And You May Ask Yourself , “How Did I Get Here?”

Rewind to the summer of 1991 – as I prepared to leave Bangalore for a stint at business school in Rochester, NY, an astrologer our family was then consulting with (on various matters of considerable cosmic significance, no doubt) made a vaguely portentous announcement to my parents: your son will return to India at the age of thirty five.

My reaction: unlikely, but sure, whatever.

In July 1991, I had only one goal – to get the hell out of Bangalore, and India, before I lost the drive to do it, and instead continued to drift along as a modestly successful software salesman. It was a decent life – it paid for pitchers of beer at Oasis, gas for the bike, cigarettes, and general sustenance. But I also had this nagging feeling that I did not “fit” in this picture, and that change, any change, was an urgent necessity. And so it came to pass – two years in Rochester, an interesting drive across the United States to Seattle (unemployed, with degree in hand), followed eventually by a little over a decade at Microsoft.

Fast forward now to April 2003 – I was back at work as the head of Microsoft IR after a two month sabbatical, most of which I had spent on the couch watching the Indian cricket team reach the finals of the World Cup. At our first one-on-one meeting upon my return, John (my boss) asked me what I had learnt during this valuable time off.

Honest answer: Um, well, like, hmm.
What I blurted out: John, I would like to spend some time working and living in India.

I was wholly unprepared for, and alarmed by, the momentum of what happened next. By the summer of 2003 I had committed to a two year stint in India helping script Microsoft’s strategy there, found a place to live in Bangalore, and we were packing to move. It had not been an easy decision, and Divya and I had debated long and hard about whether this was the right time for a move of this magnitude. In the end it came down to a few simple truths: we were at an age where we could take risks and be adventurous, we both needed to know whether or not living in India was a long term option and this had the makings of a great dress rehearsal, Shilpa would have an incredible time with her grandparents, and there were no restrictions in shipping our dog Simba into India. And so we took the plunge.

On June 21, 2003, at a surprise birthday party that Divya threw for me, I turned 35.

Darn soothsayers!!

To Be Continued...

There & Back Again - Two Years In Bangalore

“You know, you really should capture your initial thoughts about what it feels like to move back to the States on paper” remarked Sanjay. “Write about them when the thoughts and feelings are still fresh.” I agreed distractedly, mentally filing that idea in the already bursting “Plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines…” section.

It was the evening of January 9th, 2006 and I was doing my final round of goodbyes. The movers had come and gone, and in the brief space of two days, transformed our lovely home of the last two years back into just another house, empty, bare, and unbearably sad. We were all packed, making final shopping forays to fill whatever space remained in our suitcases, and grabbing bites at our favorite eateries (soup and salad at Sunny’s for Divya, mutton biriyani and Guntur chicken at RR for me).

There was a sense of detachment and numbness, a surreal acceptance that tomorrow life would continue just as it always had in Bangalore, but suddenly everything would be different for us as we winged our way back to Seattle, to continue a life we had left behind, in a home almost frozen in time.

And so we departed early the next morning, closing the book on a period in our lives that we had begun with a million doubts, and ended up enjoying more than we ever imagined possible. On the flight, I found myself thinking about what Sanjay had said, and I realized he was right – writing about one’s experiences made sense only if it was fresh enough to capture those fleeting, sometimes disjointed thoughts that race through our minds as things happen in real time. I would do it.

However, this decision also unwittingly unleashed The Beast. As friends, family and co-workers who know me well can attest, I am not readily given to pithy phrases, succinct explanations, and simply communicating “the gist”. I prefer instead the long, verbally grandiose form, and when in doubt, to begin with the singularity, lest the reader lose any thread in the plot. Hence the somewhat Tolkien-esque title for this travelogue, if that is indeed what it is.

To Be Continued...