The Mathematics of Mortgage, Overpayment and Refinancing Decisions

October 7th, 2009 admin

With mortgage interest rates at historically low values refinancing home loans is an option currently being investigated by many here in the US. I, too, considered the same issue recently and discovered that this is not an easy decision to make. I developed a spreadsheet to figure out if this was a good idea. You can download this spreadsheet by clicking on this link (Microsoft Excel 2003). In general, the spreadsheet was also intended to show how loan repayment terms are set, how banks make money on loans, when overpaying monthly payments makes sense etc. Feel free to use the spreadsheet and improve upon it or tailor it to your situation. The rest of this article is a tutorial on how to make decisions about mortgages, how mortgages work in general, whether overpayment of the monthly payment makes sense, and what to consider when refinancing. The focus will be on the mathematical aspects of the decision making.

Taking an Interest in Loan Mathematics

Let us first try to understand, in simple terms, the philosophy of any loan process. In particular, I’ll focus on the home loan process. You intend to purchase a house. Why purchase, and not continue to rent? Well, that is an interesting question in its own right. But, to not get distracted, let us say you got tired of the rent going up each year, or moving every few years, or actually figured that it was economically better to buy rather than rent. So, you decide to buy a house. You need money. You go to the bank (a mortgage lender). Say you want $200K ($200 thousand). The bank gives you the money at a certain interest rate, say, 5%. What does that really mean? Here in the US, the norm is to calculate the remaining balance every month. The 5% is actually 12*0.4166%, where 0.4166%, or 0.004166, is the monthly interest rate. That is, after the first month, the outstanding balance is $200K + $200K*0.004166. In other words, because the bank did you a favor by giving you $200K which you did not have, it wants $200K*0.004166, which is $833.33. As a quick aside, notice that because the interest is calculated monthly, the annual interest rate is, in reality, greater than the 5% we started with. The real annual interest rate would be 1.004166^12=0.0511, or in other words 5.11%. Nevertheless, the common practice is to quote this as 5% base interest rate, and that is fine, as long as we know what it means.

Now, continuing with our example, in the first month, the bank wants you to pay $833.333 as interest accrued over that month. Say you paid exactly $833.33. The outstanding balance at the beginning of the second month would then be exactly 200K again. And at the end of that second month, the interest would be $833.33 again. Say you pay the bank $833.33 again. The outstanding balance at the beginning of the third month will again be $200K. This pattern could go on endlessly. You may argue that this looks like renting. Every month you pay the rent. You don’t see any of that money. But with buying there is a fundamental difference. After 10 years of doing the above, that is, paying $833.33 each month, you decide to sell the house. The house itself, typically, appreciates in value. Say the value of the house is now $300K. You sell and make a $100K profit. You paid 10*12*$833.33 over the 10 years, which, coincidentally, comes out to exactly 100K. What that means is you basically lived in a house for 10 years for free (of course you did pay property taxes, painted the house a couple of times, bought a lawn mower, replaced light bulbs, and took care of the house in general). But overall, it sounds like a pretty sweet deal.

One word we all glossed over in this discussion is “typically”. Home prices “typically” appreciate. The bank does not gloss over that word. If the value of the house drops, say 10 years later, the value of the house drops to 150K. You have paid your “rent” for 10 years, and are ready to sell. The bank wants its 200K back, since you never paid any principal all these years. The sale, however, would only fetch you 150K. The bank has the title (ownership document) to the house. It will not let you sell. It says give us 50K first, then sell for 150K, and gives us that 150K as well. You do not have 50K to give to the bank. The loan is foreclosed - the bank keeps the title to the house, but the bank does not like this situation. The bank now owns the house. But the house is worth only 150K. The bank does not want to be in the business of selling a house, especially one that won’t bring them their original 200K back.

To prevent this scenario, the bank employs two interesting tactics. Firstly, it does not let you pay only the interest of $833.33 each month. It requires you to pay off some of that principal on top of the interest. Secondly, the amount of principal you pay atop the interest is calculated such that the loan is guaranteed to be paid off in a certain “term”. Further, to keep the payment terms simple for the customer, the total payment each month remains unchanged. It is important to recognize that calculation of interest depends only on the interest rate. The calculation of the monthly payment which includes both the interest and some piece of the principal requires the notion of the “term”. The payment has to at least be the interest due that month. It is a bit more than that each month because of the principal paid. (In reality it ends up being even more because you pay a part of the annual property taxes, hazard insurance etc. each month – but we can ignore that for this discussion). Paying a bit of principal each month causes the outstanding balance reduce each month; this causes the interest payment to reduce a bit each month. This allows you to pay off even more principal each month, and that cascading effect finally ends exactly when the term runs out. Throughout this period, as mentioned earlier, the actual monthly payment does not change. The reduction in interest is compensated for by the increase in principal payment, which in turn reduces the outstanding balance and causes the next month’s interest payment to reduce even further. This constant monthly payment (interest + principal) is carefully calculated to achieve this effect. “Term” is the number of months the loan is supposed to be fully paid off by. The shorter the term, the better the rates, in general, because to pay off a loan faster (shorter term), you have to pay greater amounts each month. So there needs to be an incentive for you to pay more money each month to the bank. And that incentive is the lower rate. Otherwise, wouldn’t you rather go with the longer term, pay less to the bank each month and invest that leftover in the stock market?

By forcing you to pay a bit of principal each month, the bank is earning less interest each month. But the good news is that, if after 10 years, you decide to sell the house and the value of the house is only 150K instead of the 200K you bought it for, the bank risks less. You have already paid off about 40K. So the loss for the bank is only 10K instead of 50K, if it had allowed you to only pay the interest each month. So in other words, the bank wants you to pay principal each month not to help you reduce your interest payments, but rather to help it stave off any chance of losing money on the house if prices fall.

Black Magic - Calculating the Monthly Payment

When you talk to a mortgage banker on the phone, you will notice that they like to quickly tell you that your monthly payment would be some x amount. They use the phrase, “run the numbers”, with some pride. It is interesting and empowering to understand how the monthly payment is actually calculated.

We have all the information we need. At the beginning, we have a 200K loan. Let us use L to indicate this “Loan Amount”. Say, the monthly rate, which is 0.004166 in our example, is represented by c. Say, n represents the term, n months. Say, P represents the monthly payment. We want to determine P ourselves, instead of depending on our loan officer to tell us that information.

After the first month, the outstanding balance is:
L + L*c - P
= L(1+c) - P
This is because the loan amount L increases by the monthly interest amount, L*c, but then we make the payment of P. This is the outstanding balance for the second month.
At the end of the second month, the outstanding balance is:
{L(1+c) - P}(1+c) - P
= L(1+c)^2 - P(1+c) - P
= L(1+c)^2 - P{(1+c)+1}
At the end of the third month, the outstanding balance is
= {L(1+c)^2 - {P(1+c)+P}} (1+c) - P
= L(1+c)^3 - P {(1+c)^2 + 1+c) + 1}
If you are still with me, you may start seeing a pattern emerge. After n months, the outstanding balance will be:
= L(1+c)^n - P {(1+c)^(n-1) + (1+c)^(n-2) + … + (1-c)^2 + (1+c) + 1}
Which, can be rewritten as
= L(1+c)^n - P {1 + (1+c)^2 + (1+c)^3 + … (1+c)^(n-1)}
Now. The punch line. After n months, we *know* that the outstanding balance should be 0. So
0 = L(1+c)^n - P {1 + (1+c)^2 + (1+c)^3 + … (1+c)^(n-1)}
P {1 + (1+c)^2 + (1+c)^3 + … (1+c)^(n-1)} = L(1+c)^n
P = L(1+c)^n/{1 + (1+c)^2 + (1+c)^3 + … (1+c)^(n-1)}
There you go. That is P, your payment each month. Phew! Done? Well, almost. The denominator in the above calculation is not Excel-friendly. Remember, you want this to go into a spreadsheet that can help you with decision making. The number of terms depends on n. Not good. Let’s try to find a closed form solution for the denominator. Thankfully, it is not hard. Notice that the denominator is of the form:
1 + a + a^2 + a^3 + … + a^(n-1)
where I replaced 1+c with a. Let us call the above sum X.
X = 1 + a + a^2 + a^3 + … + a^(n-1)
Adding a^n to both sides (as an aside, this kind of intuition is the reason Kavita hates math)
X + a^n = 1 + a + a^2 + a^3 + … + a^(n-1) + a^n
Shamelessly using some more of that darned intuition, we extract out a common factor, a, from the last n terms to get to:
X + a^n = 1 + a {1 + a + a^2 + … + a^(n-1)}
But notice that the stuff inside the {} is precisely what we defined X to be. So:
X + a^n = 1 + a*X
X + a*X = 1 + a^n
X * (1 + a) = 1 + a^n
Therefore,
X = (1-a^n)/(1-a)
Replacing a with (1+c),
X = (1-(1+c)^n)/(1-(1+c))
X = (1-(1+c)^n)/(-c)
X = ((1+c)^n - 1)/c
Finally, substituting this into the equation for P:
P = L.c.(1+c)^n/{(1+c)^n - 1}
Now we are seriously done with this calculation.

Let us try to use L=200K, c=0.004166 and n=360 (a 30-year term, which is quite common in the US), and calculate P, your monthly payment. P comes out to $1073.64. The interest component is $833.33, and the principal is $1073.64 - $833.33 = $240.31. Because you pay off a tiny bit of the 200K principal, the outstanding balance at the beginning of the second month is $200000 - $240.31 = $199759.69. The interest for the second month is therefore going to be lesser than $833.33. In fact, it is $832.33. This $1 we pay less in interest goes towards the principal, which increases from $240.31 in the first month to $241.31 in the second. Looking a few months into this process the interest payments are $833.33, $832.33, $831.33, $830.32, $829.30, etc., and principal payments are $240.31, $241.31, $242.32 etc.

Click on the thumbnails above to see the monthly and cumulative payment schedules. The first figure shows how much interest, principal and total payment needs to be made each month. The second figure translates that to a cumulative amount, that is, at any given point in time it tells us how much interest, principal and total payment you would have made. It is interesting to note from the first figure that in the first few years the bank makes most of the money it expects to make on the house (the interest tails off during the later years). The second figure shows that by the end of the loan term, you’d pay about 200K in interest!

Does Overpayment Make Sense?

At this point it is important to understand that by paying off the $240.31, $241.31, $242.32 etc. principal each month the benefit you are getting is in terms of reducing the interest you pay each month. By actually being vested in the house, that is, by owning that piece of the house, you do not get any direct benefit; when the house sells, its value will not depend on how much of the house you actually own. Think of it like this - the principal payments you make are investments where the rate of return is determined by the reduction in the interest payments.  Let us take an example. Say, somehow, you convince the bank to allow you to pay only the interest, $833.33, each month. You take the difference between your bank-determined payment of $1073.64 and your negotiated payment of $833.33 and invest it ($1073.64 - $833.33 = 240.31) in the stock market at 10% annual rate of return. Either way, after 10 years, we’d have invested $240.31*12*10 = $28,837.2. Since the investment is accruing a rate of return each month, we need to carefully calculate how much profit we make (I use an Excel spreadsheet to do this, however, we could use a closed form expression similar to the one we developed above). At a 10% rate of return, we make about $21,000. If we put this same $241.31 into the principal payment each month, after 10 years, our profit (the interest savings compared to the case where we do not pay any principal payment each month) is $8,478. Of course, the actual profit by investing is reduced by the tax you need to pay on that profit. Regardless, it is still a sweet deal to invest the money in the stock market, provided you can guarantee the 10% return on investment. Even if we assume a safe 6% rate of return (after taxes and everything), we stand to make $10,900 in the stock market vs. the $8,478 we “make” by putting it into the house. In any case, this is a moot point, since the bank will not allow you to make interest payments only. What this discussion is intended to drive home is that it may not make sense to overpay above the monthly payment of $1073.64, unless you intend to stay at the house for a shorter term. If you stay for a shorter term in the house, then the stock market rate of return may be too risky, whereas the paying into the house guarantees a certain rate of return.

The figures above show monthly and cumulative payments for a 15 year loan term - that is a loan for which the monthly payment has been calculated such that is supposed to be paid off in full in 15 years. Typically, 15 year loans have a slightly better rate than a 30 year loan, to give you the incentive to give up more of your cash each month in payment. However, since I am continuing to use a 5% interest rate to plot these curves, these really indicate how your overall payment time line changes if you overpay each month. The overpayment amount is basically the difference between the monthly payment shown in this figure and the minimum monthly payment shown in the previous section. As you can see here, even in the first month you pay as much towards principal as interest, and secondly, by the end of the loan term, you pay only about $80K in interest. The advantage of this scheme is that you are required to only pay in accordance with the 30-year term, but you may choose to overpay if you wish to reduce your interest payments. That way, if you occasionally miss your overpayment target, that is fine as long as you pay the minimum payment for that month. That said, like we discussed above, it may still make sense to not overpay if you can invest that money instead.

Does Refinancing Make Sense?

Now that we have understood some of the nuances of the loan process, let us consider how to make a refinancing decision. Refinancing is the process of getting a new loan in order to pay off an existing loan. If this were a free process, that is, there were no cost of refinancing, the decision would have been very simple. If the new interest rate is better than the old interest rate refinancing would make sense. However, there is, typically, a cost involved. The question then changes to how long do you need to stay in the same house after refinancing to recoup the cost of refinancing. Let us take an example. Say you currently have a 5% loan with $200K outstanding, and a different lender offers a 4% loan, with a $2000 closing cost. The current monthly payment is $1073.64. The new monthly payment is $954.83. Since the interest rate is lower, you’ll likely be paying less interest each month with the new loan. So over time the cumulative interest you pay the bank may be lesser with the new loan. For this example, after 1 year the total interest paid with the current loan is about $9900, whereas with the new loan it is $7900. This is about $2000 in savings in 1 year just from the interest rate reduction. Since the interest you pay is like the fees the bank charges for its services, you have found a low-fee option. So in 1 year you have overcome the $2000 cost of refinancing. From year 2 onward you stand to gain by doing this refinance. (Note: I am ignoring that interest is tax-free money, that is, you get the taxes you paid on the interest in your next year’s tax returns. The savings from interest reduction are therefore about 20 to 25% lesser than the savings I am quoting here and in the spreadsheet. It is easy to fix that though, if you choose to. Instead of saving $2000, you’d have actually only saved $1500 if you fall in the 25% tax rate bracket.)

Now, let us see what happens to the rest of the money you are paying each month, the principal. With the current loan the cumulative principal payment after 1 year is
$2950. With the new loan the cumulative principal paid in 1 year is $3522. That is, you own more of the house. But this is not important by itself. Yes, you own more of the house, but the net is you converted some cash into a bit of house. If you had not owned any of the house you’d have been left with cash which you could have invested and actually grown it. The house grows or falls equally in value regardless of whether you are invested in it or not.

But there is one more component to this equation other than the interest and principal. The overall monthly payment has reduced from $1073.64 to $954.83. That is a freeing up of $118.81 each month to be invested as you choose. Even if this was invested conservatively in a 6% rate of return investment, you end up with $1472 at the end of the first year. This is money that would not have been available at all with the current loan. So in fact, at the end of year 1, you have save $2000 + $1472, the former coming from the interest savings and the latter from investing the cash freed up. This means, the $2000 cost of refinancing will actually be made up even sooner than 1 year. Given the above 6% assumption it is more like 7 months. If you plan to live in this house for 7 months or more, go for the refinancing

The figure above shows the time to recoup the cost of refinancing, considering only the interest savings and also considering the case where the overall reduction in monthly payment can be invested at 6%.

Acknowledgements

My understanding of the issues involved in refinancing, in particular, and mortgages, in general, is based upon my going through this decision-making process recently. Much of this understanding was developed during discussions with my friends Gordie and Srini. If you find flaws in my understanding please let me know. Some online resources that helped me were http://www.mtgprofessor.com/formulas.htm , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refinancing and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage.

Posted in Experiences, Information, Tutorials | 2 Comments »

What should I do with my used PVC shower curtain liner?

July 19th, 2009 admin

When replacing the PVC shower curtain liner today, I was wondering what kind of plastic it was and whether it was recyclable.

Here is what I learnt about the various types of plastics. The following list is from Wikipedia’s article on Plastics.

1. PET (PETE), polyethylene terephthalate: Commonly found on 2-liter soft drink bottles, water bottles, cooking oil bottles, peanut butter jars.
2. HDPE, high-density polyethylene: Commonly found on detergent bottles, milk jugs.
3. PVC, polyvinyl chloride: Commonly found on plastic pipes, outdoor furniture, siding, floor tiles, shower curtains, clamshell packaging.
4. LDPE, low-density polyethylene: Commonly found on dry-cleaning bags, produce bags, trash can liners, and food storage containers.
5. PP, polypropylene: Commonly found on bottle caps, drinking straws, yogurt containers, Lego building blocks.
6. PS, polystyrene: Commonly found on “packing peanuts”, cups, plastic tableware, meat trays, take-away food clamshell containers
7. OTHER, other: This plastic category, as its name of “other” implies, is any plastic other than the named #1–#6, Commonly found on certain kinds of food containers, Tupperware, and Nalgene bottles.

Three main things I learnt are:

1. The biggest difficulty with recycling plastics is that these types tend to get mixed up when people try to keep the plastics aside for recycling, and separating them is a labor intensive problem - often not worth the trouble - and thus, unfortunately, sending all this plastic, irrespective of the good intentions of recycling them, into landfills.

2. PET (Coke and Pepsi bottles) is very different from PVC (Gatorade bottles and my problem at hand, shower curtain liners), both of which are different form HDPE (milk jugs and detergent bottles)! PVC if mixed with PET, can ruin not only the batch of PET that is being recycled, it can even hurt the recycling machine! So be careful with recycling PVC.

3. Polystyrene (PS), which is used in “styrofoam” to-go food takeout boxes, is typically not recycled because it is not cost-effective to do so (maybe because of how cheap it is and also because of the food contamination that goes with the territory). It almost definitely ends up in landfills, and only centuries of wait may see its end. Along the way, during those centuries, who know how much damage it causes to the living things that inadvertently ingest it.

So, all in all, recycling is not as easy as dumping anything plastic into the recycling bin; it is important to be aware of the differences between plastics. It is important also to educate ourselves about how to ensure that what we think we are recycling actually gets recycled. Styrofoam is best avoided. Maybe we need to leave repeated comments on restaurant websites that they should avoid using styrofoam-based to-go boxes, and instead switch to paper (like Chinese-takeout buckets).

I am not sure how well I will be able to follow all of my own suggestions. The intention here is to start thinking about these issues.

A couple of other interesting websites I found:

1.  http://www.townofcary.org/depts/pwdept/recycling/trivia.htm

2.  http://www.greensangha.org/PVCaction.PDF

Now, the question still remains. What do I do with the used PVC shower curtain liner? I don’t know if Cary recycles PVC. I need to find out and act accordingly. And maybe it is best to stop buying these liners, and instead switch to a cloth-only liner or some bio-degradable variety.

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Have people forgotten Shiva?

July 19th, 2009 admin

Hinduism has a notion of trinity - three forces that drive the universe. The trinity consists of the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer (personified respectively by Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva). I do not claim to know the spiritual aspect of this concept. However, the applicability of this concept to the physical things in our lives is almost obvious. Everything physical comes into being, serves its purpose during its lifetime and is (or rather, should be) eventually destroyed. These three forces must guide each other in an eternal cycle, rather than in a linear progression. That which is destroyed, must contribute to the creation, and that which is created must be destroyable. This is not philosophy; this is just the principle of equilibrium and balance.

The spark of a creator’s idea, must be weighed and studied for the sustainability and fesibility of that which the idea generates. Once the creative force is assured of the sustainability and usefulness of its creation, it must also analyze the destructibility of the creation. Only when the idea passes both these tests - useful when in existence and destroyable when not useful - is the creation sustainable. To be destroyed does not mean to make it go away or vanish. Being destroyed here means to change form. The death of one is the birth of another. The death of a wine glass when it slips from your hand and shatters is the birth of a hundred pieces of glass. The death of those hundred pieces in a kiln if the birth of liquid silica, which dies to takes up another form when shaped into a glass window.

Sunstainable creation is dependent on reliable destruction, which in turn is dependent on future creation. In our lives nowadays, I wonder if the creator’s dependence on the destroyer is being slowly forgotten. Things are getting created with no concern for its destructibility (and often with no concern even for sustainability). Creation is driven by sustainability and usefulness, which is fine. However, the second part of the pre-creation analysis, destruction, is becoming only a secondary concern.

A case in point is plastics. Plastics are almost irreplaceable in certain situations. However, its usage cycle has overflowed its equilibrium bounds. The ease of creating plastics and the convenience of sustaining plastics have together overpowered the responsibility of destroying them. The durability of plastics, which is often a big positive, makes it equally hard to destroy. And when used in scenarios where such durability becomes a liability, the benefits of plastics are questionable. Wikipedia’s article on Plastics has this, somewhat scary, line. “Due to their relatively low cost, ease of manufacture, versatility, and imperviousness to water, plastics are used in an enormous and expanding range of products, from paper clips to spaceships. They have already displaced many traditional materials, such as wood; stone; horn and bone; leather; paper; metal; glass; and ceramic, in most of their former uses.” Notice that all the things that plastics have replaced are either natural or biodegradable, or both. I agree that there are some organic palstics in nature, and there are some man-made biodegradable plastics; however, the point I am trying to make is not hijacked by either of these. From wall-to-wall carpets to the teacups used by chai-wallahs in roadside dhabas, from ziploc bags to microwaveable idli-plates, plastics have slowly but surely taken over our lives. In this takeover, not only has the senseless overuse of plastics created a dangerous imbalance in the natural world, it has paralyzed us into a state of helplessness compliance. Plastics have destroyed the destroyer.

In many uses of plastics, they are certainly replaceable by other, more responsibly created, products. We, the users and sustainers of plastics, should vote down the creators’ decision to create them by reducing the use of plastics where possible (take your cloth grocery bags with you when you go shopping, use glass or steel dinner ware at home and paper or corn-based plates at picnics). When usage is not avoidable, we can restore the balance somewhat by paying due homage to the destroyer (use plastic that is recyclable and recycle the plastic that you use). A moments thought before consumption can not only help restore some balance in the cycle of creations and destruction, it can also help restore a sense of control over our destiny.

On my part, I make it a point to visit the Shiva temple of Cary once a month. It is a large, airy temple, with the added convenience of a drive-through pradakshina (the act of revenential, clockwise, walking around a Hindu temple’s central structure). Each time I go, the priest walks up to my car, greets me, and asks, “What do you have?”. Upon telling him about my problems, he points me to the correct deity to go pay my respects to. His utterance may seem strange for temple-talk, “Go to number 4″, but what he really means is, “Deity no. 4 will rid you of all your troubles and send you home free and uplifted”. The temple, for some strange secular reasons, likes to identify itself with a small, unadorned, non-ostentatious, green sign with white lettering that reads, “Cary Recycling Center”.

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On the role of the media in sports in India

September 13th, 2008 admin

Some things are only visible from the corner of the eye; they vanish when you try to look at them directly. Similarly, I believe, the best approach to religion  is not a headlong dive to grab its elusive essence, but rather, an indirect infusion of those ideas and ideals via a more concrete medium. One such concrete medium, which India seems to have never given much chance to, is sports. My friend, Akshay, sent me an article by Professor V. Raghunathan (author of the book “Games Indians Play: Why we are the way we are”) on why India’s performances in sports in general and Olympics in particular falls way short of what one would expect from a nation of over a billion people. The article is called “Games Indians Don’t Win“.

I agree with most of Dr. Raghunathan’s observations though I find that some of the arguments could be further strengthened by factual details. I also felt that the article does not point out one factor which can elevate the status of sports in India - media. I see many children and young people nowadays finding no outlet for their natural instincts to exercise their bodies and minds via sports. Instead much of their energies are being channeled towards unimaginative, creativity-sapping shows on the TV and the inescapable din created by the industry that religion is becoming. Lot of it is because in population heavy urban areas, there are not enough facilities and open spaces for the young to play. In rural areas where there are open areas and, arguably, time at hand for kids to explore sport, facilities and, more importantly, awareness are severely lacking. There is no incentive to try to be great at a sport.

The young minds of the country, with no reason or facilities to go out an play, are increasingly being moulded by what the see on the TV. Some get influenced by the western media and the western culture they see on the TV and blindly jump on to that bandwagon. The remaining shun the western influence so much that they lean to the other extreme, and get swept by fundamentalist religious rhetoric. In either case, the TV influences their ability to think for themselves. Instead of making the youth broad-minded in their approach to cultures, science and entertainment, it makes them confused, at first, and, dogmatic and narrow-minded, eventually.  Religion in India is losing its real meaning; it has become a service industry. It is encroaching the airwaves via loud speakers and TV and radio shows. It is encroaching every free piece of land, which should have been left as play areas for children, by temple construction projects. It is sucking up every rupee anyone can and cannot spare to feed its furnace of the self-fulfilling prophecies. It is taking over people’s ability to think. Its misinterpretation and misrepresentation over the years is reaching a point where sense and rationality no longer prevails, and democracy itself, that fairest social system, might no longer be able to see right from wrong. The opium of the masses, as Karl Marx called it, is finally taking over the sanity of a democracy. If a majority in a democracy are disillusioned, I wonder what keeps a democracy from self-destruction? The economic prosperity that India now enjoys is a great opportunity to keep religious and other extreme influences in check by clearly communicating to the masses the true reasons for this economic upturn; this upturn is in spite of the religious fervor gripping the country, not because of it.

Coming back to the topic on hand, I think the media is best equipped to extricate the population from such extremes and let some sense prevail. Sports is a great leveler and is one of the best ways to bring a nation together. The media has a huge role it can play to help kids play in their free time, rather than watch soap operas and immerse themselves in religious discourses. Here is a snippet from an email I wrote on this topic to some of my family members.

“Media, especially television, has a tremendous control over the nation’s psyche. Media can make or break national opinions. The current fascination with game shows, song-and-dance competitions or soap operas is by and large a media created state of mass-hypnosis. The same power of the media can get people to start appreciating the importance of physical exercise and sport. More importantly, it can be an enabler for pulling in interest and, therefore, money into regional and national sporting events. An example is the recent city-based cricket leagues. An entire industry, a multi-billion dollar enterprise, can be built around sports in India. It is an largely untapped market. Doordarshan’s depressing, half-hearted, monopolistic attempts at covering sporting events in India makes people even more reluctant to try sports professionally. Sports is real-life drama and entertainment. It needs professionally trained media-men to bring out that drama on screen. Once that excitement, that tension, and the drama can be conveyed, the audience will pay attention. This might require bringing out the personal backgrounds of the players, their histories, their stories of hardships and determination to the people. Once people are latched, competition increases both in the sport and the coverage of the sport. The advertising revenue starts to flow in. With money flowing in, there is a feed back effect. More people want to take part in sports, more people want to watch sports, more people want to cover sports and make money. For example, why do we prefer Harsha Bhogle to Sanjay Manjrekar in the cricket commentator’s box, and why do we prefer Star Sports to Doordarshan for sports coverage? Quality. People can perceive quality differences. Similarly, why is Praveen Kumar, the cricketer, evoke national interest? Because of his background as a wrestler from a small town. These small-town heroes are the media pets. They help catch the public’s fancy. “If it can be him…it can be me!”, they aspire.

In India, shooting, archery, wrestling, boxing are relatively easy to make popular. The sports persons have to be cast into media demi-gods… only then will people know their names and their existence, let alone pay much attention. When the drama of sports is discovered and conveyed by the media to the audiences, even shooting can be made into a heart-racing, edge-of-the-seat thriller.”

One thing that I should clarify is “Why should children play sports - a rather mundane, pointless exercise?”, “Why is winning medals at the Olympics that important?”, “Why not let the entire nation, instead, spend all their energy and time learning their place in God’s scheme of things?”. The answer, I think, is because they will discover their God, their place in the scheme of things, their goals, better, by participating in sports and playing their heart out, than by cracking coconuts, lighting agarbattis, exchanging bananas or watching TV.

Posted in Experiences, Friends, Information | 2 Comments »

Notes on Memory Consistency and Cache Coherence

June 27th, 2008 admin

Here are some of my notes on the topic of memory consistency and cache coherence, and how uniprocessor and multiprocessor cores have to be built to support the consistency models. Most of this was written up when I was preparing for my Qualifying Exam at NC State University last semester. This is a relatively complicated topic to understand well, and there might still be several mistakes in how I understood the ideas. Also, this might only make sense, and be interesting, to people familiar with these areas of computer architecture. Here’s the pdf file: Notes on Memory Consistency and Cache Coherence

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In Phase Interview

September 30th, 2007 admin

A little over a month ago, Sourabh Sriom, a current student at Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, contacted me for an interview. IITG is where I earned my Bachelors degree. Our class, the class of 99, was the first to pass out of the new institution. The ECE Department at IITG has an ECE society called Cepstrum. On september 20th, 2007, Cepstrum released the first issue of the monthly magazine called In Phase. The purpose of In Phase is to both help the students be in touch with the happenings in their field, Electonics and Communications Engineering, and to help restore the social networks between alumni, faculty and students. I was honored to be asked for an interview. It helped me give the current students a view of how my career progressed, after graduating from IITG, and also helped me a chance to reflect on a few things. I would like to thank IITG and Cepstrum for giving me this opportunity. I also was pleased to see the continued support of the faculty at IITG, many of whom I studied under, in this endeavour. It was great to read Dr. P. K. Bora’s communication to the In Phase team, which appears in the magazine too. Here is the original link to the magazine, which appears in the Cepstrum webpage here. I also made a local copy of the magazine on my webpage here. Note that this is a 5.8MB pdf file. It might take some time to open up, and your browser needs to be able to open pdf files. A few questions and answers form my original response had to be removed due to space constraints in the magazine. If you just wish to read the interview questions and answers, the full interview follows.
1. Being a student of the 1st batch of our IIT, tell us about your apprehensions and pre-conceived notions, if any, about IITG.

From what I recollect about my state of mind then, I believe I was more excited than apprehensive. The opportunity to study at an institution where the quality of education, faculty, students and facilities was reputed to be at par with the best in the country excited me. My inclination was towards ECE as a subject area and I was only grateful that I could pursue that subject at IITG when I probably could not elsewhere, given my rank in the JEE. My only preconceived notions about IITG were that it would be a young institute looking to build itself, both in literal terms and in its beliefs and character. I knew it would be an institute that would not have much to show for itself in the first few years in brick and mortar terms. I also knew that when you put smart, motivated and courageous people - people who were smart enough to get into IITG, motivated enough to prioritize their area of academic interest over the place of study, and courageous enough to choose an hitherto unexplored destination – the chances are good that you will end up with an institution you can be proud of.

2. Did these feelings live up when you finally entered IITG? That is, how were your first few days at IITG?

The disappointment of seeing the small, unassuming, pale, four-storied building tucked in the cramped, commercial heart of the city, further isolated by the agonizing groans and rumbles of slow-moving trains on railway lines on one side, and the noisy arch of the Pan Bazaar flyover too close for comfort on another, could have been overwhelming; for me, however, there as no disappointment. The lack of a tangible, photographable campus with large buildings and facilities was probably compensated for, subconsciously, by trying harder to do the best we could with what we had. And what we had were a batch of 64 motivated students, great faculty and the hope that everything else an institution needs would come in due time. I think the one thing that IITG had from day one was fantastic people. And that takes care of the two main aspects of undergraduate education – developing academic skills and developing social skills.

3. Did you feel let down at any point during your stay here? (If, yes what or who boosted your confidence?)

No. I do not recollect feeling let down at any point. The reason might have, partly, been that I had nothing to compare our experiences to. But even in absolute terms, I think the IITG Administration was sensitive to our needs and were always receptive to our suggestions. Even when there were the occasional drooping shoulders, the administration, faculty members and other students would boost the morale by providing honest perspective.

4. Talk us through the experiences of the rest of your B. Tech, the faculty, other students, and, the placements.

We were lucky to have some highly motivated faculty members whose knowledge of their subject was thorough, and, enthusiasm for their craft, contagious. It was a pleasure to actively learn from them in the classroom and beyond. With 63 other students to begin with and with more joining in the future years, it was a non-stop learning experience in social behavior. The emotional support, comic relief, opinionated exchanges and lifelong friendships are experiences we students shared with each other and the faculty. The combination of our being in our late teens, the 4 years we were together for and the shared adventure that was IITG, might be the reason why the friendships made in those days are still so strong. The placements and higher studies are but a blur in my mind. I remember that even then we were able to attract some of the best companies and were offered good jobs with competitive pay.

5. What prompted you to go for higher studies abroad?

My main motivation for higher studies was that I felt I had only begun to skim the surface of my field and there was a lot more for me to learn. The other school of thought was that what you really need to learn you can learn while doing a job. Though that was true to the extent of doing your job well, I wanted to learn more for its own end. That is, I wanted to learn what great minds of the past had thought up or discovered, for no other reason than that I wanted to know. I had no plans for how I was going to use that knowledge. Why abroad? I wanted to explore the kind of academics and research that is practiced in other reputed institutions of the world. It was, in some sense, IITG all over again - the yearning to put yourself in a new situation, to, hopefully, gain a new perspective.

6. Did the department guide you in this goal of yours? If yes, then in what way?

Yes. Because we did not have any student history to go by, being the first batch, we had to research the process of applying for a PhD or a Master’s ourselves, to a large extent. We had faculty members who were extremely helpful in educating us on how to go about applying, how to attempt standardized tests for graduate school entrance, and which schools to choose, based on their experience and contacts. Lastly, they wrote us honest recommendation letters.

7. What were the major differences you felt graduating from a premier institute in India to doing your PG from a reputed university in the US?

I went to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA for my Master’s in Electrical and Computer Engineering. It was a gigantic University compared to IITG and certainly a bit overwhelming. The size, the history and the bureaucracy were the first things I noticed. It worked like a giant machine with things happening like clockwork running on old but well-oiled and well-cared-for parts. However, I was able to find myself an apartment, make new friends, get a decent understanding of the geography of the large campus, get my head around the official rules and requirements, participate in a different culture, continue good performance in academics, and participate in sports and other extra-curricular activities. So all in all, I think IITG prepared me well to take up the new challenges in the new environment.

8. How did you land up in IBM? Tell us something about your stint there.

Similar to placement interviews at the end of a B.Tech at IITG, there was a job fest organized at Purdue University’s ECE Department. I interviewed with several companies and decided to get some exposure to the industry. I joined IBM, primarily, because of the company’s reputation, the breadth of knowledge the company seemed to possess and because the team that interviewed me seemed to be doing very interesting work. The main difference between academia and industry is that industry tries to channel research into an end product that is tangible, useful and therefore, sellable. IBM has a Research division too; however, the team I joined is part of Development. I work as a Future System Performance Engineer. My work deals with helping hardware designers and system architects optimize the design of a future computer system such that it performs the best it can, given various requirements, such as expected workloads, throughput and latency requirements, and constraints, such as the area and power budget, architectural or microarchitectural extensions allowed etc. I learn a lot of new things on the job and work with some very sharp people.

9. At what point during your job did you make up your mind to go for a PhD?

I noticed that high importance is given to innovative thinking at IBM. I realized that with better knowledge of the Computer Architecture field, I could not just solve the current design problems better, but more importantly, I could foresee future problems and try to incorporate that vision into the current solutions. I also noticed that in the region where I live and work, there were several good Universities and IBM management was always supportive and encouraging in allowing me to go back to school for either an MBA or a PhD. So after working for about 4 years at IBM, I applied to and joined North Carolina State University in Raleigh as a part-time PhD student. By then I had gotten a reasonable understanding of the types of design and technology constraints computer architects and hardware designers face in their work and the kind of solutions that make a product competitive in the market. I thought the time was right to look at the directions academia was taking in this field. Academia and Research are typically a few years ahead of the Industry and Development. Therefore, being in touch with academia allows you to see patterns that would be harder to see from within the industry.

10. How was research in ECE different from a job in the area?

Though I have not yet started serious research as part of my PhD, and am currently taking classes and only recently formed my Advisory Committee, I can give you my current view on this topic. Since I joined my PhD after some exposure to the industry, I can research a topic that is a new and interesting problem both in academia and industry. Such overlap is usually not perfect, but if research in an academic setting is guided to some extent by real problems faced by engineers, it leads to research that is more purposeful.

11. How would you compare India and the US in terms of opportunities in the ECE field?

Having limited exposure to the industry in India, I have to go by my understanding of what I have heard or read. I believe that India has a foot in the door to becoming a knowledge superpower. India is already a major player in the software and services industry. From being a middle-man providing support to the producers and the consumers, India is itself moving towards being a big producer and a big consumer. That is a significant shift, because as a producer you create value where it did not exist before, and as a consumer, you provide a reason for the producers to produce. India seems to be on the threshold of a gear change in this engine of value-creation and value-aware-demand. In ECE and related fields the differences in opportunities between the US and India will continue to shrink as long as India continues to take the opportunities that come her way and discover or create new opportunities on her own.

12. Would you like to share a piece of advice with our readers about how they should plan their career moves.

Based on my limited experiences, based on what has served me well, assuming a vast majority of the readers are students at IITG, and assuming a general guideline rather than a strict example is useful, my advice is, be honest and positive. By honest, I mean several things. Be forthright in your assessment of where you are, where you want to be, how to get there. Be a humble follower when you should be, and likewise, a confident leader when you should be. Be connected to reality by being aware of your thoughts, your motivations, your limitations, your duties and your actions. By positive I mean, most importantly, try to keep improving yourself. Try to do the best job in everything you do. How you define “improvement” or “best” depends on how honestly you can judge where you are and where you want to be. Try to improve that ability to judge as well. By positive I also mean be creative. Get into the habit of practicing your innate creativity. We have the brains and the training to actively create value, rather than passively consume it. Even when being a consumer be an active one. Be a good follower (active consumer) and be a good leader (active producer). Let the opportunity to partake in creativity guide your career moves.

13. Finally, a word for the very first people at IITG, the director, the faculty of the department, the HOD. I’m sure they all would be proud of you.

I am and have always been impressed by the positive energy of the IITG Administration and Faculty. In twelve short years the progress made by IITG has been remarkable and most of the credit should go to these nurturing souls. I am grateful and proud to have been, and still be, a part of IITG. I am positive it will continue to grow in stature and fulfill its role in shaping the world.

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Finally, one Contact List to rule them all

July 29th, 2007 admin

I have a Yahoo email account. I have a Google email account. I have a few more that I do not use much. Each email application or service provider typically has an Address Book or Contacts List, which we can use to list the names, email addresses and other information about people. For a while, I have been thinking about getting the contact lists organized. There were several layers to the word “organized” and I was apprehensive about starting to peel those layers. The first layer of the problem was figuring out which mail server I wanted to stick to. The next thought was to create a superset of all the contact lists, currently scattered across applications and mail servers, at one place. The next issue was to find a way to update the contact list quickly, rather than clicking around a web-based Address Book or Contact List applications such as the one provided by Yahoo and Google Mail. Then there was the hope that I could keep a copy of the contact list locally on my personal computer, in case, at some point, I did not have internet access to get to the Yahoo Address Book.

This list of requirements seemed formidable in itself, yet, what made me skeptical of a final solution, was one last requirement I had. I had maintained a list of birthdays and anniversaries in a text file separate from the contact lists in the mail servers I mentioned. It was a simple text file and a simple Perl script I wrote could go through this text file everyday and send me an email if it found any upcoming event. I wanted to retain the ability to do such scripting and not have to maintain a separate text file version of the contact list, just for the purposes of being able to run such a reminder script.

After collecting and formulating these thoughts over a long time, I finally spent a few minutes last week looking for a solution to the multi-layered problem. Searching on the internet revealed that there WAS a relatively easy solution that fixes ALL the above problems, including giving me the ability to run a simple script to extract birthday and anniversary information! Here is the solution. Yahoo and Google Address Books allow the existing contacts-list to be exported as a CSV (Comma Separated Variable) file, or a CSV file to be imported to populate the Contact List or Address Book application. A CSV file, as the name suggests, is just a regular text file, with many fields belonging to a record typed across a single line, with the comma symbol (”,”) separating the fields. A new record starts in a new line. The file can be opened with a regular text-editor such as Notepad, Wordpad or Textpad in Windows and vi, pico and emacs in Unix. The file may also be opened using Microsoft Excel spread sheet and the fields show up in separate column and the lines show up in separate rows. This solves the problem of easily modifying the contact list in bulk and storing the contact list as a local file on your personal computer. The CSV file is compatible across Yahoo and Google, and probably across many other applications like Microsoft Outlook and Orkut (web-based networking application). The CSV file can then be imported into Yahoo Mail, Google Mail or other such applications. Problem solved. Single contact list. Storable and updateable locally. Uploadable to multiple web-based servers.

The CSV file based common contact list also allowed me to enter the anniversary and birthday in appropriate columns. I wrote a script called contact.py in the Python scripting language to read the contact list file as a simple text file (in the CSV format) and search for upcoming events. This allowed me to get rid of the earlier text file I had my Perl script read. The CSV file, I called it contactlist.csv, was truly the one file I needed to retain for all my address-book related needs. Whenever I want to add a new contact or update information about an existing contact, I update the local copy of the contact list, contactlist.csv, and then import it into Yahoo Mail and Google Mail to keep them up to date. I have noticed that before I import the latest contactlist.csv file into Yahoo or Google, I need to delete all the existing contacts from Yahoo and Google, respectively. Once, we have an empty contact list on the mail server, the importing of contactlist.csv recreates the complete list. Not starting with an empty contact list on the mail servers, creates duplicates, probably because the “import” function is not smart enough to recognize duplicates.

Here is an example of what a few rows from the CSV file contactlist.csv looks like. It gives us idea of what the fields are. The example also shows that all the fields in a CSV file need not be filled. A field can be left empty if we do not know the information relating to that field for a given contact. Also, I use xxxx for the year field of a date (such as a birthday or an anniversary date), in case I do not know the year. This is OK because the script that parses this CSV file, called contact.py, and which is shown later, does not use the year field to determine if an anniversary is approaching. It only uses the day and month parts of the field.

First,Middle,Last,Nickname,Email,Messenger ID,Home,Work,Pager,Fax,Mobile,Other,Yahoo! Phone,Alternate Email 1,Alternate Email 2,Personal Website,Business Website,Title,Company,Work Address,Work City,Work State,Work ZIP,Work Country,Home Address,Home City,Home State,Home ZIP,Home Country,Birthday,Anniversary,Custom 1,Custom 2,Custom 3,Custom 4,Comments,Messenger ID1,Messenger ID2,Messenger ID3,Messenger ID4,Messenger ID5,Messenger ID6,Messenger ID7,Messenger ID8,Messenger ID9,Skype ID,IRC ID,ICQ ID,Google ID,MSN ID,AIM ID,QQ ID
Shahrukh,Mayur,Khan,srk,srk@bollywood.com,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,1/2/xxxx,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Here is the contact.py Python script which then works on the CSV file called contactlist.csv with contents as shown above, and sends email to your email account. You might have to appropriately fix some of the fields in the script to get it to work. I present it here just as a hint.

import csv, datetime, re
from string import split
filename = “contactlist.csv”
warnZone = 8 #number of days before which email reminder should be sent

import smtplib
smtpserver = ‘mailserver.department.company.com’
AUTHREQUIRED = 0
RECIPIENTS = [’gol345die@gmail.com’]
SENDER = [’con789vey@po.doc.com’]
session = smtplib.SMTP(smtpserver)
smtpresult = session.sendmail(SENDER, RECIPIENTS, content)
if smtpresult:
errstr = “”
for recip in smtpresult.keys():
errstr = “”"Could not deliver mail to : %s Server said: %s %s %s”"” % (recip, smtpresult[recip][0], smtpresult[recip][1], errstr)
raise smtplib.SMTPException, errstr

Posted in Information, Tutorials | 2 Comments »

Hinduism: Professor Kishor Trivedi’s observations

November 6th, 2005 admin

Professor Kishor Trivedi of Duke University has written a wonderful introduction to what Hinduism is. His astute observations help a novice see the difference between ritual practices and the crux of this way of life. He carefully guides us through the various facets of this often nebulous concept, stringing together the various words we associate with Hinduism, providing perspective and scope. In spite of the amount of information, he never loses the reader, because of the reassuring obviousness and simplicity of the ideas he presents. Though not the main theme of the article, he also places the role of religion in context. With near clinical accuracy and the ease of a seasoned mathematician, he reasons that the contradictions and friction between the various named religions of the world are a reflection on human shortcoming when trying to come to grips with the vastness of this concept. I took permission from Professor Trivedi to provide his article here.
Dr. Kishore Trivedi’s article on Hinduism

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Travel Tips for parents (first timers) coming to the US

January 19th, 2005 admin

If you are inviting your parents/family/friends to come visit you in the US and this is their first trip, you might consider giving them some tips to ease their anxiety. I am presenting here the tips I provided my parents. Feel free to use this for your personal use, but make sure you appropriately modify the non-generic information according to your situation.

Dear Mom and Dad,

If you wish please keep a printout of this during travel so you can refer to it in case of doubt. Otherwise if you think you can remember the points I make, then no need to take a printout.
TRAVEL TO THE US IS PRETTY STRAIGHT FORWARD. YOU SHOULD HAVE NO TROUBLE. SO START THE TRIP WITH A RELAXED, PLEASANT MOOD.

Here are some tips I could think of now. If I think of more I will append those to this list.

AIRPORTS

Gates and Terminals:

Usually, airports have about 4-5 terminals and each terminal has 20-30 gates. So if the terminals are called A, B, C and D. The gates may be named A1, A2…A37, B1., B2 …B16 ..and so on. Gates are where you board the flight from. The ‘gate’ leads to the airplane door. The terminal is a general area of the airport catering usually to only a particular set of flights (say all international flights or all American Airline flights). A terminal, typically, has its own restarants, bookstores, coffee shops, phones, restrooms (toilets/urinals) etc.

Telephones in US airports:

There are three ways to call. Money, prepaid calling cards, collect calls. The telephones in the airport usually work when you put in 35 cents (a dollar is divided into 100 cents, just like a rupee is divided into 100 paise). This means put in a quarter and a dime or quarter and two nickels or some other combination to get you 35. A quarter is 25 cent coin. A dime is 10 cent coin and a nickel is a 5 cent coin. Another way to call from the phone booth is using what are called prepaid calling cards. These are what I use to call you from here. You have to dial an access number (which is free call on public phones) and then the PIN number. Once you do that you can enter the number you wish to call. So follow this method to call your US contact from the airport.
(The following is an example calling card that I had bought for my parents when they had come to the US. You may provide your guest similar information.)
-call the toll free access number: 1 800 146 3427
- it will say something in spanish, then will say press 2 to continue instructions in English.
- press 2
- enter the PIN number which is : 6347 5450 3783
- it will tell you how many dollars you have on the card and will ask you to then enter the number you wish to reach.
- you can try any of the following numbers at this point
-1 919 xxx xxxx (Anil Mobile - should be your first choice)
-1 919 xxx xxxx (Anil Office Phone)
-1 309 xxx xxxx (Kavita Mobile)
-1 309 xxx xxxx (Kavita Home)
-1 434 xxx xxxx (Anant Home - Anant will be with me, though, when you land in Detroit)
A third way to use the phone is to place a collect call. I suggest you try this if the calling-card method does not work. What you have to do here is - press 1 800 COLLECT on the phone. That is same as 1 800 2655228.
- an operator will pick up and ask you to say where you want to call and what your name is. Just give the number (say “9 1 9 2 6 4 7 4 8 6″ for calling my mobile) and say your name as “Kishore, K-I-S-H-O-R-E”. Spelling it out helps them, but it not necessary. The only reason the operator want to know your name is because he or she will call me and first say “Kishore wants to place a collect call…would you like to take it?” I can say “yes” and she will connect you to me. The charge for the call will go to my bill. It is that simple.

Restrooms:

In the airport, the restrooms will not have any water in the toilet stall. Toilet paper is the norm. There will be water at the wash basins of course. There are two things here. First is if you urgently need to use the toilet, there is no shame or lack of cleanliness in using toilet paper. Secondly, if possible use the restroom in the aeroplane itself because it has easy access to the washbasin (so you can keep a small plastic tumbler with you and use that as needed. Since the wash basin in the aeroplane restroom is in easy reach you can use as much water - indeed warm water - as you need)

Drinking water:

Usually right outside a restroom, you will see a “water fountain”. That is the name given to a device which throws a small parabola of water when a lever is pressed. You can either drink by bending and slurping the water in mid air or you can fill a cup/tumbler with that water first and using that.

Directions:

Airports have information booths where you can get any information you need. For example, if you are in Amsterdam and want to call me for some question, then you can ask some personnel about how to use the phone. If I remember right, Schiphol airport has detailed directions on the phones themselves. There are usually lots of easy to understand signs (English is normally always a language they are in). They will point you to transportation (Train symbol means a the train to take you from one terminal to another within an airport, Suitcase symbol means baggage claim etc.)

AEROPLANES

Temperature:

Usually the temperature is quite cold inside the aeroplane. They should provide you with a small pillow and a blanket to cover yourself. Use them.

Food:

Food service will be announced at the beginning of every leg of the journey. So they may announce that “On this flight there will be a dinner service followed by beverage service”. Simply eat whenever the food is served. Eat however much or little you want from what is served. Keep some light snacks in your carry-on luggage if you want to, in case you do not like what is served. They will normally not wake you up during food and beverage service if you are asleep. I think that is a good thing. You can ask for water, orange, apple or other juices anytime you want. But normally the beverage service is pretty good and regular. Beverage service also includes alcoholic drinks (free), juices, colas, tea and coffee. Coffee and tea come with separate creamer and sugar.

Sleep:

There will be periods of the flight where they show movies/other entertainment on either small screen TVs or large screen projections. You can listen to the audio by connecting the headphones to the socket on your seat. You can also listen to other music on other channels on the headphone. Then there will be a phase where lights will be dimmed and the constant hum of the aeroplane should put you to sleep. So that time try to get enough sleep. Infact I am not a big fan of the movies they show in the flight. I just try to sleep through them. The more you sleep the better for you.

Restrooms:

The restrooms are normally heavily used right after a meal or beverage service. So there are lines of people waiting to get in sometimes. So try to use the restrooms when the food service has not started or long after it is over and there is no rush. You can see the lines just by looking toward the restrooms. The closest restrooms could be to your front or back.

Form:

They will normally hand you a form to be filled in on the flight. This form I think is handed just before you land at the US. The form is for the Immigration and Customs to decide if you have declared something worth an inspection. You can simply say you do not have anything to declare. You need your passport numbers handy for filling out that form. In that case, you might have to stand up to bring down your suitcase from the overhead compartment or you could keep the passport number information written down someplace else so you can get to it easier. Also remember that disembark, deplane and alight all mean the same thing - getting off of the plane and stepping on land. Your port of disembarkation is Detroit.

CUSTOMS AND IMMIGRATION

At Detroit, you will have to go through Customs first and then Immigration. At Immigration you will be asked for you passport and then they will staple an I94 card - “Departure Record” to the passports. That card will say how long you are allowed to stay. You can tell the officer there that you would appreciate his letting you stay for 6 months and that you already have return tickets and that you also have health insurance for 6 months. Should not be any problem.

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Thinking about inviting parents over to the US?

May 2nd, 2004 admin

There are many websites that an intelligent Google search normally brings up, regarding information about inviting parents over to the US. I am doing my bit to add to the archives, my experience. There are many aspects to organizing the visit - air tickets, health insurance, shopping and, most importantly, the Visa. Your parents will need a visitors-Visa stamped on their passports at the US Consulate nearest them. At this time interviews are required for all travelers below 60, and in the case of my parents, my dad also took an interview to give company to my mom although he, being over 60, did not have to take one. It is a pretty painless process, with only routine questions asked. The main thing is to have all the necessary documents.
There are documents that I, being the host, sent to my parents. Then they had to get some more documents readied, before they had the total package required for the Visa. I will breifly describe the docementation I sent them. I will then list the additional documentation they carried on their own.

What I sent to my parents in December 2003 for their US visitors Visa. You will most likely need similar documentation:

1. Notarized affidavit of support (Form I 134). Notarized means a member of the “Notary Public” should attest the copy. You take it to them and sign it in front of them, show them your ID and they will sign it and place their stamp. This service was available to me from my bank.
2. Statement from your employer, on their business stationery, showing the following – Data and nature of your employment, Salary paid, whether position is permanent or temporary. (Example letter provided after this list)
3. Letter from your bank, on their business stationery, showing the following – date account opened, total amount deposited for the past year, present balance, average yearly balance. Note that if the bank cannot provide this precise information, similar information would be fine, for example, 6 monthly numbers instead of yearly numbers.
4. Copies of your last one or two bank statements. If you receive e-statements, then printouts of the last one or two such statements.
5. Letter from yourself, addressed to the US Consulate, mentioning that you will be taking care of your parents during their stay. (Example letter provided after this list)
6. Personal letter of invitation to your parents. (Example letter provided after this list)
7. Copies of recent pay stubs (one or two). If you get e-stubs then printouts of those would work fine too.
8. Copy of recent income tax returns. ( I put in both the Federal and State returns)
9. Copy of all pages of your passport, including blank pages.
10. Copy of your H-1B Visa approval notice (I 797)
I sent two copies of each of the above documents. One bundle for my father and one for my mother. I am not sure if this redundancy is an overkill, but at least this way no last minute photo-copying would be necessary.

The following are examples of some of the letters I mentioned in the above list:

Example: Personal letter of invitation to parents (two copies made, one for each parent)
Date:
From :
To:
Sub: Invitation to visit the USA
Dear Mother and Father,
I would like to invite both of you to the USA to stay with me for six months. It would be very nice to have you spend time with me.
During the course of stay we will visit various tourist places in the USA such as New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Niagara Falls and if possible Las Vegas, Disneyland and Florida. During your stay in the United States, I will bear all your responsibilities including, but not limited to, financial responsibilities, return air ticket fare to travel from India to USA and back, travel expenses within USA, medical insurance, housing and food. You will stay with me in my house located at the above-mentioned address. During your stay here you will also get an opportunity to see and experience the western culture, meet different kinds of people and taste different varieties of food. You will also enjoy the nice weather and the nice city I live in.
We would have a nice time together after a long time. So please begin planning for the trip. I am eagerly waiting for you to visit me.
Yours lovingly
XXX XXX
Example: Letter to the US Consulate General, for mother’s Visa (Similarly formatted letter for father required)
Date:
From:
To:
Re: Request for Tourist Visa for my mother, XXX XXX
Dear Madam/Sir,
This is to notify you that I am inviting my mother, Mrs XXX XXX to visit me in the United States of America for a pleasure trip. She will be with me in the US at the above-mentioned address for a maximum period of six months. I agree that I am willing and able to receive maintain and support her if necessary, guarantee that she will not be a public charge during her stay in the USA. During her visit I confirm that all her expenses related to living and medical insurance will be borne by me. She will maintain a non-immigrant status and will depart prior to the expiration of her authorized stay in the US. I am including herewith the following support documents.
1. Affidavit of support
2. Employment verification letter
3. Financial verification letter
4. Copies of my H1B visa approval notice and passport
My mother will apply for her tourist Visa at the US Consulate in Chennai, your co-operation and assistance is highly appreciated. If you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me, at the above-mentioned address.
Sincerely
XXX XXX
Example: Employer’s letter verifying employment and informing the consulate about mother’s visit. (Similarly formatted letter for father required)
Date:
To whom it may concern
Mr. XXX XXX is a regular employee of XXXX division at, address of employer. Mr. XXX XXX has been employed as XXX ( position), since XXX(date). While his mother, XXX XXX, is visiting the United States, XXX will assume all financial responsibility for her expenses.
XXX’s current salary is $XXX yearly.
Sincerely,
XXX XXX
(designation and address of HR Manager or your manager etc)

My parents also prepared the following documents.

1. Individual passports. These must be valid for travel to the U.S. for at least six months after the date of entry in to the U.S. My father tells me that a passport takes about 15 to 20 days in Visakhapatnam to arrive, after applying for it. There is an accelerated process to get the passport which takes about 2 to 3 days, but costs more. I am not going to detail the process of getting a passport here, but a cursory glance at the requirements for one, indicate the requirement of a birth certificate, a certificate of your education level, proof of name, name changes due to marriage and proof of residence.
2. A fully completed and signed Visa Application Form - DS-156. By fully completed, it is meant that all questions should be answered, with “none” or “nil” to indicate absence. Do not say n.a. Do not draw a line. Respond fully to each question. For example, No. 27 is “What is the purpose of your trip?” If you are going on a tourist visa to see your son who is working in Detroit, don’t just put “tourist” as an answer, put ” “going to visit son in Detroit”. If you are a student, don’t respond to “purpose of trip” with ” to study”, be specific - for example “going to study for B.E. degree at Louisiana State”. Provide details whenever it is useful.
3. All male applicants between the ages of 16 and 45 must also submit a fully completed and signed Supplemental Application Form DS-157. My dad did not require this form.
4. Passport size photograph, 2 inches X 2 inches with a white or off-white background. The photograph should be recent (less than 6 months old). If you wear spectacles, there should be no glare. My parents simply too off their spectacles. This is a picture of the head primarily, not the bust. The head (top of the hair to the bottom of the chin should measure 1 to 1 3/8 inches. Stick to a white background.
5. Demand Drafts for the fees. The fees for my parents were as follows. Visa Application fee (non-refundable, meaning you will not get it back even if your Visa is declined) was Rs. 4600. Visa Issuance fee (not to be paid if the Visa is declined) was Rs. 2300. Courier fee (paid to TT Services to courier back the documents and stamped passport back to your permanent address) was Rs. 400. The Demand Drafts should be drawn on a nationalized or international bank. My parents used the UCO Bank. But banks like State Bank of India, Andhra Bank, Syndicate Bank, Punjab National Bank would work. The DDs were payable to “American Consulate General, Chennai”. The Courier fees of Rs. 400 was made payable to “T.T. Services”. The name and Passport number of the payer should be mentioned on the back of each DD.
Important: Please write your complete name and passport number on the back of each draft.
6. Movable and immovable property value estimates prepared by a Charterd Accountant. This is basically to prove to the Consulate Office that there is enough property that my parents own in India to make them return after the trip to the USA.
7. Copies of income tax returns for the last three years. In this case since only my father was the earning member he had to take these documents.
The Visa forms DS 156 and DS 157 are available at http://travel.state.gov/visaforms.html
More information about the consulates are available at the US Embassy website http://newdelhi.usembassy.gov/ . From here you can navigate to the websites of the three consulates in Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata.

Parents’ Experience

If the applicant is above 60 years of age, the interview appointment is not required. He or she may simply post all these documents to the T.T. Services. More information about T. T. Serives can be found in this webpage http://www.ttsvisas.com . Infact there are travel agencies in most indian cities, that make it even simpler by taking care of this process and making sure that you have all the required documents. They charge about Rs. 800 per person for their services. In the case of my parents, since they would have to go Chennai anyway, since my mother would have to appear for an interview, my dad chose to go along with her and present the documents directly at the Consulate. So they did not post the documents and they did not use the services of a travel agency. They did get some suggestions from Frontline travels in Visakhapatnam regarding the documents they would need, but this was done without charge to my parents. I really appreciate their foresight and goodwill. They landed a good deal since I chose them to provide air tickets for my parents visit. Anyway, so my parents set up an appointment for an interview online at the T. T. Services website. They could see the available slots and they chose one based on their convenience. They needed to take a printout of the appointment showing the date and time. This would be proof that you have arrived at the right time for the interview. Then it was a matter of reaching the Consulate about 1 hour ahead of the slated interview time. Outside the Consulate, there was a T. T. Services counter. The personnel there checked all the documents. They stamped a “Checked” mark on the interview date/time appointment printout that they were carrying. Then they were allowed to enter the embassy. Inside, they first paid the Courier Fee DD at another T. T. Services counter. Then they stuck some numbered stickers on the passports. Then the next counter accepted the Visa Application fee DD and a receipt/a card was handed back. This card contained the interview call number. At that same counter all the documents were taken, checked and a file was made with the required documents and the remaining documents are returned. Then my parents went into an interview hall with 7 or 8 counters. They waited for about 30 minutes (since they were a little early), before their file numbers were called. File number refers to the numbered card which they received at the counter before entering the waiting hall. The interview itself was for about 5-10 minutes, and was together for my father and mother. The questions asked were
“What is the purpose of your trip?” - they said something like, “To visit our son and see the US.”.
“Who is going to take care of you during your stay?” - they said something like, “Our son will.”.
“How many days do you intend to stay in the US with your son?”, - they said something like, “We intend to stay for about six months”.
“Is there anyone else in the US who you know?” - to which they replied, “Yes, our younger son, who is studying at University of Virginia, and lot of friends”.
“What property do you have in India?” - at which point my father showed the officer the documents he had prepared for this.
“Do you have any other commitments here in India, like dependents?” - for which my father replied that his mother-in-law, who is quite old, was staying with them, and for who they have been able to arrange caretakers for this period.
My mother was specifically asked, “So when did you last see your sons?”, “Do you have any other children in India?”. That was all. Then the officer said that their Visa would be sanctioned, and asked them to pay the Issuance fee at the appropriate counter down the same hall.
After about 2 days they received the Passports with the stamped Visa at Visakhapatnam. The Visa was issued as a multiple-entry Visa valid for 6 months. The next time they apply for a Visa I am hoping they get a 10-year multiple-entry Visa.

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