Indian Visa Woes Continue

I'm already here in India yet my visa woes persist.

My entry to India had been marked by a very "interesting" experience with the Embassy of India in Manila. Now, the Bureau of Immigration in India is making me jump through hoops.

Is it me or India just doesn't like me?

My new problem cropped up when I was registering in the Foreigners Registration Office (FRO) in Bangalore. Foreigners who enter India with certain types of visas are mandated to register at the local FRO. I'm carrying an Employment Visa (EV) and when I arrived at the FRO to register, I was told that my registration cannot be accepted because my documents from Infosys do not have the word "employment" in them. Instead, it contains "internship." For the Indian FRO official at that time, that was unquestionably unacceptable and I must do 2 things: (1) Get a student visa; or (2) get Infosys to rework all my papers so that it would fit the FRO's criteria to the letter (or the FRO official's interpretation of it), but that would entail a more work and payments. Whatever option I take, it would take time and take away my attention from my project.

Looking back, this situation could have avoided had I gotten a Student Visa (SV) from the Indian Embassy in Manila. However, I couldn't produce the necessary documents such as an "Admission Letter from a recognized Educational Institution in India" as stated in the SV requirements of the Indian Embassy in Manila. This misalignment between the Manila office and the local Indian offices has come to bite me in the a$$.

The past couple of days have been very distracting and the preoccupation and uncertainty have definitely affected me. (Will I be deported? or Will I be held in immigration when I go home?) I hope this situation gets resolved soon.

Trip to Mysore and Shravanabelagola

One of the perks of doing my AC here in India is the travel to the different interesting sites. And in this country, there are a lot of places with rich history. I've blogged about some of the places I was able to visit along with the other interns in Infosys' InStep program and the most interesting trip we've had so far is the 2-day trip to Mysore and Shravanabelagola.

Mysore (pronounced "my-sore") is a city that takes about three hours of travel from Bangalore and it used to be the capital of the state that's why it has very interesting buildings like the Mysore Palace. There's also a cathedral there that's inspired my Neo-Gothic architecture (according to one of the interns) and a nearby hilltop town called Chamundi. Mysore is also home to Infosys' biggest campus and it's really like a modern town within the city. That campus is thee times the size of the one in Bangalore and the buildings are more diverse in design-- there's a building that looks like the Roman Colosseum, a Spanish villa, a glass orb and contemporary looking ones as well. The Mysore campus is a site to see in itself.

After the Mysore stop, we went to Shravanabelagola, an ancient temple with old sculptures and a very big statue of Gomatheswara, a holy man in Jainism. The relic is over 1,000 years old and once you are there, you can see and feel the rich history of the place. Ironically, we almost didn't go here, but thanks to some convincing by one of the interns, we eventually agreed. Good decision for us because the temple is really a spectacle.

Infosys InStep Week Three

It's been three weeks already? Wow, time flies pretty fast.

The workload and progress in my Action Consultancy (AC) has steadily increased as the requirements of what I need to do is becoming clearer by the day. There has been some little missteps in my work because sometimes I want to do a lot of things. It's like that situation when you're doing something and a good idea comes up and leave what you're doing and jump on to working that new idea. And if that new idea doesn't work, you step back and return to the original path you had. That has happened to a few times in the past week and good thing my project mentor has been very supportive.

Speaking of my project mentor, he's not the micro-managing type and I'm quite thankful I was assigned to him. He trusts my judgment and gives me enough room operate. My co-interns here different situations (like one guy who sits next to his mentor). I've always been independent at work and I would say my project mentor fits my work habits like a glove.

Another theme of the week as been farewells as one of our co-interns here left to return to Germany. Our current group of InStep interns has become closer by doing more activities starting last week, so people felt it was right give have a farewell get together for one of us. (It also gave us the perfect excuse to go to a nice place that serves alcoholic drinks. :P) It was also my first time to taste India's top beer, Kingfisher. While I still prefer our very own San Miguel beer, Kingfisher isn't too bad.

The week also saw us planning to take a trip to Mysore, one of the cities near Bangalore. Like my experience in AIM, group planning could be a loooong process and we experienced the same thing here. Since people were not entirely sure of what's to see in Mysore, people had different ideas of how the trip should go (myself included). We tried to be democratic, but some people were persistent. Then as the weekend drew near, the plan took on a more definitive shape and some people became more open to compromises. As I reflect on the how things turned out, consensus is good if everyone had the best amount of information and if there is an asymmetry of information, it's better someone with the knowledge to step up and take the lead and for the rest to step back and follow. Also, the group should learn how to tune out "noise" that could muddle the plan.

So we went ahead to Mysore and Shravanabelagola over the weekend had a great time. I'll write a post on the trip in the future so keep an eye on my blog for the next few days.

--

One of my classmates in the MBA program recently went home to the Philippines because she had an untoward incident in Bangalore. Fortunately, she did get seriously hurt but her situations magnifies the risks of going to a foreign land where you only know a few people and you are not too familiar with the culture. She could have stayed but the company she was interning with was not able to respond to her in a timely fashion and was quite unsympathetic with her situation. So the Asian Institute of Management decided to bring her back home and made her safety top priority.

A lot of lessons was learned on the situation. But for the company she interned with, they should make sure they have the necessary support systems in place for its interns before it goes ahead and accepts them.

InStep Interns Play Cricket!

Infosys' InStep Coordinators recently held a workshop for us interns to know more about India's "national" sport: Cricket.

I say "national" because, officially, hockey is India's national sport but because of the number of people who play cricket and the amount of coverage it gets in the news (I'd say one-third of newspapers' contents is cricket), the sports has become the nation's de facto national sport.

The InStep coordinators were kind enough to have Infosys' very own cricket team to give us the basics of the game: from batting, to bowling and catching the ball. We used the leather ball used in official games to play with and used the proper bat as well. Good thing Infosys has its own cricket field in the sprawling campus so we were able to run around freely, bat the ball and bowl anywhere (although we obviously looked like beginners).

I've never played cricket in my life prior to playing here and most of the interns are in the same boat, but thanks to the team's tutoring, we had some semblance of a game and every had some coaching on how to bat and bowl. I seem to prefer bowling, which I found to be more artful. (or because I had a hard time hitting the darned ball)

Here are the pics:

Let's see if I could play cricket with the AIM guys back home. :)

Infosys InStep Week Two

This post is a bit late unlike the one I had for my first week in the Infosys InStep program, but what the heck, nobody's checking. :P

So what happened in Week Two of in my eight week stay here in Infosys Bangalore? The week could be summarized by two things: meetings at work and intern activities.

Back home, I'm used to one hour meetings with team mates or group mates but I had a few meetings that lasted at least two and a half hours and one that virtually lasted the entire day. The meetings were requirements analysis and brainstorming activities that why it was like meeting marathon that saps your brain dry. From what I experience, teams here are pretty flexible with time are concerned the momentum of the discussions. If the discussion is very good and productive, schedules are thrown out the window to get the results.

I remember those first few months in the MBA program when CAN Group meetings lasted a couple of hours and people were already complaining. Sheesh.

Work-wise, I've started to settle in and move to more significant outputs on a daily basis. Given the pretty tight project plan that I have, I'll do a lot of research in parallel with the developments that I do. Yeah, that's a bit risky and could mean mistakes here and there, that's the role of R & D, right? :P

My second week also saw us interns becoming a more tightly-knit group as people were having lunches and dinners more often. After the little get together of AIM folks last weekend, I joined a few interns in downtown Bangalore for a few stops in the Vidhana Soudha (or State Legislature) building/monument. Then we briefly passed by Commercial Street, the city's commercial district not too different from Manila's Divisoria, then dinner in Church Street, an area known for its pubs and restaurants. The following day, everybody wanted to give their bodies and wallets a rest and just stayed in the dorm.

So that's Week Two. That's already 25% of my stay here and my Action Consultancy (AC) in Infosys has been pretty enriching thus far. However...

--

My stay here in has been good but unfortunately it's not the same situation for other people. In a nutshell, one person from our batch will be coming back to Manila from India because of an untoward incident. Yeah, things happen, but it's just too bad whenever a somebody from a different land experiences something bad-- it just gets magnified because of the feeling of isolation and separateness.

I'll blog more about it in due time.

--

UPDATE:

Here are some pics I took when we went to Vidhana Soudha:

AIM Get Together in Bangalore

There was a small small gathering of AIM folks yesterday here in Bangalore. Newly-minted grads from the last 2-year MBA batch were there to give us interning here in the city some "words of wisdom."

Bangaloreans Bharath Jain, Vaibhav Kapur, Fahim Salim and Sameer Tupaki (all from MBA '08) gave me and Pia Sanedrin some things things they're learning now that they don't have to deal with cases and CP. Job-hunting is on top of their priorities right now and they said more than half of their batch has already been placed. Most of them just arrived from Manila as the ceremonies for the Asian Institute of Management graduating batches were held last May 4, 2008 at the Meralco Theater. (A story and pictures of the commencement exercises can be found at the AIM Alumni Portal).

I really had a great lunch with the folks as they were very accommodating and acting like "big brothers"-- I'm glad because I never really had a chance to interact with seniors during the first eight months and there they were, very helpful and all. Here are some pictures:

I'm looking forward to future gatherings here in Bangalore and I hope more AIM alumni and students would be able to come.

Making the Grade

Grades are out!

Grades for all but one subject have been released and if you look at my potential GPA so far, it falls in the "Satisfactory" band. (I've made a post regarding the grading system in the Asian Institute of Management, you might want to take a look.) By AIM standards, that means I'm average.

But does that tell the whole story? Does that mean I'm your "average" MBA student? I've done some analysis

The school segments the MBA core subjects in two major areas-- Quantitative and Qualitative subjects. Quantitative subjects include:

1. Language of Business (LOB)
2. Economics (ECO)
3. Quantitative Analysis (QA)
4. Financial Management 1 (FM1)
5. Financial Management 2 (FM2)
6. Management of Cost and Profit (MCP)
7. Management Control Systems (MCS)

The Qualitative subjects include:

1. Human Behavior in Organization (HBO)
2. Management Communication (MC)
3. Marketing Management (MM)
4. Operations Management (OM)
5. General Management & Ethics (GME)
6. Asian Business Systems (ABS)
7. Development of the Enterprise (DE)
8. Written Analysis of Cases (WAC)

If you have been following my blog since the beginning, you could see the trend of how things were going and which subjects I had struggles with. Here's my breakdown on my performance for the core subjects:

1. I fared much, much better on the Qualitative subjects than the Quantitative subjects. No surprise there. My Qualitative GPA is a full two grade notches higher than my Quantitative GPA.
2. Speaking of Quantitative subjects, I fared quite poorly on my Finance subjects (I've written a blog post before on my finance struggles). FM1 and FM2 taken together doesn't make the cut.
3. Thanks to QA, my Quantitative GPA looks more decent-- QA was able to offset my poor showing in Finance
4. The rest of my Quantitative subjects grades show that I pretty much didn't make waves on the subjects, ripples perhaps. :P
5. The Qualitative grades make things much more interesting for me. My Marketing grade is something to be proud of and it makes me eligible to take a Marketing major, although I've been over the fence on that decision as of late.
6. Another subject that I'm delighted about is HBO. I sincerely believe that the effort I put in was perceived by our professor, who happens to be our CAN Group mentor. Perhaps I was able to get across myself better in this subject that's why the good grade.
7. I'm also seeing another trend: I got relatively lower grades on subjects where I missed the most number of classes due to sickness. Fair enough, if I'm not there in class, how can I earn a good grade right?
8. I hope this puts the whole "WAC Boy" name-calling to rest: I only got a modest grade in WAC, so there. :P

So, story of my grade looks clearer now-- I struggled mightily in Finance but I was saved by my QA, Marketing and the rest of the Qualitative subjects. By all indications, I have not been able to make a smooth transition to the financial field (unlike some of my CFA classmates) but it looks like I'm a natural when it comes to marketing and management areas.

As I write this post and review my archives, it occurred to me that the blog has more or less chronicled the story of how my grades so far got "made"-- an eight month process of struggles and success and dealing with the requirements and exams. I've definitely learned a lot from inside and outside the case rooms and some of do note reflect on paper.

The report card may say I'm average, but the real story would say otherwise.

Playing Games

I'm quite happy my stay here in Bangalore is not all work. Yes, I'm doing my Action Consultancy (AC) in Infosys, but there are other activities I've been doing to keep the work-life balance in a nice non-tipping state.

Bangalore is a city with nice sites to visit and I've shared in my previous post about my first week that us interns went to visit a few of them like the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, the Bull Temple and the ISKCON Temple. But I also have been able to play some games leisurely inside the Infosys campus.

There's a basketball court inside the campus and the moment I saw it, I've been looking forward to shoot some hoops. It took me one week to play there and it's good to know that there are a few guys (and ladies) playing basketball here in India. India is primarily a Cricket-crazy nation and that works in my favor-- with few people playing basketball here, the skill level of casual players is so-so at best. (The same way, Filipinos playing cricket would be like four-year olds playing baseball). So, let's just say I could be a hoops legend here given the competition. :P

Interns here also have poker nights! We just play for fun, but if we played for high stakes, I already have lost my shirt to the guys I play with. I realized I'm not a good poker player, and I've been the first person to leave the poker table after losing all my chips. Sometimes it's just plain bad luck and sometimes it's just plain stubbornness I lose. If you have nice tips to give in playing Texas Hold 'Em, please do chime in. :P

Oh well, you win some and you lose some.

Infosys InStep Week One

It's already been one week since I landed here in Bangalore, India and it has been pretty eventful.

My first days in Infosys have not been without hiccups, but thanks to the very good hand-holding by the Infosys InStep coordinators and mentors, the whole transition process has been smoothened. I've described in a previous post about my initial impression of the company and things have been pretty consistent. Interns here are really taken care of but at the same time, but are given challenging project to work on. That last statement really applies to me because my project involves trying to put new technology platforms like Web 2.0 where it best fits in a given business and marketing framework.

I really have to be exhaustive and know my stuff that's why I'm very happy with the flexibility my project mentor has given me. I've already been in a couple of meetings to brainstorm and solve immediate problems the project. An in those meetings, my inputs are given the same weight as my project mentors and even the head of the unit I'm part of. I think that's pretty good system for generating ideas and getting fresh perspective considering the organization is already very big in a whole lot ways.

My issues have been pretty minor like getting my desktop system up and running and finding a place to eat here during lunch. I've already succeeded in my quest to find cup noodles in Bangalore so it's really now a matter of balancing meals that are healthy, food that I like and Indian food.

I've also had the chance to meet with the other interns here. Right now, it's a lean month as there are only less than a dozen interns here. I've been told that it reaches 80 to 90 during July to August, the time when the North American schools have their summer breaks. But the good thing there is that I got to really talk and interact with them. The group is also a diverse bunch; there are folks from Germany, France, Morocco, India, Vietnam, Thailand and South Korea.

Since we're a small group right now, we were able to have lunch in the immensely popular Mavalli Tiffin Rooms (or MTR) resturant during the weekend. The place is packed and it seems to never run out of customers. We also took a stroll at the Lalbagh Botanical Garden since it's very near MTR. Nattawud, one of the interns, invited me to drop by a few extra sites like the Tipu's Palace and Fort and the Bull Temple.

Here are some pics:

Earlier, we dropped by the ISKCON Temple and it was very good exposure on Indian culture and religious practices. There were a lot of people there and I got to see beautifully decorated and elaborate shrines for Hindu gods and how they are being revered by the Hindu faithful. Our group was exhausted afterwards, but we felt it was a great experience.

If there's one sentence to summarize my Infosys InStep experience it's "So far, so good." Work has been steady and I've had a chance to see some Bangalore sites. Hopefully, this nice little trend will continue. :)

Indian Flavors

I've found cup noodles in Bangalore!

But to get my cup noodles, I had to travel for at around 45 minutes to a place called the Star Bazaar in the city, brave the rains and deal with the horrendous city traffic. But it was worth it, at least partially.

I say partially because the brand that I was looking for (Nissin Cup Noodles) was not available in Star Bazaar, despite the big number of products it sells. It seems cup instant noodles are not a big thing in India as there were only two brands that I saw in the hypermart and one of them was a newly launched product! Perhaps the market in Bangalore for instant noodles in a cup is not big or just emerging. (This may be an opportunity for distributors :P)

I also was able to eat a McDonald's here in India. For obvious reasons, the McDonald's here do not carry their traditional beef burgers. Instead, they have a wider range of chicken burgers; as a matter of fact, in lieu of the normal Big Mac, stores here have a Chicken Maharaja Mac. The Chicken Maharaja Mac is configured almost the same as the Big Mac, except it has chicken burger patties and a special spicy sauce for that distinct Indian flavor.

I often hear my classmates lament about the Indian food in the Asian Institute of Management; they say it lacks the authenticity of the real thing. I have better understanding why they say so-- the Indian flavor is really unique.

You can find everything on the Infosys Bangalore Campus except...

Cup Noodles!

The headquarters of Infosys in Bangalore is a pretty big place (43 acres or 17 hectares) and pretty self-sufficient. BBC described this campus as:

The most spectacular commercial development is the 43 acre Infosys Campus at Electronic City.

It is a self-contained city for its 20,000 workers, and contains shops, restaurants, a health club, a basketball court and even a golf course.

Golf carts take the many visitors around on tours, while video conference facilities link it to Infosys offices around the world.

But for all its facilities and self-sufficiency, I have yet to find a place inside the Infosys campus where I could get cup noodles. :P Most likely, I will find some in the city, which I haven't ventured into.


If you know of a nice place to buy cup noodles here in Bangalore, I'd appreciate the assist. :D

A Filipino in Bangalore

After the saga of dealing with the Embassy of India for my visa, I am now here in India, particularly in Bangalore, for my Action Consultancy or AC.

The AC is what the Asian Institute of Management calls its internship for the MBA students. The AC is an official school requirement that counts as a subject that an MBA student needs to pass. Its main objective, at least from how I see it, is to validate what the student has learned from the core subjects by letting him/her deal with a live project that has an impact to the enterprise. In my case, I'm doing my AC in a company called Infosys as part of its InStep Internship Program

My first couple of days here have been pretty eventful. I arrived here Sunday and rode a taxi to the Infosys campus. Let's just say the cab ride was a "multi-sensory" introduction to the city-- I briefly experienced the both the good and the bad in the transit from the airport to a place called Electronics City.

I arrived and checked in the company housing provided and it was pretty impressive. Infosys' Employee Care Center (ECC) had a great staff and well-maintained rooms. (The only nitpick I had was the unavailability of an immediate internet connection, but that's just me). I also took some time to walk around the sprawling area. The campus is about the same size as a university campus and has low-rise buildings spread though out. (Here's a nice link to give you an idea). Bottom line, I found the first day wasn't as traumatizing as a past intern did.

My first working day was like most first days at work. There was an orientation or "onboarding" where I had a little talk about the company, the country's culture and work expectations. The coordinator was very helpful and made the process very smooth.

I also started on my project officially by meeting my project mentor and the head of Infosys' Innovation Lab, the business unit where my project is housed. The meetings gave me the impression that the Lab is really a gung -ho place. My project mentor put it best: "If the company is moving already in a fast pace, our unit must move much faster." I guess if you're working in a place called Innovation Labs, that makes a whole lot of sense.

Over-all, it's a great first couple of days. Let's see how a Filipino in Bangalore will fare in the next few days, weeks and months.

--

A couple of stuff:

1. How do you know AIM's recent issues are a big deal? The Economist has an item on it.
2. MBA 2008 Luis Buenavantura, who also is my team mate in the AIM basketball team, has an article published on Inquirer's Youngblood.
   

Helping Others, Part 2

Blogger's note: Please read "Helping Others" before reading this post so that everything will make sense. :)

I'm really the panicky type, but when the voice on the other end of the phone was an automated message saying "Your number cannot be completed at this time. Please try again later" over and over again, I felt like hitting the panic button, no make that slamming the panic button.

I immediately went back to my scheming mode to cook up a plot to dupe the guards into letting me in the village. Here were some of my plans:

1. Ask one of my female Indian classmates who is here in Manila to accompany me to the village and pretend we're husband and wife;
2. A modification of Plan #1: Ask a few of my Indian classmates to accompany me to the village and pretend I'm their driver and they are the ones who need to go to the Indian embassy
3. Let my friend Ninoy do the talking.

If you notice, my plans are toeing the ethical line, test of whether the end really justifies the means.

Before I could unleash any of my ethically unsound plans, a couple of people told me that my mentor, Prof. Junbo, was looking for me. I went to his office and he asked some stuff about his broadband internet connection at home. As he asked what I've been doing, I narrated by problem about getting inside the village where the Indian embassy is located. To my surprise, he said he had access to the village and he offered to drive me to the embassy. Serendipitously, Prof. Junbo's said his privilege to enter the village will expire the next day. I even got a call from Prof. Purba Rao offering the same thing when when she learned of the problem with the phone number

I gladly accepted his offer and we left to go to the Indian embassy after a few minutes. Internally, I was feeling relief and gladness over the good fortune that befell upon me. As I thought about it, if Prof. Junbo had not met with me, I would have been done something crazy to just get inside. But there I was, listening to my mentor's stories about his experiences in AIM and his students, both past and present.

One story he shared fondly was that of an Indian student he had twenty years ago. That student, according to Prof. Junbo, was a total jerk in and out of the classroom. Teachers and classmates alike hated his guts. But after a serious talk with Prof. Junbo, the student changed and mellowed down a bit on his verbal assaults. I that process, Prof. Junbo learned that the student was actually nice and very helpful. Even as the student graduated, he helped financially struggling MBA students and never let them knew who helped. Lesson here: Give jerks a chance, even they can help you out.

I eventually got my passport and visa but I reflected on this whole experience and I realized what Prof. Purba and Prof. Junbo did and offered. I also though about the stories Prof. Junbo shared. This experience reminded me of the things we were being told in class: you need others, in different levels. If I went ahead and proceeded with my Wile E. Coyote-like schemes, I would have ended the same way Coyote did: falling off a cliff or ramming right straight to a wall (figuratively, of course).

Despite the frustrations and and inflexibility of people, there will be people who will help you out from unlikely places and if people paid it forward, things everywhere may be a whole lot better.

Helping Others

I was really tempted to entitle this post "My Experience with the Embassy of India in Manila" Part 2, but realized there was something good that came out from my frustrating attempt to get my visa at the Indian embassy in Manila.

In the last post, frustration was high as I learned that there were key procedures in the visa application that was not published and made known to the public until you reach the area where the Indian embassy is located. But I played their game and followed the necessary procedures to get my application through. To make the long story short, on April 29 (Monday) I learned my expedited visa was approved and the embassy will send me my passport with the visa during their batch sending April 30 (Tuesday), 7:00pm.

However, I'll be leaving Manila for a short trip in Singapore on May 1 (Wednesday). According to the embassy, the courier will be able to deliver the passport on May 2 since May 1 is Labor Day, which is a public holiday. I told the embassy staff of my situation I suggested that I personally pick up my passport on April 30 afternoon. She replied the embassy will entertain me once I reach their office PROVIDED I get past though the village security. (Remember, the security people will strictly not let people in the area without a proper appointment.)

I inquired the embassy staff if our conversation constituted an "appointment" and she said 'no' and she was in no position to schedule appointments. I was dumbfounded and I asked how can I get my already approved passport. She told me to bring my receipt and show it to the guards as I enter the village but it does not guarantee entry. She just told me if I get in the village, I'll be able to get my passport before they deliver it to the courier.

At that point, it was clear what I needed to do: get inside the village by all legal means. I tried to think of elaborate schemes to get part though the guards, something Ethan Hunt from Mission: Impossible would do. After running out of Wile E. Coyote-type of ideas, I asked Prof. Purba Rao some advice and she told me to call up one of the consuls and request for an appointment. She game a phone number and told me to call around 9am the next morning to request the appointment. I profusely thanked Prof. Rao for her help. "Wow, profs in AIM are really helpful," I told myself.

April 30, 9am came. I dialed the number and it was not working.


What did I do next? I'll share it in the next post.