Workforce Management (US based HR Magazine) reporter Jeremy Smerd was at Hyderabad (at part of all India tour) in 2007 to report on the changing nature of workforce management issues in India.  As part of his report, he had stopped by AppLabs and interviewed me on my R2I (Return 2 India) experience.  It was not a preplanned interview.  It just happened when I met him in our office lobby, when he came to see HR, and bumped into me and learned about my ‘interesting’ background. Later he spent part of weekend with my extended family to get a feel for “joint family” concept

I had told him in interview (which is in this blog) that I would be building a villa in outskirts of Hyderabad. I finally got to execute it beginning this week on auspicious full moon day, though 7 years later. My blog number 100 (yep the number is 100 now) will be dedicated to unveiling of villa number 369. I know, I will not have time and patience / interest / resources to build a new home from ground zero, so I took an accelerated approach by buying a pre-owned villa @ Indu Fortune Fields and getting it customized to suit our family needs.

Daunting journey (with pictures, videos, and the drama as it evolves) will be updated in the below blog over the period of next 4 months. For now, it is just an initial update.

Here is the interview to the start with:

I shot this clip on 6D & Hero 3+, a 90 second clip “Road to Villa 369” sitting on the back of Honda Dio, while Aniketh driving it inside Indu.  

Indu Main Gate

Selecting Interior Designer:

We have roped in Shalini Rao, who was recommended by my brother’s friend, Venkat.

First Week Shopping – Selecting Tiles :

We spend our first weekend with our interior designer to select tiles for entire interiors, and tiles, W/C, faucets, shower heads, diverters for the 4 bath rooms & 1 powder room.   The choices were so many, and it was quite daunting to select one. My dad and interior designer helped in shortlisting few choices.  We are likely to get all the shopping done for this section @ Shrusti which was recommended by my brother who recently got his home renovated