:: long time no see ::

it has been over eight months since i blogged. life changed quite a bit over that time and it was tough to keep up with the changes, let alone spending some quality time blogging. anyway, i hope to be back on track and share my experiences for folks planning to R2I to hyderabad and in general about India.

finally made the big move from Boston to Hyderabad on may 15, 2008. wrapping up things in the US and setting up things in Hyderabad is the story of my life for the past eight months. overall, things turned out better than expected.

first of all - apologies to all friends who are wondering why their emails went unanswered till now. i will start communicating regularly from now on. there is no real reason for that behavior except for the shell that we have been living in since the move.

in the next few weeks, i will describe my R2I experiences, the India i left in 1995 and the India i returned to in 2008, life in general. life is going on - kids are in schools, i am working, vijaya (my wife) is interviewing, got a permanent address in India, finishing up setup tasks with the hope of leading a normal, routine life. i will start with some of my theories :)

:: R2I is a mindset ::

the best way to summarize R2I is that it is a mindset. if one wants to R2I and stay that way, all that is needed is the right mindset. everything else is secondary. it mostly won't be an easy transition, regardless of how well prepared you think you are. if one has the right mindset and not think like "if i were in the US ..." or "only in India ...", there will be a lot less perceived issues. it is tough not to think that way in the initial stages, though :) it looks like, both vijaya and i had some very realistic expectations (thanks to R2I blogs and bloggers) which helped us immensely and also to come up with a workable plan which may ultimately keep us in India for good. our plan was to give it a full two years. based on the success stories, that seems to be the magic time frame - about six months to settle in, another six months to get used to the new way of life, another year to actually live the new way life - at which point "new" can be dropped. if we are still thinking like "if i were in the US ..." or "only in India ..." by then, we will call sky2c and lufthansa.

it has been close to three months since we R'ed2I. there are complaints and pleasures. there are moments of frustration and rejoice. there is a sense of loss and accomplishment. there is also - a sense of belonging and pride - and that's what drives me.

enough bhav for the day. i will end with a funny name plate i noticed for a restaurant in hyderabad -

Patio restaurant (Air-conditioned) - "only in India ..." (just kidding! :)

M. Anil Kumar (silly thing but it feels nice not having to say "m as in mary, a as in apple, n as in nancy, g as in george, a as in apple, l as in lisa, a as in apple, m as in mary, p as in peter, a as in apple, l as in lisa, l as in lisa, yes two yells, and i as in idaho")

:: debating the debate ::

i was in toronto for a few months in 2001. one of the tv channels there had a feature - anyone can pay a buck, walk into a room with a camera and say whatever for a minute and if accepted, it would be broadcast. i thought it was pretty cool. last night, i watched the cnn-youtube republican debate and was amazed with the way the concept evolved.

there is so much being said about the content of the debate. so i won't go into that. i just wanted to debate the idea of average people like me being able to directly ask questions of presidential candidates.

:: pros ::

:: about 5000 questions were submitted and that would have covered a number of "real" issues that people are facing.
:: the idea is great, it is motivating to a lot of people to watch the debate and hopefully results in better awareness of issues, each candidate's position on them, and may be increase voting rate even.
:: it is interesting and encouraged people like me to watch.
:: it is using technology and encouraging innovations like youtube.com.

:: cons ::

:: i absolutely believe that there has to be a dress code imposed for people asking these questions. i am not a citizen, i can't even vote and i felt really bad with the way people appeared in these videos to talk to a potential president of the united states. i thought these candidates deserve more respect and they earned it.
:: the filtering process - i thought the questions selected were not great and not reflective of the real issues facing america. so a number of people may feel like they had wasted their time posting videos and could get discouraged for future debates. i hope not.

on a lighter note, i heard something recently on a talk show, really liked it and wanted to share. hillary clinton made a statement a while ago like "i could have stayed home and baked cookies but decided to do something with my life" (not verbatim). i am sure a lot of people were unhappy with that statement. so a stay-home-mom called and gave her response - she was going out to buy some stuff at a grocery store and her husband asked what she was doing. she responded saying "you know, i could be a senator but i decided to do something with my life and bake some cookies for my kids for thanksgiving" :)

two weeks from now, i may become eligible to vote in this great country!

good day.

:: anil ::

:: don imus ::

i just heard that "don imus" is coming back to talk radio on dec 3rd. very exciting! other than the selfish reason that my morning commute is going to feel a lot better listening to i-man, here are my opinions about the whole don imus issue -

any one who listens to imus knows how funny he is and how good his heart is. all of imus's sponsors and employers seemed to have shared the same value system with one value in it - "political correctness". that really irked me. granted, i had to look up what imus's comment meant (myself being a foreigner :) but ignoring all the context and punishing him was probably more un-american than what was actually said. i still don't know who gained what from firing him. does anyone even care?

the fact - that he got fired for making a silly comment about a college basket ball team - made me sad and provoked a thought process in me. i am desi (a person from india) living in the states. i am a minority. i never wanted to be treated like one. i rarely was. if i hear someone make fun of desis, i will feel bad. but if the same thing happens in india, i would probably ignore that or enjoy that. it made me think (for the n-th time) - why am i in the states and choose to be a minority? reasons are many but what matters is that it is my choice. my very own choice. i still remember how excited i was the day i landed on the land of opportunity. i am still excited about living in the land of opportunity. but... i don't want to be a foreigner, a minority all my life. i want to belong. one of the main reasons for our r2i (return to india) in may 2008.

into my second beer and i start rambling :) the day was filled with good stuff - first snowfall of the season, good day at work, don imus is coming back, thanksgiving wishes... it was a great day! hope yours was too.

:: anil ::

:: preamble ::

acknowledgements :: technology is a wonderful thing. what creative people do with it is even better. noticing how like minded people are able to interact by blogging started to amaze me. thanks to the internet, the concept of blogging and sites like blogger.com for enabling this with such style and simplicity.

why :: here i am, blogging for the first time. i have no real goal to accomplish through my blog. may be in time, it will happen. i just started liking the idea and wanted to give it a try. hope is to make some friends, make some people laugh, spend some quality time with myself and may be rid of some stress :) wish me luck!

what is "bakmak" :: means "mind" in turkish, says dictionary.com. i liked it because my real friends call me "mak" - an acronym of my initials per my name in india - mangalampalli anil kumar. it had my nickname, meant something of what this represents, and best of all it was available.

one of my interests :: talk radio. my long commute to work made me a talk radio addict. i mostly listen to jay severin and michael graham on fm96.9. that helps me understand a number of things about america, english language, how to speak well and so on. anyway, just wanted to share something that recently was said by jay severin which makes me laugh whenever i remember it -

president bush recently said something like "so it proves that chlidrens learn by practice". in response to the president's inept language skills, jay severin responds - "childrens do learn, but presidents don't".

hope you liked it.

:: anil ::