Testing blog post from maemo
Archive for category Personal
US Visit Visa Preparation,Submission,Interview and Rejection – The complete experience – Part – 1
Apr 23
Disclaimer: Whatever is written is entirely my personal opinion based on my experience in applying for B2 Visitor Visa at the Chennai consulate. The intend of this post is primarily to help applicants and to convey my sentiments about the interview process. I would also be happy if the visa officers do read this as I have some suggestions for them. I’m no lawyer and I’m not responsible for your use or misuse of the information provided below.
The Background
It all started, with the upcoming wedding of my maternal cousin in the US. The wedding is on may 14th. My aunt (I’ll refer her as TK) was in the US since 1975. She also happens to be my god mother. She wanted her siblings one elder sister (my mom), one younger sister, two younger brothers for her daughter’s wedding. TK, I presume, like most people who settle in New York and Mumbai(Bombay) consider those cities as the ultimate safe and complete place for living.
TK had applied for permanent residence card for her younger sister and their family in early 90’s. All but the elder son of my younger aunt got the chance for permanent citizenship. But nobody except for my younger cousin went to the US. My uncle a who’s a psychiatrist in the Kerala government service and who got the best doctor award was never keen to go to US. When my aunt applied for visa the situation was different. His elder son was trying for MD and since he was above 21 was denied permanent resident status.
End of the day no one except for my mom was interested in going to the US for the wedding. My mom due to her age, health conditions and communication issues( can’t speak English) would not be able to travel alone. So I was asked to accompany her. The wedding is on May 14th 2010 and these decisions were mostly taken in Dec Jan period.
The Preparation
Being on to computers since, 1987, I did some research on the net about the visa process. I ended up on http://immihelp.com on many searches. I must admit that they are doing such a wonderful job in providing authentic information in a systematic manner. The forums frequently has experiences posted by real people who went for the interview. I will add some things in this post that were missing on the immihelp web site.
The official links of importance are given below
This of course could be the start https://www.vfs-usa.co.in/USIndia/allaboutvisa.html
So here’s my conclusion,
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We need a non immigrant visa.Myself and my mom are temporary visitors intending to visit for family/pleasure/tourism purpose. So the visa category is Tourist B2.
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Our consular district is Chennai as we belong to Kerala.(States of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and the Union Territories of Lakshadweep islands and Pondicherry are serviced by Chennai Consulate.)
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We need to have a photo meeting the spec as per https://www.vfs-usa.co.in/USIndia/photospecsnew.html
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Fill the form DS160 (http://ceac.state.gov/genniv/) apparently introduced since January 2010, part of paperwork reducing act. Among various other details, you’ll use your digital photo, passport number and finally get confirmation page with CEAC barcode number.
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Pay the visa Application Fee (US$ 131 currently Rs. 6288) also called the MRV (Machine Readable Visa) fee and VFS service charge (Rs.374) at the designated HDFC banks. The official page is at https://www.vfs-usa.co.in/USIndia/applicationfee.html. But you end up on this page http://www.vfs-usa.co.in/ApplnForms/FeeDetails.aspx if you search for MRV fee. This link has wrong info as the exchange rate has been changed to Rs. 48. IMMIhelp is accurate and has the real details at http://www.immihelp.com/visas/fees.html. Important fact is that the MRV fee can be paid by DD payable to “US EMBASSY – VISA FEES” from almost any bank other than cooperative banks. But the service charge can be paid only at the designated hdfc branches. In Kerala, the branches are only in Ernakulam. Its easier to pay both the fees at the HDFC bank than taking a DD and then going to HDFC bank as you can do it both in one shot. A photocopy of the first page of the passport is also required at the bank for all applicants. The bank would hand over 2 copies of the receipt, one for us and one for the consulate. The consulate copy is the blue one. The amount is non refundable, irrespective of whether you get the visa.(More on this later). The receipt usually gets activated only after 2 working days. Which means you can take an appointment date only after 2 days after payment.
to be continued in part 2…
Lots of issues, looks like I lost my google rank because of issues related to clean URLs, most pages were inaccessible. Finally problem solved, not sure how it was done as I don’t have access to the server.
Fenugreek worked ?
Apr 8
I’m not very sure what’s happening,but here’s the latest lab report with lipid profile.
| Date | Sugar | Total | TG | HDL | LDL | VLDL | LDL/HDL | chol/hdl(<5) |
| 03-04-2009 | 81 | 202 | 197 | 43 | 120 | 39 | 2.79 | 4.69767442 |
The total cholesterol has come to the least value in the last 4 years of my stats. But the HDL has gone down to the same value of what it was before. The other parameters to be taken into consideration, 1) There was no exercise 2) Its lent and there was no meat or fish intake. The TG and LDL level has come down but not significant.
My mom who was taking medication also started taking Fenugreek, for the past one month and she stopped taking medicine. Ironically, in her case almost all values shot up. We plan to wait and test for another month and if there’s no luck she would have to continue with medication. Now the question is whether the effect of fenugreek reduced in the case of people who already took medicine.
| Date | Sugar | Total | TG | HDL | LDL | VLDL | LDL/HDL | chol/hdl(<5) |
| 12-11-2008 | 94 | 144 | 154 | 48 | 65 | 30 | 1.36 | 3 |
| 04-03-2009 | 106 | 172 | 158 | 49 | 92 | 31 | 1.877551 | 3.51020408 |
| 03-04-2009 | 91 | 258 | 249 | 40 | 168 | 50 | 4.2 | 6.45 |
Our main means of public transport is probably bus and train. I do enjoy these travels, as long as I have a seat and its not too cramped. The main advantage is that it slows down our thought process, letting us literally see thing that we would have never noticed.
Travel speed might not be proportional to thinking speed, but you also meet people. I recently happened to meet an old friend after 17 years and through him I got the contact details of another, who was even more of a close friend. It gave immense joy and I did save some cash with that travel.
Reading Influence – The Psychology of Persuassion and various other books, made me think about various influences. I just came across this phenomena while working as a cashier at my business premises. I tend to give more attention to those who are close by even if they were not the first to ask for a slip. And that inner knowledge is probably the reason why people never queue up in India. We know that we get more attention when we are at proximity with the listener. Physical proximity has more influence than loudness, I guess.
Is this thought silly, I don’t know, but most of what is written in big psychology books are all things we all know well.
I don’t know precisely when I started to have high cholesterol levels. But one fine day in 2005, I felt I was gasping after a walk and I had this intuition that I had cholesterol. Went for a blood test along with my mom who already had started taking medicine, to find that I too had it. I did all to reduce weight, which was actually under control and my BMI was right.
I tried different stuff, controlled my diet, no eggs, no red meat and observed lent. I also ensured had lot of fish with Omega 3 fatty acids. The maximum of total cholesterol levels that I could bring down was 230. In between it had gone up to 305. With a a good familial background of cardiac arrest, my father and grand fathers’ from paternal and maternal side died of heart attack. My mom and dad had high cholesterol levels, but I never took medicine. In between when I ate lot of sardine and dates , the HDL levels had gone up but its very difficult to identify what exactly make a difference, because you never just eat one type of food. I never went for medicine as I was told that once you start to take medicines you can never stop it as the cholesterol levels do shoot up after stopping.
I recently came to to know that fenugreek can bring down cholesterol levels and it was not very difficult to try. Thanks to Fr. Paul Kynickal for his advice. The prescription was to put some fenugreek 15 or so seeds in to a small glass of water at night and drink the water and fenugreek seeds in the morning with an empty stomach. I tried for one month and here’s the result. There were no massive food restrictions and no exercise and of course no other medicines.
Here’s the American Heart Association recommended values http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4500
| Date | Sugar | Total (<200) | TG | HDL(60 above) | LDL | VLDL | LDL/HDL | chol/hdl(<5) |
| 03-02-2009 | 84 | 248 | 174 | 43 | 170 | 34.8 | 3.96 | 5.77 |
| 04-03-2009 | 98 | 246 | 202 | 68 | 138 | 40 | 2.03 | 3.61 |
The main difference is the increase in HDL levels. I’m continuing the treatment and I’ll post the next results within a month. Now with no non-veg, the difference should be more. A bit of walking is also planned.
Side effects : I felt a craving for sweets, apparently fenugreek brings down sugar levels too!
Here are some other benefits of fenugreek, that’s not confirmed 
but found on the net.
- Discalimer :I’m not responsible for authenticity of the statements below and the consequences of excessive use or abuse of fenugreek
- Fenugreek seed is widely used as a galactagogue (milk producing agent) for lactating women, I don’t know the consequence for men
- Fenugreek is mainly used as digestive aid. It is ideal for treating sinus, lung congestion, reduces inflammation and fights infection. source : wikipedia
- Supplements of fenugreek seeds were shown to lower serum cholesterol, triglyceride, and low-density lipoprotein in human patients and experimental models of hypercholesterolemia and hypertriglyecridemia (Basch et al., 2003).
- It reduces blood sugar level.
- Reduce menstrual discomfort
- Minimize symptoms of menopause
The only time I get these days is early morning, that too if I get up. With a kid on the block, sleeping late, that too is difficult. Still hoping to get more time by getting up early.
I’m back to blogging after a long long interval. Now back with latest version of wordpress, on a dedicated server of acrodelon.com. Documenting the move, would be useful I think. Upgrading and updating drupal seems to be more difficult than wordpress. Drupal’s lack of a native importer makes it tough. Want to try with a Backup and Restore module.
I’ve become a father
Nov 29
After months of wait .. my wife delivered a baby girl on November 29th and I’ve become a father.
I was tensed and curious. Tensed because of the unexpected trip to the hospital due to fluid leakage and because she had chicken pox during pregnancy. Curious to know whether our new born would be a boy or girl.
Got extremely busy for many days and couldn’t blog for quite some time…
Here are some photos of our new family member.
Feeling so sleepy…
Deep but calm sleep..
Thoughtful….