Singapore

Prelude My grandfather was an incredibly disciplined man, a teetotaler and vegetarian. Traveling as a vegetarian is a painful thing. It still is, but it must have been worse in the 60s. And yet he travelled quite a bit in his day. One of his such trips was to Japan. I think it was Tokyo or Osaka, but I don't recollect too well now. There were a few stories of his that stuck with me: one was about how difficult it was to get decent food - if you were a vegetarian, they understood you to be a herbivore and usually only had raw fruits and vegetables. He didn't think it was discriminative - rather, they didn't cook anything without an element of fish or meat in it, so this was the only option. The other was about how punctual and polite people acutally were. Many of those stories ended up creating a desire to try and live in Japan for a couple of years. While I am not sure if I will do that yet, my trip to Japan was a fantastic opportunity to experience this wonderful place. ...

The biggest update since the last time I posted something is that I have moved to Chennai. Singapore is fun and a great place to live, but perhaps it didn’t work out very well for my career aspirations. It did work great for the wife, but she is happy to back in Chennai as well. Besides she is on the planned break for Sid, so maybe it doesn’t matter all that much in the short term. ...

The sector that really needs better marketing folks is the real estate sector. At least the residential real estate market in India and to some extent in Singapore also. Today someone from India wanted me to buy a house in Bangalore. Apparently I could do that with just a 7lac payment and then rest upon possession. I had a couple of problems with the call: It was made at a completely inappropriate time. I dunno if there is a way to say what is a more appropriate time, but it maybe polite to ask after you make the call. Assuming that picking up means am idle is a tad incorrect. And keep your opening line simple and clear. Maybe I have an answer as soon as I know what you call for. Or maybe after you tell me the city you are talking about? Do some research please – I have never, all my life so far, searched for even rental spaces in Bangalore. I have never written on any of social networks that I’d like to settle down in Bangalore. Not even once. Thinking about it, I don’t think I even talk about Bangalore unless I have to mention something about my cousins there. But then, I have never had to mention them on any social network. Oh yes, many of my friends are in Bangalore. But please check my interaction levels with each one of them. No. I am not going to Bangalore. And I don’t intend to own real estate in places I don’t want to go. Don’t tell me you don’t have this data. I didn’t give you my number in the first place. Remember? I made the mistake of attending a real estate fair about two years ago. I thought – now that I am an NRI, maybe I could suddenly afford all the houses in India. I got my answer about 10 minutes into the fair. I never went back again. There have been 6 or 7 fairs since. And my absence is each one of them should tell you something – either I already picked something or I am not interested. What part of my absence don’t you guys understand? Even in the sole fair that I attended, I only visited stalls that had properties in Chennai and Coimbatore. Neither of these places are a 2 hour drive from Bangalore. Not yet, at least. And please stop advertising and marketing the fact that your properties are very close to international airports. Let’s look at this a little closely Nobody goes to work in an aeroplane in India. Unless they were pilots. Nobody goes to work in the airport unless they are staff or security. No, I don’t have my own aircraft. And please think about the number of people who picked your property that have their own aircrafts. I don’t intend to buy one any soon either. And I might even consider proximity to domestic airports – but international airports just beat me. I don’t want to own a property that I stay in for a few days a month. I am better off staying in a hotel. And I don’t see how I could rent my property to pilots, airport staff or security. Given how bad most airlines are doing, this doesn’t seem very exciting. It doesn’t help either that the property is very close to engineering colleges. For what it is worth, I don’t have a kid yet. And when I have one, it is very likely I don’t want him in Engineering. Oh, the engineering colleges that are near your property are neither Anna University nor IIT. Even if my kid decides to study engineering, I won’t pay up unless he/she studies in an IIT or a Anna University. Of course, there is a very good likelihood that the obscure college near your property does better research than both these places combined. I don’t mind regretting my decisions in that case. And all this is at least 19-20 years into the future. Maybe the college would close down by then. Or maybe they would be a different state or a different enrollment examination? So don’t bother selling something so distant in the future. The only thing that matters is the proximity to a healthcare facility. One with good doctors and good equipment. Rest else fall flat. And yet, only a few can claim this. For singapore only – While most of the above are not applicable to Singapore, they do claim proximity to MRT. Once I saw a property ad that was just 30mins from a very prominent interchange. I was stunned given its pricing. But then you need to think again. 30 mins from that interchange could potentially take me anywhere on the island. And that is quite bad for your marketing 🙂 Wake up guys. Already the market is volatile and stressed. Bad marketing on top of this cannot do much good. Or at least, leave me out of your loop. ...

I find this an oft-returning thought to me. I completely believe in assuming responsibility to what happens with my life. And truly, my career and life so far is a reflection of conscious decisions I have taken thus far in my journey. But every time I look back, I clearly see the mistakes I make. Some of these mistakes are fairly disastrous. I sometimes wonder I shouldn’t have joined IIT. I always knew I wanted to be on my own. IIT was not a logical step in that direction – as in – not a step aimed to directly equip me for this. IIT was a dream and I pursued it. But should I have pursued that dream in lieu of a losing a bigger dream? ...

Two years of iPhone has served me very well. Now I need to renew my contract and I can get another device with the new contract. I could forgo a device, but I may not be able to get a device in the contract later on. So, it put me in a fix. Fix because the contract does not support picking a 5S device. Or even a 4S device. And I am not sure if I want to lug around a bigger handset than that. iPhone 6 is big. Its bigger than I like a personal handset to be. Maybe I am stuck in the 2000s and the world has moved on. But I can choose to remain in my own little time warp, can’t I? ...

Last weekend I had a very bad tooth ache. Clove oil wouldn’t work. And it got so bad that I actually went to a dentist. Oh! And getting a dentist appointment in Singapore is next to impossible – I guess every one is fixing their teeth at all times. After quite a few failed attempts, the wife managed to land an appointment in one clinic. Dental treatments in Singapore are a luxury. It has a reputation for being overly expensive. Maybe people are mostly getting their tooth to look good than fixing aches or root-canals. And usually dental treatments are not covered by group medical policies or insurances. ...

One of the things that is uniquely Singaporean is their hawker centers. Cheap, good quality food. Of course, being a vegetarian, my options in a hawker center are quite limited. And you can find one in every other block – basically you are never too far away from good food. Perhaps why services like Food Panda are not a major hit. Besides the hawker stalls don’t cost you any more than $3-$4 for a good filling lunch. I don’t think anyone can quite beat that deal at all. Also, delivery services are quite expensive across the island. Perhaps just the cost of employing personnel wouldn’t really help you cut down the cost any further. Maybe this space is open for some innovation, but that later. ...

Lantiq got acquired by Intel. It was in the news all over the business world. In some sense, it was the best that could happen. And Intel is the dream company for most people who studied electronics. It had been my dream too when I was just finishing bachelor’s.I am looking forward to working in Intel. I am fairly confident they’ll take me in. If I think about it, 2015 has been a fabulous year. I am regaining my ground and Noni also thinks am becoming the confident and pushy guy that I used to be, not so long ago also. I made some great progress in some directions. And I am making more progress in multiple facets, not just technical career. I see a long way ahead, but am at least walking. ...

So we are entering a certain level of uncertainty in our lives this year. Many times the uncertainty are related to my wishes and hopes about my future. About our future. About our dreams for our future. This time it is different. And hopefully we come out stronger when this has passed. Of course, for the first time, we have very little give or take from the outcomes. We have a wish-list for what we expect to happen. The rest is just as ok too. ...

2015 indeed started on a great note for me. I managed to get a 1-1 meeting with the Harnhua – Co-Founder at Plunify, a startup specialising in FPGAs and cloud computing based solutions for this space. Well, technically, they aren’t a startup anymore, just a small company. But from my talk with him, I understand that they are pretty much the startup that they set out to be. And probably have all those startup problems 🙂 ...