Valley Chai

finally (!!) we got our household goods delivered to our home in bangalore yesterday. here’s the story of the voyage of my stuff across the 7 seas.

we basically chose our shipping carrier (air7seas) on the basis of the ads they place on various free mags that we used to browse around at desi food joints. they charge about $3,000 (incl insurance) for about 30 boxes, a bicycle and a bed frame/mattress. they charge based on sq.ft volume, and our stuff probably filled 1/3 of a container.

we spent about 15 days to get our stuff organized and we boxed everything into about 30 boxes, and scheduled a pick up on Jan 18th. on that morning, two mexicans came in a white truck and hauled our stuff off, after packing some of the larger items with huge cardboards and a humongous roll of shrink-wrap. the job was superbly done by the young working-mexican under the watchful eye of the old watching-mexican. couple of hours later, boxes and the bed are gone.

and then the stuff then sits in air7seas warehouse in milpitas. sits until they can fill their container with yours/other customers’ stuff. it finally left US on feb 21st, and apparently reached indian shores in chennai march 27th or thereabouts. from chennai, it apparently travels by train, and reached bangalore at whitefield on April 2nd and arrived at our door on Apr 4th.

lesson #1: be prepared to live out of your boxes for about 3 months!

anyway.. once we arrived in india, we are asked by air7seas to contact their local agent, called draft cargoways. their office is a place around HAL airport that can only be accessed by exact enactment of 6 or 7 left/right traffic moves somewhere in the bylanes off airport road. get a cabbie that knows kannada for best results. the gentleman at draft cargoways make you sign a few papers (don’t you dare read them) and takes notes from your passport. and he will hand you over to another person-with-a-phone-number, who will help you with the “customs formalities”. i later find out this person-with-a-phone-number works for a third company called Fairmacs Shipping.

lesson #2: don’t underestimate the number of times you’ll be handed off.

the person-with-a-phone-number took me to the ConCor customs terminal in whitefield, a few yards away from the ITPL campus. the person-with-a-phone will setup a rendezvous point, and after you go into the container yard, you’ll be seated in a dingy shed. truest me - you’ve never been in a place like this, you’ve never been face to face with a pan-chewing customs official siting under a colonial ceiling fan before, and you probably never successfully closed a ‘transaction’ with such a person before. you are scheming in your head the serious of physical, verbal and metal moves to get out of this as quickly and smoothly as possible. around you are piles of files all nicely labled ‘transfer of residence’. no shelfs, just folders laying on the floor in small stacks.

lesson #3: the person-with-a-phone-number is your friend.

thankfully, he emerges, and simply tells you “nineteen thousand”. you count the cash and give it to him. nothing really to talk about. of course, no receipts. he disappears into the aforementioned officer’s room, along with your passport. ten minutes later, you are lighter 19k, and you are done. you make your way out of the container yard, wave a grateful goodbye to the person-with-a-phone-number and you are off.

lesson #4: don’t pester people with requests for receipts. if one can be given they will give you one

couple of hours later, the truck arrived, and all the boxes and stuff are in tact. again, two men propmtly emptied the truck. 30 minutes later they are gone. after the anxious couple of hours, they shove a receipt in my hand for the $19k. hand-written, of course. turns out, this charge could’ve been avoided if i were eligible for a ‘transfer of residence’ provision. i didn’t qualify, because i was physically in india for over 180 days during the 2 years prior to arrival. there are other rules. you/family can claim this once in 3 years, and you should’ve been out of the country for at least 2 years.

most stuff in boxes made it just fine. the only larger piece of furniture that we shipped was a bed frame. it scratched and bent out of shape to the point of 100% ruin. they felt greasy dusty, but the shrink-wrap saved the day. there is no indication of pests and stuff, nor poor handling. the bed frame was made of metal, yet we saw a few bolts that stuck out of the metal frame broken and/or bent. what could’ve applied such a force to do that kind of damage!?

lesson #5: you can never over-pack. make sure any extremity in any packed object is well cushioned.

in any case, my boyz thoroughly enjoyed stomping on the bubble wrap while we unpack the boxes…

so there it is - the voyage of my stuff across the 7 seas. and by the way, what exactly are the names of the 7 purported seas??