70. An interview and job in Singapore

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 whom 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 surprise  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  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  finalising 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   send 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 for National University of Singapore.   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 me, both our children were reasonably 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. I checked with  the  financial side of the  offer with  Siva and 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 the  best possible  solution as  my wife  will have good company while  we two  were at work. We  had wonderful company with almost identical  tastes and  a  good  cook   from Sri Lanka of Tamil origin  helping in the  household chores. First  time, we  had the  chance  to  enjoy the company of a  granddaughter in   Siva’s  daughter  Gayathri  who is a  big girl now.

They were  expecting me  to join DSI  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  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.  The  situation  in DSI  had changed altogether. Dr.Tony  who had  invited me  had to leave  DSI  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. 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.  For the  salary they gave  me, I took a few classes   on some advanced topics such as  fuzzy logic and neural networks after  discussion with  my friend and student 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 additional  benefit was a few thousands of  rupees in the bank.

Note:  We,  my wife and myself  has  written and  published a  book  ‘ Singapore Ormmakal’  in Amazon as  e-book    in  Malayalam.  Those  of my readers  who does not  know  Malayalam  kindly bear with me until  I find time  to  translate this into English