Lifestyle outside the box
Posted by Guhan | Filed under thoughts
This post is coming in a little too late, but better late then never. Like most DINK’s ( dual income no kids ) working in the high tech industry, we too decided to go experience the green bill fantasy in the silicon valley. Moving out and settling into a life is harder than one thinks. When you go over the procedures and various relocation service provider introduction mails, you tend to believe that the whole thing is going to be like a walk in the cloud. But you realize that that while “walk in the cloud” may get some literary applause, the practicality of it is actually quiet a daunting task. So in the last 4 months, its been a lot of paper work, coordination, set up, tear down, negotiation, decisions and compromises. But the one that seemed to fascinate me the most was the how our lifestyle went in and came out of cardboard boxes. In an earlier blog post, I talked about how we ended up packing most of the stuff we had into 28 boxes. Now after coming over to the US of A, it was time to unpack all the boxes and set up a home away from home. But this time around, it was not just the 28 odd boxes we had shipped from India, it was a whole new set of boxes that brought in more stuff that seems to define a lifestyle we want. Boxes seem to take so much importance, that even the choice of house was dictated by how much box storage room the apartment home had. So no prizes for guessing, our home does have a very large storage room. Putting stuff into a cardboard box is kinda interesting at first, because you tend to work your brain trying to optimize on how much stuff you can put in. Its like putting together a puzzle, where each piece is an object of different size,weight and fragility level that you intelligently place to minimize the number of boxes used, but still optimize the quality of the shipment. This is what fascinates me, its the engineer in me who wants to solve things. But the interest level sticks on only for a few boxes. After that its just the need to get the job done.
Everyone will agree that un-boxing is always a much more interesting part. I would like to call it the “rip open” syndrome ( that was not too intelligent ) Its the kid in you who acts out the opening the presents / gifts every time you want to empty the contents of a box and its always much faster to rip open a packaging than putting it together. So when our shipment did arrive, everything was unpacked within a matter of 20 minutes.
As I said before, our settling into the home away from home was characterized by the arrival of more stuff in boxes. In an economy that is defined by your purchasing power, we too were seduced into the materialistic craving . We were warned enough about the “do it yourself” lifestyle of the west, the Ikea nesting instinct. So this just means more stuff comes intelligently packed in cardboard boxes. So as we fed our craving, the boxes just piled up in our large storage room. Some stuff we needed, some we really could have done with out. There was some stuff that was just impulse purchase and few more luxury items. But every thing big or small came in a cardboard box.
As engineers we are rewarded for thinking outside the box, the reward for relocation is a lifestyle outside the box.
Over the seven seas
Posted by Guhan | Filed under thoughts, travel
After all the planning, the process churn, the paper work, the farewells and coordination, it is finally time that I write my first blog from the United States of America ! A 22 hour flight across the seven seas is literally a pain the ass. Who ever said the “world is shrinking” might have traveled first class, because when you travel coach class on a 777-400 its always 90 seconds for a minute. This travel time was even longer for us thanks to the Ayodhya verdict, the curfew scare forced us to reach the airport 6 hours before the actual departure of the flight. During all this, I never really felt we were relocating to a far away land to start fresh. It always felt like it was yet another trip to an exciting destination, following the usual protocol, check in luggage, pass x-ray scans, count the foreign exchange, check and double check our passports and over pay for pretentious airport food. When you are on a long haul flight, you never really know when you are awake or when you are asleep. The artificial pressure and cliche air freshener add to the daze. The huge collection of programs and movies on the in-flight entertainment is just another piece in the dream like daze.
I think the reality of the relocation hit me somewhere between the 2nd in-flight Asian veg meal and watching a pale looking vampire trying to save the anemic looking Kristan Stewart ( ironic, I know !!). I started to fear the things I will miss being at home, I started to miss my family, I envied the fun times ill miss with loved ones and friends, I started to fear the possibility that I might get sucked into the band wagon of Indians settling in the US and I started to think whether I had thought this whole thing through. For that moment I know I was awake, because it was a moment of a lot of introspection and re-confiirmation that all this was part of a plan I had in my mind. I told myself that it was all for good, it was all for an experience. I will come back wiser, more knowledgeable and with more ingredients for a possible larger plan.
Its always amazing to see the flood of people at the USA immigration gates. Having been part of that queue 5 times before, I was acting out my “knowing it all” role trying to explain to the wife how the things go down in this joint. The on time baggage and pick up by a cousin was a comfortable welcome for us to San Francisco. I once again was trying to show off my knowledge about the terrain there by discussing the highway names and landmarks with my cousin. It was good that we landed there on a Friday, gave us the weekend to settle in. The Suite America apartment was well decorated. Its actually overwhelming to see the number of Asians in this land, specially Bay area. Walk down any street and it feels like a walk down MG road on a cold cloudy winter day. We constantly kept telling each other that we are just adding to the “Desi” crowd here. The temple and Indian grocery store close to our apartment did not do any good to shatter that bubble.
Flying the team gifted chopper around my apartment in Sunnyvale
Its been 3 weeks since we stepped off that flight and I would say that the days have just zipped by. Its been tonnes of paper work, procedures, signatures, applications etc. In all this, the only thing that stands out is the amount of Paranoia that is built around everything here. For such a advanced country, there is way too much paper work for everything. Its as if everyone wants to save their tail from almost everything under the sun. Bootstrapping here is hard. You need an SSN when you start earning, you need a permanent address to apply for an SSN, you need a ID to buy a Telephone connection, You need your Drivers license to hunt for apartments, you need your house address and your SSN to apply for a Drivers License. In computer science, this would be a classical case of a resource dead lock. The other realization you have is government offices all over the world are similar in ways, though some are corrupt and some are not. A document processing will take atleast 10 days. The paperwork and procedures here really pisses you off at times. But then, for a set up where the system is stronger than the people, these things are bound to happen. The other thing you realize is that if there is one industry that thrives on all the paranoia in this country, it is the Insurance sector. Every single thing needs an insurance and some fee has to be paid.
The other thing I noticed myself doing in the 3 weeks is constantly trying to compare the life we had in Bangalore with the life we might have here. I tried to draw parallels to everything. In the process I tried to nit pick a lot, listing out negatives and positives. These are symptoms of being outside the comfort zone. When you start driving, its a whole new feeling as well. You need to un-learn everything you did while driving in India and start learning the art of driving on the “right” side of the road. Driving in India felt natural to me, it was an extension to myself. Here, when you consciously tell your self about the rules, you become a nervous driver. The ultra big and hopeless turning radius on the Chevi Malibu does not help in getting over the nervousness. But I am getting use to it, and starting to enjoy driving in the the controlled environment, a interesting change from the orderly chaos that is driving in India. If you dont drive, moving around here is really a pain. But since I have started driving, moving around the bay has been fun. The irritating electronic voice of Jill from the Garmin Nuvi helps tells us explore the neighborhood. Work in the new office has started in full flow. It has been fun and I enjoying learning new things. Cricket has started full swing. So the settling in process seems to have begun well.
As time passes, I am hoping the deadlocks, the nervousness, the dual income question, the paperwork etc all sort them selves out and we can truly start enjoying the stay here for we have already crossed over the seven seas, jumping over a few more hurdles should not be hard.
