Wish all of the readers a very happy and prosperous new year 2013. 

If you have R2I plans for 2013, wish you all the success ...

Sunrise in Kanyakumari

Bangalore is the best city to live in India - really???

For those of who haven't seen this article, this was a result of the recent survey 'Quality of Living Survey - Worldwide Rankings, 2011' done by the global HR (human resources) consultancy major Mercer.

Read the article here:
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-11-29/bangalore/30453876_1_global-list-living-survey-cities

I can say only this - there might be some truth to this (when compared to other Indian cities) in-terms of climate, high-tech job opportunities, highly educated, mild tempered people etc but infrastructure-wise, Bangalore would loose all of the points. Roads are getting worse day by day with no fixes in sight, no footpaths, uncontrolled housing development etc. If you take all of those into account, Bangalore wouldn't fare much. Also, the 'quality' part can be really debatable - if you haven't seen cities outside of India, may be you can call this some quality but for most of us who have seen what quality is, this is a far cry!!!

Also, if Bangalore is called the 'best place to live', imagine the plight of other cities :-(

R2I in 2013? What you should be doing now?

I covered this topic around the same time last year. What you should be doing now for R2I in 2013 is not going to be much different from what summarized during last year.

If you have not read that post, here it is again:
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4278261385449268301#editor/target=post;postID=7473379386101222317

If you have school going kids, you should have settled on a school by now. If not, there is still time - make sure you use the holiday time to pick a school, talk to the school admin and settle down.

If your kids are not yet school going, your priority would be to sell/rent your house there and pick a location and start filtering down where you would like to stay in the city of your choice. Commuting is not fun (not just long but not fun either) in most of the cities here. So, make some progress on that front.

Of course, there is no better time to cleanup the items. Now is the best time to start to selling unwanted stuff and accumulating what you are going to need once you R2I - this is the shopping season as well in US and other countries.

If you are still debating, settle the debate. Possibly my post on R2I decision assessment would be of help:
http://r2idiaries.blogspot.in/2011/12/r2i-or-nr2i-not-to-r2i-dilemma-take.html

Good luck with your R2I efforts ...

Kids coping with R2I - revisited ...

One of the readers asked about how kids are coping up after R2I here: http://r2idiaries.blogspot.in/2012/06/reflecting-year-of-r2i.html

I have covered this topic here before http://r2idiaries.blogspot.in/2012/01/kids-settling-down-in-india-after-r2i.html

But, let me recapture some of the latest updates on the kids front...

I guess I am the first one to make this up but guess it is worth the say - "You can take the kid out of US but you can't take US out of the kid" :-). Substitute your country of choice in-place of US! Not too surprising indeed since after looking at a much more sophisticated, well-behaved society, it is bit hard to adjust to a environment where things are set back by few years. If you grew up in India, it is hard to see thru' the eyes of the kids who are born outside of India. 

Here was one interesting note from our 6 year old - after coming back from school he said he doesn't like Bangalore. When asked why, he said 'people here drive thru' red light'!!! He was reflecting on the lack of orderliness which we miss as R2I as well but for them it is hard to understand why such things happen here and some sort of negative feeling develops. Unfortunately, you can't do much about it.

But, there are many, many positive things we have seen - my first one is asking about our family connection each time we meet one of our closer family members. 6 year old is 'surprised' to find out that he has '2 grandpas, 2 grandmas, 4 uncles, 3 aunts etc etc. Don't think that kind exposure would have happened being at US and with a month of visit every other year. They are happy to meet and play with their cousins, which happens at least couple of times a year now.

Choice of international school and selection of language definitely made a difference. They are doing very well in school (being in top 3 in the class, getting above 90% score, getting some medals in sports etc).  Older ones will complain a bit about the amount of writing required, which is bit more than what is expected in US. The crowd at school made a big difference since many of them are R2I kids as well. Also, many of the teachers in the school are much more used to dealing with such kids, which makes a difference as well. However, one catch - international schools are definitely on the expensive side. Unless your kid is very flexible and outgoing, plan of starting them at an international school and switching to another regular school in 1 or 2 years doesn't work - kids will have a good friend circle and will resist the move. 

Teaching approach wise, Indian schools are changing as well, even though they are not at par with US schools. There are many hands-on projects, reports to be done with pictures etc. Tests don't require too much of 'mugging' since many questions are objective type. At the end of the day, we haven't seen kids being depressed or in a 'not able to handle' type of situation. The environment is much more competitive since there is lot of parent time that is being put in from all of the parents.

Health is bit of challenge - they do fall sick bit more often. Hope that improves in bit of a time. They do eat much more fruits, drink more juice etc - guess it is the weather that helps. 

Hope I have answered some of the questions you folks have about kids. Pls feel free to drop a comment if you have questions/concerns...