An year in India

Last august we were busy in packing our bags. Busy on craigslist to find buyers for the furniture etc. I remember even on the last evening we had sold few smaller items. It can happen only in US.

So now it is almost a year and it is apt to write something about the experience so far.

Good things first.

It was a joyous occasion to be present with the family in my brother's marriage. The young couple seems to be enjoying the new chapter in their life. May god bless them.

Further we went to our native village for my son's Mundan (first hair cutting ceremony). It was after 8 years for me and first time for the wife and kid. Things have changed very much there. Now we have solar lamps in our village. The roads have improved a lot. The road from Mujaffarpur to Darbhanga can be compared to expressways. (Maybe i am exaggerating here a little bit)

Workwise i like the challenge. Getting lots of opportunity to learn new things ex. we have worked on 2 agile projects. Now there is focus to learn new UI technologies which i didn't have to so far. Further learnt a couple of things about estimating software projects. Had to learn it in a hard way though. More on this in upcoming post.

Pune (the city where we are currently living) has very nice weather. It was not too hot nor too cold. Although it does rain a lot here. I don't mind that. It is pleasant to drive my motorcycle(maybe a bit dangerous too) when rain is hitting on my helmet.

Not so good things

Driving a car is pain. We have got a manual transmission car. First there is a learning involved in how to switch gears. And then you have to be careful about who is coming from which direction. So far i haven't dared to take my car to a movie theater and find a parking place. Someday i will gain that courage.

Housing expenses are huge. Rents and cost of houses have sky rocketed. I don't have a big salary but kind of earn enough as per the market. Even then i am facing this pinch. I wonder how can common government salaried person afford this.

Late evening meetings. Since being an offshore development organization we need to hold meetings with our US counterparts. And most often they start at 7:30 in the evening. But i guess that is just part of the job.