First Drive to see Sunrise at Nandi Hills - Lucky and Unlucky

It was January 26th, when I set myself off to my first bike ride from Bangalore towards Nandi Hills along with 3 buddies - Vamsi, Laddu and Raffi.
Nandi Hills is around 70 kms Bangalore and has some Tipu Sultan history around it. It is known for early morning rides, so as to get on top of the hill before the sunrise. Depending on the place one stays, one needs to figure out when to wake up and get driving.

We started around 3.45 AM and reached at 5:45 AM. I know 2 hrs is too much for 70kms, but we got lost on our way, which happens with many First Timers.
Route is pretty simple - atleast the one, which we took. Old Madras Road-next-Hebbal-next-NH7 towards Devenahalli. You need to watch out in the fog and mist for a board giving signs for Nandi Hills -26kms away, onto your left after Devenahalli. The ride onto the top is very steep and exciting. It would not pump your adrenaline but definitely challenging.

You can park your vehicle near the fort gate, buy tickets, buy food stuff and walk some distance to reach the peak of the hill. Wait here for the Sun God to say Hi!!

We did have terrific time, with hill top views, sun rays and clouds. I described the total ride to a colleague and he motivated his friends for a similar drive. He got too lucky. Clouds were below the hill => they were standing on top of clouds. Snaps speak for themselves. We were little unlucky for missing the clouds.

SATTVA - Realising Equilibrium in Social Change

I am a staunch believer that every human being irrespective of the profession - IT, law, fashion, operations, finance, marketing, medicine, arts, engineering, services has a soft social corner deep down his/her heart.

There always exists a spark within us to contribute for the under privileged and extend a helping hand to bring more light into their lives.

Seldom do we actually go forward and really satiate this spark burning inside us. There could be several reasons –

Roadblock 1: Deadlines/busy at work

Roadblock 2: Family responsibilities

Roadblock 3: Social commitments

Roadblock 4: Not being aware of social activities around us to join and contribute :(

The first three can be handled effectively by oneself. But we at Sattva aim to remove the 4^th roadblock – by bringing transparency and awareness of the social activities around Bangalore.

Motivation:

1. One could be interested in working for child education. Another would like to help the disabled. Third likes to spend time with the mentally retarded. How do I find the correct organization which work in each of these areas?
2. One has time to donate money. Second can spend a couple of hours. Third is ready to work full time for an NGO. Where do I find a group which can fit my schedules?

Sattva is a monthly e-magazine with the vision to be an effective platform for the sharing of news, views and appreciation of the social change process, thus raising awareness and encouraging individuals and organizations to meaningfully contribute to society.

Our objective is to provide a scaffold to NGOs, activists, volunteers and concerned citizens to work or start work towards the social sector.

Bangalore is fully alive, there is so much going on, so many new initiatives, activities, awareness programmes, workshops, volunteer groups and social movements!

We seek to cull out the spirit of all this while stressing that all this must come together to find the essential balance. Hence- "Sattva-Realising Equilibrium in Social Change."

Every month one issue/topic such as Third Sex, Windows, Child Adoption, Disabled, Education, Secularism etc related to Bangalore will be dealt with in our e-magazine. We will also bring to you the lesser known people, organizations and events that make the bigger difference.

You can find us at http://www.itihas.org.in/sattva.html

and blog available at http://sattva-blog.blogspot.com/

Trek @ Masinagudi and Safari @ Bandipur

A sense of nostalgia clouds me over when I recollect my first Trek Trip to Masinagudi, for it was the last one as an employee of Qualcomm. It was a 2 day trip covering Wild Life at Bandipur forest, Trek in Masinagudi jungle and Gopalaswamy Betta - a hill top historic temple.

Now I am not that macho boy who can rock climb, but this trek was lot easier. And coz this is my first trek, there are some learnings which u sink in.

Lesson 1: Watch your foot. Sliding, slipping, falling are not uncommon.
Lesson 2: Get used to Multi-Task. See, when u trek in a jungle - walking with firm steps like a dumb ass would not solve the purpose.

U need to -
a) Walk forward in the jungle and
b) Watch Trees, Flowers, mountains around
c) Hear the sounds the nature is leaving behind with streams of water, leaves, birds, n other ecological xyz.

d) Look out for foot marks of Tigers, Elephants (gives u satisfaction that n seconds earlier a Tiger walked along the same route)

e) Make no sound (coz it could distract animals and you could miss seeing them from distance)
f) Keep a track of your guide and group (for god sake u can't get lost in a forest)
g) Listen to the stories which your guide unfolds. These include how he got bitten by a Bear, how he fought a Tiger - good ones to pass your time through.
f) Photography:SNAPS - most important to many of us who want to show off that we trek

As said, I was with my Qualcomm colleagues.
We were 20 adults+4kids = huge group => Lot of phun.

We gathered and started at 7 AM on December 8th 2007 from Sara's (colleague who deserves a special mention later) house. Breakfast at Kamat hotel (awesome food) around 10 AM. The route was through Mysore via Nanjangud. We crossed Sholur Town to notice the local Panchayats and their - "What an IDEA Sirji" discussions.

We crossed the Border check and were approaching our destination when cross landscapes, tall trees, deers and monkeys made the drive all more pleasant.

Forest Hill Resorts - is where we stayed. I truly recommend this place, coz of its good rooms, cool ambiance and top of that - great food. They would provide u guides during trek too.

We could cover Madumalai and Bandipur Wild Life Sanctuary on Saturday evening. Don't expect to see lions or tigers, all we could find were bisons and its friends, monkeys (they are everywhere), deers (who posed a lot for our cameras) and Mr Dad Elephant, Ms Mom Elephant and their loved one.
The safari was for 50 min and we were back to our cottages around 6.30 PM. Followed was dinner and phun at campfire.

Just when we thought of going back to our cottages - something happened which changed the total course of the trip. The climate was all same and the night breeze was getting more chilly. There was some synchronized symphony going in the air. Smiles, laugh, giggles touched my ears.

The origin for the acoustics was - Sara and his split personality :) within him. In his new incarnation - he started jacking one after the other. Narrated umpteen stories criticizing and mocking everything possible on earth. Victims were Dipanwita, Neelam, Manisha, Vinil, Deepika and Bitsians in general. I can pledge that I never laughed so much in my life, and that too for so long.

Finally around 11.30 PM we were back onto our beds, only to recollect some fanatic arguments of Sara and laugh over.

Next day - 9th December, was the actual trek. Started a little late around 8 AM, carried some sandwiches. Married female junta stayed back to take care of kids. Came across a couple of waterfalls. Kacccchak - Kodak Moments!!

After exercising our bodies which equals working out for near to 4 days in a gym, we headed back finished our lunch. Bought a souvenir - tshirt, packed our stuff and bid farewell to Forest Hills Resorts.

Stopped by the historic temple at Gopalswamy Betta and drove back to reach Bangalore around 10 PM on Sunday.

Wooow!! Great job by the organizers : {Vi+Su}(nil).
One more flower into my Garland of Memories :)

Dinner @ Ambrosia, Singapore

It was Jan 30th, 2008 and I met my IGP (International Graduate Program) buddies in Singapore for Dinner.
The restaurant was called "Ambrosia" in Arab Street, pretty close to Little India. The ambiance filled in a sense of exhilaration. It has a touch of Indo Arabic league. They called themselves to stand for 'Divine Pleasure' and so was it. The cuisine was Mediterranean and taste was worth trying.

I did spend time in USA over lunch when I had French, Americans, Japanese along but all of them were above my age. This somehow diluted the flow in which I could put my questions and take the conversations along.


But this dinner was different - I had One Czech girl, 2 German girls, 1 German guy and 1 Turkish to join me. And over that, all around my age or few years senior to me. I could clearly see how well the topics were coming forward and the manner in which we could network among ourselves.

One can easily find me in the snap above - the odd one out (Dark)

We talked about festivals in India to October Fest in Munich, to night life in UK to Political stand in Turkey. Good was the food, sweet were the people, and great was the Dinner Meet - truly unleashing the Divine Pleasure in some terms.

Swapping Control Key and Caps Lock for Effective use of Emacs

This post would be helpful to all those sitting out there to use Emacs in an effective way. By the way for non-techy guys/gals, Emacs is an Editor similar to Gvim and Vi.

I find Emacs more efficient and useful than any other editor. You could treat this as one way to push others to Emacs :)

On Windows and Mac keyboards unlike Sun Keyboards the Ctrl key is awkwardly located in the far lower-left position on the keyboard. The Ctrl key is critical to using Emacs at all times, so you'll never become an Emacs virtuoso unless you move it to an easier position. That position should be on Home Row, so Caps Lock is the best choice. That's the location of the Control key on most Unix workstation keyboards, for precisely that reason.

To do this on Windows 2000 or XP requires some registry hacking. From the Start menu, choose Run and enter "regedit". In the left-side tree view, click down to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout

Click on the KeyboardLayout entry to give it the focus. Make sure it has the focus and not one of its children. Then from the Edit menu, choose New Binary Value, and name it Scancode Map. It should show as type REG_BINARY.

Then select the new Scancode Map entry you just created, and from the Edit menu (whose contents should have changed), choose Modify Binary Data. In the dialog box called Edit Binary Value, enter the following data:

0000: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0008: 03 00 00 00 3A 00 1D 00
0010: 1D 00 3A 00 00 00 00 00

Select OK to close the dialog, then exit the Registry Editor. The caps and ctrl keys should be swapped as soon as you log out and back in again. It may require a reboot.

You are all set to use Emacs more effectively. Happy Coding!!

J1 Visa Waiver from 2 Year Home Rule - Simple Steps

J1 Visa is required for every student who wishes to pursue an internship/co-op term in USA for a period ranging from 0-18 months.

The other famous and well heard Visas in India are-
H1 – Employment
B1 – Business
L1 – Internal Company Transfer
F1 – Higher Education Full Time

This post is keeping Indian students in mind and it would cover the important aspect or issue called “2 Year Home Rule” according to section 212(E) of INA and all the confusion around it.

General scenario is that the students who pursue an Internship term in USA is asked to stay in India for a period of 2 yrs before (s)/he gets back to USA.

Reason: (S)/he are expected to share the knowledge which (s)/he gained over his/her period of stay in USA with India.

Logically correct, but personally I would not like to have some restriction as this though we are or not prepared for a MS or MBA in near future.

I was in a similar situation and learnt that there are not one but two ways to get out of this. Let us call them Door 1 and Door2. Door 1 is open to only few who get their internship in electronics, marketing etc. An internship in programming has high chances of closing Door1. Door 2 is open to all. Irrespective of what kind of internship you do, Door2 is always a way out, but is very lengthy and time taking.

Note: You might have heard of I-20 which is a document released to students to get their F1 Visa for MS. Similarly you get a DS-2019 form to get your J1 Visa. Procedure to get your DS-2019 is a separate story. Say at this junction you somehow managed to get your DS-2019.

There is one specific section of your DS-2019, Section: 4 which nearly determine whether you can get a waiver from the 2 Year Home Rule or not.

As you can see in the picture, your DS 2019 form has “Subject/Field Code” – 52.1499. Each of these codes has a one on one mapping with specific Field like Electronics, Marketing, Accounting or Programming etc.

The detailed list of all the codes with all the fields with which it is mapped is available at http://polisettisatish.googlepages.com/DS_2019_codes.pdf

Door 1
Step1: Make a note of your Subject Code in Section 4 of DS2019 and find the related Field using the above document.

For example in my case, my Subject code was 52.1499 which correspond to “Marketing” as per the document.

Step2: Now you need to find the Revised Exchange Visitor Skill List available at http://polisettisatish.googlepages.com/SkillList.pdf. In this document each country in the world would mention few areas in which it needs knowledge. For example you would find India requirements (in Page 2476) – meaning India needs knowledge in Group 9N Banking, Group 5U Population Studies etc. It does not list down 9R Marketing or 4H Electronics.

From Step1 you know the area/field which your code refers to. Now you need to find the Group in which this area falls under. For example in my case – “Marketing” corresponds to Group 9R according to the second document.

Step3: Pray your brains out that the group found out in Step 2 (that is 9R in my case)is not present in India’s Skill List in Page 2476. In my case group 9R, is not present at the place where India requirements were listed and hence I can get a waiver through Door1. Incase you find your group as 5U, since it is listed in India’s section in Page2476, you are not eligible to go through Door1.

Step4: Say you decoded that you are open to Door1 from Step3, there is a simple letter which you need to write to the Department of State and get the Waiver. And you are all set to get away from the 2 Year Home Rule.

You can find the letter which I compiled at this link - http://polisettisatish.googlepages.com/WaiverRequest.doc

The Waiver Letter which you get from the Department of State would look like this –
http://polisettisatish.googlepages.com/WaiverLetterfromUSDepartment.jpg

Door2 is pretty complicated. This is a more formal way to get your Waiver and requires you to get No Obligation Certifiate (NOC) from varied government sources of India both at State and Central Levels. One of my senior has gone through this process and I might help you point him if necessary. (See update on 8th Nov 2011 below for complete process)

Happy Interning!!

Update on Nov 16th 2009 - I have been receiving mails and comments for a person who can be contacted for Door 2 approach. One of my friend recently finished the long process and he can be reached at - ramcha675@gmail.com ... Hope that my post now helps people sailing in both boats.... Happy Interning !! once again .. :)

Update on March 17th 2010 - I heard that the US Dept of state issued a fresh skill set from 2009 - http://www.travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_4514.html

Update on Nov 8th 2011 (big update!) - My friend and myself have been getting several mails about the process and also how the blog has been helpful for them. We are happy that all the information we share here is coming to good use.

Dr Anindita Chaudhuri (anichau2001@gmail.com) approached us last year about the Door 2 process - and she was kind enough to share the entire process titled - "J1 (US) waiver for Indian nationals applying from India (non-medical)"

Link - https://docs.google.com/open?id=1Isc_LH0Rlz-G5Z1Ci6G02epMbSf49h-SHQDPXVwSuuOgw5zGVd5it-h85ONt

We thank Anindita for her effort.

Disclaimer: This approach and analysis was purely from what I have gathered from different sources. I do not stand by anyone to get a waiver, even if he/she follows this procedure. There could be different situations which would have lead you to get a J1 Visa. US Waiver Department decides on whether a case should be given or rejected a Waiver. I only wanted to pass the information I know. The same holds with my friend - the Door 2 contact, I have shared. We are not legal advocates - so consider/follow the procedure at your will. Thanks again!

Thanks - Satish Polisetti

You can reach me at - polisettisatish@gmail.com