While I was making my
preparations for attending the conference at Hawaii, I
received an email from an old student of mine from
Singapore. His name was K.K.Sivadasan (Kulangara Sivadas)
for whose batch I
had been taking a course in Control Systems.
He was working in Data Storage
Institute(DSI) Singapore, an
organization doing research and development work
on modern digital data storage devices such
as hard disks. He was a member
of the Servo-electronics group of
the institute mainly doing research on the Control
systems for hard disks. As I was not in regular
correspondence with him, it was a pleasant
communication from him which suggested
that they are in need of
a senior person conversant with the
fundamentals of control systems to help
them in solving some problems related to their ongoing
projects. He said, if I am interested in a short
assignment in Singapore, I can send my biodata by email
to the Director of the Institute.
Since my earlier attempts to go abroad had
failed miserably after MTech or PhD, I
had kept my interests to work abroad dormant and this
re-kindled those dreams. I prepared a detailed
biodata showing my publications and other achievements and sent
it to the Director, DSI within
a few days. I thought, after all, it is an email which
costs nothing. However, within a few days I
received a communication that they are seriously considering my
request and they would like to have an
interview before finalizing the offer. I wrote to
them that I am
transiting Singapore for
the conference in Hawaii and they asked
me whether I can break my journey on the way and have
an informal interview with them. I agreed
and decided to spend two days on my
way back from Honolulu.
After the conference for three days, I returned
to Singapore. Another student of mine, Sri. Suresh Panicker, son of
a teacher of my wife and who had been the Calicut
University Kathakali first prize winner for all the four
years in REC Calicut was also working in Singapore after
doing his MS in Australia. Mr. Sivadasan requested Suresh who
was staying near the Changi airport to pick me
from the airport and send me in a taxi to the
DSI. When I reached Changi airport at 430 in the morning,
Mr.Suresh was waiting for me. He took me to his flat where he
was staying as a paying guest of a Malayali family.
After spending some time with
that lovable family, Suresh sent me in a taxi to DSI and informed
Sivadasan that I am on the way. I was
received by Sivadasan and their group head Dr.Tony
Huang at the entrance of DSI which was located in a part
of the building of National University
of Singapore at that time. Dr.Tony and Siva took me
around the DSI and told me the type of work
they are doing and had a brief talk with the
Director too on my assignment. They said they
will make a formal offer within a few days. As
promised, they offered me a post in
DSI with a designation as Visiting Professor for an
initial period of six months, likely to be extended for
another six months on mutual consent.
Fortunately for us, both our children were settled by that time. Our
daughter was already in USA after
her stint in TCS and Infosys along with her
husband and our son was studying in Calicut Medical
College. So, I could go with my wife for my
first job abroad, even though it was a bit late in my career. I
checked with the financial side of the offer
with Siva and he confirmed that the offer is good enough to
meet all expenses and save something. Further, he was kind enough to
offer me accommodation in his flat as a paying
guest as he was staying with his wife and
small daughter only. Being a short period assignment , I
thought it would be better as setting up
a new flat with furniture
and utensils etc. will not be worth the
trouble. On the assurance that he
will take an amount from us at the existing
rates for rent and food, we accepted the offer. As it turned out, it
was a wonderful solution as my wife had a very good
company while I was away at work. We had almost
identical food tastes and my wife turned out to be a good guide for the
young wife of Siva and the maid from Sri Lanka of Tamil
origin helping in the household chores.
First time, we had the chance of enjoying
the company of a granddaughter
in Siva’s daughter Gayathri who
is a big girl now recently
got married.
Data Storage Institute was expecting
me to join by Jan 1998
but our National Systems Conference 1997 was concluded in
Dec 1997 and as the General convenor, it
was my duty to settle the accounts after collecting
the promised money from the sponsors and
making pending payments. This took another three months
and I could join only by the beginning of
April 1998. Moreover, my term as Head of
the Department was to be concluded by June and
I had to hand over charge two months early to Dr.T.L.Jose.
However, within these three
months, the situation in DSI had
changed altogether. Dr.Tony who had invited
me to DSI had to leave for a job in USA.
He was from Taiwan (Formosa) and had done his
PhD from Washington State University and had married a
Canadian lady. A child born to them in Singapore could
not live in Singapore due to the tropical temperature
as the child developed
perpetual rashes on his skin. So, Dr.Tony and
family had left for USA when I
reported to DSI. The new
head of Servo-electronics division was
from mainland China and he had no idea why I
have been invited and what job I am supposed to do.
As many of the junior scientists in
DSI were also belonging to the mainland China
and was least communicative, they were not ready to
discuss their problems with me thinking it
is too confidential. I was not assigned any specific work. However, I took a few
classes on some advanced topics such as fuzzy logic
and neural networks after discussion with my friend Siva.
At the end of six months, neither my boss nor the
director discussed with me anything about extending the contract.
Under the circumstances, I also did not ask them whether
I should continue. Therefore, we returned with
a lot of pleasant memories of our life in Singapore with
Siva and his family. Of course, the net result was a few thousands
of rupees in the bank.
Note: We, my wife and
myself have written and published
a book ‘ Six
Months in Singapore’ in
Amazon as e-book in English. Those of
my readers interested in knowing more
about Singapore and our life there may
read after downloading book in
Kindle format. A preview can be
downloaded and if you like it,
you can download full copy by paying nominal amount online.
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