my phone bill, electricity bill, sewage tax, water tax, and property tax online.  So I think some folks in the Government machinery is thinking out loud, planning for the future and working towards it. I hope things are slowly improving but may not be at the rate at which we expect it to happen. 
5. Clear Career Ambitions:  I was very clear with my career ambitions when I relocated to Chennai from the U.S.  There aren't many product companies or MNC's for software engineers to work in Chennai.  I know there aren't many silicon-valley style billion dollar hi-tech startups in Chennai.  But still you can find good-enough quality work here in Chennai and it's much better than what it was 10 years back.  Also I knew I cannot make big money in Chennai/India to buy a house but I know I can lead a decent, luxurious life with my income.  I knew how to make my ends meet.
6. Good schools and Options:  There are plenty of new CBSE schools in Chennai.  Also there are schools offering international syllabus such as Cambridge Syllabus.  If you are willing to shell out good money, you can get the education in the school you like.  Also schools buses, vans come to your doorstep to pick up your kids.  There are plenty of affordable after-school programs available such as painting classes, music classes, Hindi classes, dance classes etc.
7. Never look back or compare between India and U.S.:  Past is past.  I never encouraged thoughts like "How good and pleasant it was when we were in the U.S.!" to ruin my life when I face some obstacles or challenges in India.  I never let such thoughts to take a deep root in my mind.  I always reassure myself by saying "I'm grateful to be in India with my parents, siblings, relatives and friends.  Life was so much lonely, mechanical, and money focused in the U.S." or sometimes I would say "Just move on and live your present moment than living in your past."
8.  Investments:  I made all my investments in India.  I had to regularly manage them in person to get ROI.  So logically speaking, I'm bonded tightly with India so that I could reap the benefits out of my hard earned investments.  I'm glad that I made those investments periodically in India during my stint in the U.S.  Now I'm more relaxed and tense free at work, even when they talk about some rumors in the news about huge layoffs in the company.
9. Food tastes much better in India:  I don't know, for some reason, all Indian food tastes much better in India.  It's probably because of the water or the soil quality that makes the difference.  I'm a connoisseur of food and good food makes a huge different to me.  No more gas troubles after drinking cow's milk - a problem that I regularly faced in the U.S. because of the high protein content in the cow's milk there.  Also there are plenty of restaurants in India that offer multi-national cuisine 
10. Travel, Movies: There are so many places to see in India.  We have made it a habit to travel twice or thrice a year to some tourist destination like hill station, national parks, temple, historical site etc  We also travel once a month to some local attraction in and around Chennai.  Every alternate month we have been going to my wife native in down south tamilnadu - a very calm, rejuvenating place in a country setting, with laid-back lifestyle and no hurry-burry.  We also go to movies as a family - 10 members in one car -  every month to have some fun.

R2I - Life in the U.S. versus India

Is life really so much fun in the US and so much bad in India ? It's been almost a year since I returned to India from the U.S. I would like to compare and contrast how I felt about living in both of these places.

Why life is so good in the U.S.:

• As far as travelling around and visiting new places is concerned, yes life is so much fun in the US.  Less problems and more options and better solutions available ( car rental, cheap flights, budget hotels, restaurant, well maintained national parks, RV experience etc ).  
• Also in terms of running everyday life, it is so much easy and pain-free.  Take for example these items:
• Everyday shopping are within the 5-10 mile radius ( which is not a big distance in the US parlance )
• Paying electricity/Telephone/Internet Bills
• Paying property tax, buying property, selling property, getting gas connection etc all have clearly well laid out procedures.
• Also renting out is relatively easier because of the credit history etc.
• Pollution free neighbourhood with public parks and hiking spots.

What is so painful in the U.S. then:

• Commuting to office everyday from dublin/pleasanton/cupertino around the peak hours.  Driving in the slow moving 680/880/101 traffic is not a pleasure, definitely.  You can have fun driving your car only during the weekend or during holidays/vacations.
• Both husband and wife need to work to have a financial freedom.  Then who will take care of your kids on a daily basis ?  Daycares and nanny’s ?  With single income it is so much painful to run the family, forget about the vacations.
• Managing contract workers to get some repairs/constructions done at your home while you are at your office.
• When you get sick, co-payments/medical bills are PIA (Pain in the A$$). If your family member gets sick or needs to be hospitalized you'll have to take off from your work to support them full-time.

Why life is so good in India ?

• The family support system we get in India is unbeatable.  Can sacrifice even heavenly life for this one alone.  Lots of relatives, extended families and lot of functions/get-togethers etc.
• Both husband/wife can go to work and grandparents can take care of your kids.  Actually there is no real need for the wife to go to work for financial reasons, if you have a decent investments in India.
• Medical care and facilities are great and cost is manageable. Most importantly, when you or your family gets sick or hospitalized there is a plenty of support from relatives and well-wishers.
• Maids/servants/drivers to help on household stuff

Why life is so much bad in India ?

• Sometimes your relatives may poke into your personal life, offer unwarranted advice or suggestions, pass comments about you or your family in your absence.  As long as you don’t have such problems or set expectations straight at the beginning itself, it shouldn’t be a big problem.
• Traffic/Pollution during the peak hours; unruly drivers on the highways/ speeding motorists on the streets.  Daily commute to office is unimaginable without a driver.
• Buying selling a property in India is really painful.  Plus visiting a government office to get any document work done, costs you money, time and drains energy.  You’ll have to visit multiple times with so much patience.
• Renting out property, managing tenants and maintaining the property, repair works is so much painful
• Getting school admission for your kids - you need to stand in a long queue to get an application form, go thru a namesake interview process and still get admission only if you influence the management through some known contacts or express your intent to pay heavy donation symbolically.
• Career options are very much limited if your aspirations are to become the next CXO of a company or to work for a billion dollar silicon-valley style hot technology startup.

Vandalur Zoo

I went to Vandalur Zoo last weekend(March 28, 2016) with my family and my siblings’ families.  I should say the overall experience was outstanding.  I felt as if I’m in Singapore or so.  It was very green with lots of trees and more importantly the roads and walkways were pristine clean and no trash.  There were plenty of trash bins everywhere.  They don’t let you take any plastic bags or food into the park.  If you have kids then kids food is allowed.  Also the park employes lots of employees to clean and maintain it.  Based on my knowledge of going there 10 years back, I would say the Vandalur Zoo has been given a significant facelift and maintained extremely well.  I think someone higher official is very sensible and running the park in full control and discipline.

They now have several battery operated cars ( trains ? ) like the ones in Hollywood Universal Studios to take you for a 1 hour trip around the park stopping all major animal attractions in the park.  We stopped to see deer, bison, giraffe, gorilla, chimps, tiger, lion, hippo etc.  It looks like the entire round trip distance is 6.5 kms and it is impossible to cover everything in one day by walk and that too with your kids.  We enjoyed the battery car ride and it made our day more enjoyable.  It costs Rs 350 for one dedicated car for a single family or Rs 30 per individual person.  

There are bikes ( bicycles, I mean ) available to rent ( probably several hundreds in all different sizes).  I saw several youths and kids taking their own tour of the park in these cycles.  We didn’t rent the bike for the tour because few of our kids were less than 3 years old.  

We also did the Lion Safari where they take you in a closed van into an open Lion Reserve.  We saw several Lions and Lioness there.  It costs Rs.350 per family again.  Our kids enjoyed the Lion Safari very much but we were worried about the safety.  Not that bad and people running the vehicles seemed to be meticulous in closing the passenger doors and locking them with keys.  Also the windows and other opening were covered with iron grills for extra safety.  Also they have a double door protection at the entry/exit point to ensure Lions don’t escape when the vehicle enters or exits.

Near the entrance of the park there is an aquarium where collection of fish and turtle are housed.  These were colourful fishes and the fish tanks were maintained very clean and displayed very well.

Our kids enjoyed the snacks we had taken from home.  We also bought aavin icecreams in the aavin ice cream parlour there.  It was relaxing and we all enjoyed our day at Vandalur zoo.  We would visit again in the near future.  Because we went there very early in the morning at 9:00 am, we didn’t see much crowd.  However when we were about to return home at 1pm, we saw huge crowd entering the park.  So we highly recommend anyone going to Vandalur Zoo to go early in the morning to beat the crowd and have a relaxing tour.

Buying Your First Car in India - The decision making process

During the first 6 months after coming to India, I really didn't see a need to buy a car because all my needs were met with the available public transportation and the taxi services available in Chennai, India.  My office provided me a cab service so commute to work was easy.  However, there were at times I couldn't book a taxi when I needed it because the app server was busy or down.  In the last few weeks before I finally decided to buy a car the taxi hailing app experience went down sharply.

When the time came to buy my own car here in India, I went to a lot of showrooms and test drove a lot of cars.  And that's also how I learnt to sharpen my driving skills in India.

Here is my decision making process:

• I listed down my needs for the car - basically when/where I would take my car out.
• I did some online research and jotted down the cars in range with the features I'm looking for.
• Prepared a top 5 list and went to one showroom every weekend to test drive them.
• Prepared an excel sheet with what I liked and disliked in each car model.
• Discussed the models I liked with others in my family and colleagues to get some inputs but took their suggestions with a grain of salt.

List of features I was looking in my car:

• I wanted to buy a car with mechanical transmission because I didn't know how to drive one and it's an opportunity to learn it.  Second, it costs a lac lesser than the one with automatic transmission.  Third, what if I have to drive a manual car one day and I don't know how to drive it because 99% of the cars in India have manual transmission, including the cars owned by my close relatives.  Looking back, that's the biggest mistake I have done in my car purchase process.  I'll explain why later in this blog.
• The reason I had to buy a car was for city commute with my family during the weekends for movie, beach, restaurants and for some errands during the weekdays.  So decided go with Petrol version than the Diesel version.  Also the maintenance cost for a petrol car is much lesser than a diesel car.
• I was looking for a car manufacturer with best quality of after-sale service.  Based on my discussion with several car owners, Mauriti Suzuki, Toyota, and Honda stood top on the list.  No wonder Japanese cars hog the world's top selling cars list.
• I was not willing to compromise on the bare minimum safety features like front dual-air bags and ABS.

My shortlisted cars and test drive experience:

1) Mauriti Swift and Swift Dzire:  Liked: power of the car, sturdy steering with precision control over the car, quality of the make, Mauriti service network.  Disliked: Insufficient legroom both front and back (I'm six feet tall), and the overall seat comfort.

2) Toyota Etios and Etios Liva:  Liked: Toyota service, suspension(awesome), legroom.  Disliked: Cheap parts used to make the car that's obvious esp. doors, dashboard, thin metal sheets, single windshield wiper that too with hardly any power to wipe off water when it pours heavily.  I hate this car and Toyota for having such a bad notion about Indian consumers.  Indian consumers look for a quality product at a cheap price but not a cheap product at a cheap price.  No wonder this car failed to sell in the market.

3) Hyundai I20:  Liked: Interior and refined finish, smooth gear shifts, legroom.  Disliked: Engine lacks power, not so much fun to drive, steering is not sturdy and lacks the control at high speeds, last but not the least horrible stories about the Hyundai service centers - consistently every Hyundai car owner I enquired said the same.

4) Mauriti Baleno Hatchback:  Liked:  Legroom, smooth gear shifts, powerful engine and steering control, safety features for that price point, Mauriti service network.  Disliked: Interior was cheap, seats were of very poor quality, suspension problems report heavily on several online customer review.  Given that this was the first gen car in this model, I didn't want to take any chance.

5) Honda Jazz:  Liked: Legroom, huge cabin space, visibility, quality car seats, boot space, international model (sold as Honda Fit in Americas), dashboard, Interior, quality finish.  Disliked: pathetically engine power at low RPM's, which makes the Honda Fit un-Fit for city driving speeds.  You cannot imagine to over take any cars on the road, if you wish to.

6) Honda City: Liked: Everything.  It's a premium model, semi-luxury car. Disliked: Nothing, may be the price, the government fees and additional tax on >10L cars.  Otherwise I would have gone for the automatic transmission on this model.  It's relatively a narrow car unlike Honda Accord, so the size of the car was never an issue for me to drive.

Final Decision:

Based on the analysis, test drive, budget and my taste for driving, I decided to opt between Mauriti Baleno, and Honda City.  Having driven full-size sedans like Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Nissan Altima, it was hard for me to settle for something like Mauriti WagonR, Mauriti Swift.  Also, consistently all cars in the 7 Lacs range were made with sub-standard quality products and compromised safety features like airbags, ABS, heavy duty body-frame.  So finally I decided to go with the Honda City.  I got the car delivered in just couple of weeks after booking.

I loved Honda cars in general(I owned a Honda Accord in the US) for its power and the Japanese quality of workmanship, so I decided to buy a Honda City, a quite popular and successful model in the Indian (also Asian) markets.

3 Month Ownership Experience:

At the time of writing this blog, it's been 3 months since I bought my Honda City.  So far I have been enjoying it.  It's a no-brainer to buy this car.  No complaints at all.  I'm glad that I bought what I bought.

The only buyer's remorse I have is not with the car but with my decision to buy a manual transmission car.  Looking back I think I should have bought Honda City with an automatic transmission.  It is so much painful to drive a manual transmission car in slow moving, stop-n-go Chennai city traffic.  For every few feet, I have to press the clutch and shift the gears.  Sometime when you have to literally roll your car at 3-5 kmph in a very slow moving bumper-2-bumper traffic with half clutch pressed in the second gear, my knees and ankle cry for rest after becoming so numb.  I wish I had bought an automatic transmission even if the SV model with automatic transmission cost 2 Lacs extra.  It's worth every penny of it.  May be I'll get accustomed to it in the long run, I donno.

What would be my next car ?

In just a month after buying the car, I learnt the art of driving a manual transmission car, including on the steep slopes and rough bumpy terrains - the very reason I bought a manual stick-shift car.  My next car definitely will be a one with an automatic transmission, for sure.  It's so much fun and peace of mind to drive an automatic transmission car.  It'll be a 7-seater SUV too.

What it's like to drive in Indian traffic conditions?

Horrible !  That's how I felt when I was learning to drive car in India with help of a driving school tutor, despite having driven a Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Nissan Altima, Chevy Impala, Ford Focus, Ford Explorer SUV (9 seater), BMW 3 series, Mercedes A series, U-Haul truck, and a 36 feet RV Bus during my 10 year stint in the US.

People here in India drive crazily, including the 3 year old bicyclists who shares the road with you.  They don't follow any rules, signs or signal.  Pedestrians or bicyclists don't have their right-of-way.  The only thing that every driver cares about is: their own car.  If it is a bus driver or a truck driver he doesn't care about the vehicle he drives because it's not his own vehicle.  One thing that I learnt in the first few weeks of driving in Indian roads was that I had to just keep driving without looking at the mirrors and the traffic will either create way for my car or flow around my car.

When the time came, I bought a car too - a brand new Honda City Model S Sedan Silver color Petrol with manual transmission.  Maneuvering, such a big sedan on the city main roads was not a challenge for me because I have driven similar cars in the US.  The biggest challenge for me was to drive within the arterial roads (streets) of the Chennai city.  I had to share the road with bicyclists, street hawkers, parked bikes and cars along the road, and the vehicle that's coming in the opposite direction(sometimes it could be a mini bus).  Another pain point was driving with manual gear shift, especially when one had to keep rolling slowly with clutch half pressed.  Driving just in second gear, not overtaking any vehicle including a bicyclist, foreseeing problems before it happens, giving way to a bigger, rogue vehicles( taxi drivers, garbage truck, mini bus) coming in the opposite direction, and just keep rolling my car even if it's 5 km per hour, has helped me survive thus far.

With just 3 months of ownership, I feel I should have bought an automatic transmission; it's worth every penny it to drive in the congested slow moving city roads.  It's so much painful to press your clutch too often to shift gears.  Sometimes, I feel so much pain in my leg joins that I wanted to give up in the middle of the road amid traffic.  But other than for that part, I love my Honda City for the shear pleasure of driving it.

The mantra I follow to drive in Indian roads is:  drive slow, don't overtake others in the city roads, take it easy and let others pass you if they wish to, be nice to others whenever possible, avoid accidents before it happens, don't claim your right of way especially with taxi drivers, trucks and government buses, don't try to teach a lesson to some rogue driver because the damage will be yours too, be a defensive driver and finally, be an aggressive driver when it is fully safe to do so.