The Minutiae of Moving

This section is just about the logistics and details of the move, and if you aren’t considering moving in the near future, you may skip this section. It’s kind of boring but somewhat important for other travelers.

Our journey began a little before when the movers rolled into our house in early September 2007. We started packing some stuff in advance and also donated some of the stuff we knew we didn’t want; the movers got in a few days later and took care of the rest. Since it was going to take over a month for our stuff to arrive, we planned on “camping” for the most of that month in our home in the US and living in for a few days at our folks’ houses in Pune awaiting the arrival of our stuff. Back in the US we’d made three categories of things, some that will be shipped using the movers, some essentials that we’d carry with us and yet other stuff that we’d use in our house during our camping period and then sell, give away or throw away. So before the movers got in, we marked stuff that they didn’t need to ship with blue masking tape. This tactic worked great, and we were pretty much left with what we expected after our container full of stuff had shipped.

Reading on some of the “return to India” discussion forum websites, there were some interesting pointers about various dos and don’ts regarding shipping , customs, etc. We hired the company “Air7Seas”, and over overall experience with them was very positive. We’d read on the web that we should ask the shippers to put the electronic items closer to the door of the container, but the shippers insisted that the electronics should be at the back (perhaps to prevent theft). When the container arrived in India, indeed, the customs officers asked us to bring out the electronic items so that they could inspect them. Now since the electronics was all the way at the back, it caused a few hours of misery in Mumbai’s searing heat to bring all of those out. Also, the movers in India were a bit more careless, and that little inspection charade caused minor damage to our stuff – which until then was in great shape – including the same padlock that I’d put on it when it went from our house.

The two-three weeks of camping in our own home in the US was fun. It was amazing how we could pretty much live using the junk in our garage. We had about 10 plastic chairs that formed every possible seating, an old desk (basically just wood plank on a steel frame) that was lying in our garage served as our dining table. A folding table that we’d use for parties in our yard served as my computer desk. A couple of spare futons were our beds. An old TV that our kids used to plug in their game consoles was moved to our family room to serve as our main TV. The kids had a few of their toys left over but their biggest asset was the whole empty house to run around and play in. We’d left the backyard pretty much as it is, except their bikes and scooters were gone – but they could still play basketball.

As our travel date closed in, we sold off our cars, and called in our friends to see what of the remaining stuff they wanted. It was quite relieving that most of the stuff we had kept for our camping period was useful to our friends and we didn’t have to just throw it away. Even so, we ended up putting about a mid-sized truckload of stuff into the garbage – including some of the junk that had piled up in our garage over time.

In Pune, we had an apartment that we had started remodeling about 6 months back. As everything in India, the main items of remodeling got done very quickly – in about a month’s time, but the last few details are taking forever and it’s not yet done. Even so, the apartment is now quite livable.

Our stuff arrived in Mumbai in mid-October – a travel time of about one month, but it took an additional week to 10 days for it to actually arrive in our house. I didn’t need to go to Mumbai to clear it, but I went (instead of having to mail my passport to the customs agent). The Nhava Sheva port where the customs inspection took place is quite well organized, though the customs agent (Gajendra Shetty of Akanksha Shipping – an Indian partner of Air7Seas) said that domestic goods import is much faster at the old port in Mumbai. The container storage facility was secure, and unlike what I’d feared, each and every package arrived in our house. The little damage that occurred (including one really nice art piece – that had broken during transit), probably happened in the Mumbai customs inspection task or during transit between Mumbai and Pune.

We had underestimated how little space there is in a typical Indian apartment. You can’t go just by square footage; a house in the US typically measures square footage in terms of “usable space”, whereas in India square footage not only includes every inch of floor including walls and columns, but also a percentage of common areas, so the two are not really comparable. We therefore ended up with about 10 cartons full of stuff that we can’t place anywhere in our house. We will probably end up donating / giving away some of the stuff that we had planned on keeping with us here. And this is after we've discarded a lot of stuff in the US already.

On the move...

Hi guys,

I know many of you are eagerly awaiting an update from me regarding the move, and more than anything else, for the past month or so,sitting at a desk and in front of the computer was not really on my agenda. But now I've settled in to my new apartment, have bought cars, hired a driver, got phones, etc. Diwali is also over along with its distractions, so daily life is less of surprises and more about a routine.

I don't really have a clear verdict, so you might be disappointed if you're looking to find out whether India has been / is "better" for me and my family than the US was. Of course, our decision to move was based on a picture about how life will be in India and how our future might develop, so I can talk about the surprises / disappointments regarding that.

The first thing that I should mention is that in no circumstance can I imagine the move to be a "light" one. It's a huge commitment and a radical step that alters almost every aspect of your life. One can perhaps argue it's really not even the same person that was living in the US before, since so much about him / her has changed as a direct consequence of the radically different environment the person is in when in India. Buying things here and selling off your belongings in the US is an expensive exercise and it's really hard to let go of things there that you've so carefully selected over the years. So if you're considering moving, you better be very sure about it.

At a personal level, things are better for me so far. Life is more"connected", there are a lot of things that I like about being here -and I haven't even started socializing yet. The initial shock of pollution, crowding, traffic, etc. has subsided so given a choice again, I'd quite likely do this again. The same is true for my wife. My younger son (7) has adjusted very well and is quite happy here, but my elder one (10) is still squarely in the "why the hell are we here" camp. He's managing his outlook and emotions very well, but I'm quite sure that deep inside he isn't yet happy with the move.

At a work / career level, I haven't really decided what I'm going to do next. I'm continuing my Internet startup (web2rank) as of now, and it's doing quite well, but it seems somewhat removed from the reality here,so it gives me a little less pleasure than in the US. One thing to note here is that I can definitely feel that the reform oriented nature of the government seems to be unraveling somewhat and parts of government are going back to the "stop everything" mode. IT is still not affected as much, but levels of corruption seem to be rising alarmingly overall (after perhaps some improvement a few years back). This affects the optimism that you see all around and the ultimate"where will my career be 10 years from now" question.

At a social level, I feel very pessimistic and depressed. The kinds of politics, corruption, use of force, media control, education control that the ruling congress party is engaging in is really depressing. It has for the most part probably been the same in India, but now I understand it better I guess. It raises a lot of questions about the future for our kids, and our extended families, etc. I've not paid a lot of attention to all this yet, but knowing that my future is now in India makes me really worried about all this. Ultimately I think about it this way - I've tried moving out of it and in the US I have found myself sitting on the distant sidelines of a vast and rich social playing field. Here, I'm in the thick of a losing battle for almost everything I like, but at least I'm a small part of it and there are a lot of people like me to share the joys and sorrows of it all.

All in all, India is right now in a state of massive change. Right down to personal decisions about what is right and wrong, everything seems to be in question - and the younger generation is at the bleeding edge (our kids being a part of it). It was amazing that while we received a lot of warm welcomes upon our arrival here, very few said "welcome back home" - people mostly said "welcome to India". I wondered why, and I concluded that the place has changed so much it doesn't feel like home to anyone here either!