How the concerns got addressed: Internet ...

Getting internet was pretty easy - we went with airtel since got good feedbacks about consistent bandwidth and reliability. Got in-touch with the local number for airtel and they were able to enable the connection in 2-3 days. A person had to arrive to home to enable the wiring and provide the DSL modem (which they sell these days instead of renting). He showed bandwidth of 2MBPs for download but I doubt that is consistent. However, so far the speed has been reliable and pretty usable. All that was needed was address proof, which was the rental agreement.
           
Cost: Rs. 999 for 10GB of download/month. So far, even after working from home for few days, haven't seen the full capacity being used. But, have to say, kids haven't gotten into game sites consistently! School work keeps them busy during week days and week-ends are pretty much gone with family visits. I am sure they can eat a lot of bandwidth given a chance.


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How the concerns got addressed: Commute to work ...

Have to agree, this is one tough cookie! Before we left from US, thought how bad this could be, didn't believe that a 5-6 kms commute can take up to 45 mins but that is true, unfortunately. There are places where construction is in progress and you can easily just stand-still for 10 mins or so. Add few more points on the way to work and it easily adds up. The signals especially are the killers - in many signals, you can't get thru' the signal in one green and have to wait at least 1-2 rounds before you get to the green.
           
This is how much the signals can make a difference - my commute of 12kms to work in the morning takes anywhere from 35-45 minutes whereas the same commute back home takes 15-25mins max since I am able to by-pass all of the signals in the evening with inner roads.
           
The key thing here is again timing - morning commute start getting bad after 9am whereas evening commute starts kicking in after 5pm. If you are able to leave to work before 9am and head back before 5pm, you can save a lot of commute time. Most of the companies are flexible with the timings here since you can't avoid logging back in the evening again anyway. If you are using the company transport, you don't have much flexibility but can avoid the driving hassles at the cost of waiting for others to join the car pools.
 

Another option is taking the bus to work, which can work very well if you are staying in certain specific places, from where you can walk down and take the bus. The BMTC Vajra buses are very good, with a/c and smooth drives but do get crowded after 8:30am or so. You see lots of techie crowd in these buses and that makes the commute bit smoother.
           
Overall, the whole commute situation in Bangalore is not fun and this is something that will take long time to get used to (or you may never get used to at all, after seeing the commutes in US).


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How the concerns got addressed: Driver/rental ...

At Work they would reimburse for a month of cab rental but didn't use that. Funny, found it not as convenient as we thought. Called one of the rental agencies - you can book them now by called a help center with numbers 22222222 or 44444444. But, they need at least several hours of advance notice, if you call two hours in-advance, you get the standard answer that 'no taxies are available in that area, sir!'. I doubt they even check their system before giving the pre-canned response. Called another agency that does work rentals and even they needed advance booking on a daily basis, which was not convenient as well.
       
Fortunately, one of my collegue was going to work on the same area and offered ride along with him until we have the car. Bit of a walk for a common place for pick-up and bit of walk to the apartment from drop off location to home in the evening. Thanks to him, who is an R2I by himself, got lots of fundas on settling down as well, which was quite useful. Being a R2I, he could articulate the issues I would run into and possible way outs.
                               
Driver salary ranges
It was not that difficult to get a driver for the car, again thanks to the apartment setting, where you can post looking for a driver post and somebody will respond. Called few other drivers referred by my friend from another apartment - the salary ranges were high, in the range of Rs. 8000 - 9000, with extra pay for Saturday work and Sunday being off. Finally, settled for a driver, who was ok with a salary of Rs. 7,500, including Saturday work and car wash etc. He didn't know much about Bangalore roads but since I had good amount of exposure to Bangalore geography, wasn't a big concern. Google map can navigate on a Bangalore address these days does help as well!

Option of company lease: Saves on taxes
This is an option I didn't consider but could work out - if you go for car lease with company financing, the interest payments are tax deductible and that could add up. Don't think it works out lot cheaper since the interest payments are pretty high on the lease, in the range of 17%. Whatever savings you have on taxes will get paid on the interest payments. Car dealer can work out the details and can show the difference. To do this, they need a copy of company Id card and the usual other papers like the PAN card, address proof etc.

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How the concerns got addressed: Driving license ...

Thought this will be real hassle but went little bit easier than we thought. They do convert the California     driving license to Indian license - if you have expired Indian two wheeler and four wheeler license, you can produce them as well (again, expired ones are fine) and get the two wheeler added to the license. I couldn't locate my old two wheeler license - seems like I might have disposed it off when I moved to US, in favor of the car license and the IDP that I got while in India. Who knew you would need that two wheeler again!.
           
Went to the local DMV (what is called RTO here) with the usual suspect papers like Rental agreement, PAN card, multiple pictures etc. They do need the rental agreement for address proof and Class-C vehicle description print out from California DMV(easy to get on the net). Had to fill-up two forms - Form 2 and 4, which were available at the reception desk. It was pretty simple to fill-up and put the pictures on. Also, had a pay the fees, which was in the range of Rs. 1000 or so and included some penalty for expired license, getting both two and four wheeler in the same license etc. Since I didn't have old two wheeler license, they couldn't add that to my four wheeler license but didn't that is going to be big deal - I think I will dare to drive on a two wheeler in Bangalore anytime soon, with the rash of four wheelers and pollution, smoke that washes you up.
               
Got stamped envelope for delivery of cards from a stationary store down stairs. Gave the papers to one of the clerks and RTO officer showed after an hour or so. He browsed thru' the papers and asked to pay one more penalty (don't recall for what) and signed the papers - whew!!! It was time for one more pics (that they put on the smart card - yes, the licenses here are now smart card with a chip on it. Come on, California - you can do it too!!.
       
Once that was done, we were told cards would arrive in a week or so. Given the old memories of dealing with RTO, didn't believe they would come so soon but behold, the cards arrived the next week itself, 3 or 4 days from the day we went to RTO. Not bad, not bad at all !!

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How the concerns got addressed: Water supply ...

Already covered in the previous entry about drinking water. All of the apartments have borewells and there is 24 hour water supply for other purpose. 

Water heating is thru' in-house water heaters(also called geysers here), which I wouldn't say are very efficient. But, given that weather itself is warmer in India, there isn't a lot of need of very hot water, including for baths. Fortunately, with the apartment we took, water supply was from within the complex and there was no tanker water being supplied. I have heard that many of the apartments in ITPL, whitefield area get tanker water, whose source is unknown and that makes you bit uncomfortable.

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How the concerns got addressed - Gas connection...

This one became easier than we thought - the apartment had built-in gas supply. Yes, apartments in India do have pre-wired gas connection - this is not from the gas companies but apartments have a 'Gas Bank' where a row of larger cylinders are kept and gas is piped to each unit with individual gas meters.

Not very common in all apartments but this one ended up having, which was a big convenience. Without a ration card, PAN card or electricity bill, it would have been harder to get a gas cylinder and private supply costs double. With the supply at the apartment, all we needed to do was - get a gas stove and hook it up. So far, cost seems to be minimal - we paid Rs 350 or so for a supply of 3 months.

But, eventually there is no escaping from applying for a tank and dealing with all of the headaches that come along with that! 

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Concerns ...

Warn you in-advance, this post is going to be a large laundry list :-)

Who doesn't have concerns with a change? Especially true when you are moving away from one of the world's advanced countries to a developing nation, which you don't expect to see becoming a developed nation in your life time? Following were some of the concerns I had in my mind, without getting some good answers.

Water: Will water be available for most time of the day, even if it is not 24 hours? Water was a big issue few years ago and our question was - has it changed? The last thing we want to do is stand in-line for a water tanker or in-front of a water tap with a bucket!

Pollution: When we visited India, we could see tree-lined street turning blue by evening with smoke. With the heat, most of the doors and windows are kept open which lets in the smoke as well. Specially true, if you are living next to a main street. However, we did see many pockets of Bangalore where you would see fresh air and not much vehcles either. It was clear that location will matter most but the question was - would we have a choice, given the work locations and school location of the kids.

Electricity, internet connection etc: Is the situation same as before where electricity goes off for couple of hours a day? We knew we could have a back-up power supply in-case we need to manage. So, this wasn't a big concern but question of disruption when working from home was still there. Whereas in US, working from home or being at work didn't make much difference in-terms of connectivity.

Long term where India will be?: This is a question for which 'time will tell' is the answer. You do see lot of coverage about growth in India, companies moving offices, expanding in India etc. However, you also know that the political system in India and the corruption etc, which will pull down any progress.

Family interactions: This is a good thing when compared with the stay in US, where you are pretty much isolated. However, can this be a 'too much of a good thing'? I have seen relatives in family circle, who ended up having visiting guests every other day and they expect to be treated as a 'guest'. Can this happen to us? Getting bombarded with relatives when both in the family are working can be a challenge in itself...
       
Kids school adjustment: We had heard lot about international schools in India. Compared to how we studied when we were in India, it was clear that kids from US won't survive that system. The environment would be so culturally different that kids won't find the matching bandwidth to study along with other kids. Hence, our choice was clear - it will have to be international school, at least for few years. However, question on quality of teachers, behavior of other kids in school still remained a question.

I will post down the line how each of these concerns got addressed or have remained still as concerns... (having been in Bangalore for 3 months now after the move as of this post...)

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