Hydrochloric Acid

A long wait and finally my visa interview date was here.. 25th Jan... I had quite a few experiences during this trip. And since I was running out of ideas to post something here, I thought why not this one... I have broken it into the different stages of my travel, more so for my conveniece than yours.. :-)

Pattom to Airport.

Many of you are wondering why this stage is described. Don’t jump the gun, read on.
My flight time was 8 in the morning and I was there at the airport by 6.55. I sat there waiting for my friend. He came in 10 minutes later and we started walking to the entrance. I picked up my ticket from the bag and opened it to find a Paramount ticket there. I knew the morning flight was Air
Deccan, so I checked the next ticket and there was the Air Decca one; But there was some problem with the timings. That was when I realized that my onward travel was booked on a paramount which left at 5.45 in the evening rather than the 8 am Decca. My friend stared at me in disbelief that
I did not bother checking the ticket even once. Anyways, it was clear I could not go in that flight. Hence we said good bye, and I came back home. I had to cook up some nice story about Decca ditching me and they giving another ticket for the evening. That’s when I realized the worth of Air
Deccan never being on time. You could blame it on them and get away with it. Never did I realize, it would haunt me later...

Pattom to Airport- Retake
So finally, at 4pm, I again set off for the airport. Paramount had only recently started their Tvm-Chennai operations and hence the crew was all Courteous and they took good care of you and made you feel important. They even had a standing arrangement with the Muthoot group to provide
free refreshments, once you showed them the boarding pass. How I wished I did not have tea from home. Hence I declined the offer and proceeded to the waiting area. Some time later, Jayaram and Srinivas (singer) showed up. No, they were not signed by paramount to provide entertainment;
they were merely traveling to Chennai. I had heard about Jayaram's down-to-earth nature, but had not believed it, but it turned out to be true. He was very much pleasing..smiling at anyone who cared to offer him a glance.

The in-flight service was also good, and what was striking was the larger leg space compared to other domestic carriers. I'd definitely recommend this airline to others.

Chennai
Arrival
It was almost 7.30 by the time I claimed my baggage. I booked a prepaid taxi to my accommodation and proceeded to the taxi stand to find to my dismay all old ambassadors lining up. Certainly vehicles which need be condemned. But as luck would have it, an indigo came in at that point, and it
was scheduled for a pick up very near to where I wanted to go. Hence they asked me board the indigo. What luck. It took only half an hour to reach the accommodation. When I reached, I found that in addition to the friend who had left in the morning, there were three others who all had their visa interviews the other day. I knew all of them, so we had a good time that evening. That night, I was tensed. As always, I get tensed in a build-up to anything important. This time it was all the more so, since I did not have an idea if all the required documents were there with me. And to top it, a couple of my friends spend a lot of time going through the documents, trying to memorize things. Since I was in fear of finding something missing if I took out the documents, I never took them out.

D-Day
A couple of those guys had the interview at 8 in the morning, and so due to the noise, even I got up at 6. I knew I would not be able to sleep anymore, hence I spent time helping them get ready; tying a tie for one, getting ones shoes etc. By the time they'd left, the newspaper had arrived.
I spent an hour reading the paper. I cant imagine a day in my life when I’ve spent so much time reading a paper. There was another guy who had the interview at the same time as mine, at 11, but he was still sleeping as if he cared nothing in the world about this. By the time he'd got up, I'd
completed my morning ablutions. By 9.30 we got ready, had breakfast and left for the consulate. We were not sure how much time it would take in Chennai traffic to reach the consulate, hence the 2 hour allowance. But we reached there at 10. And the scene that awaited us there was nothing
short of spectacular

The consulate
We saw a half-a-kilometer long queue infront of the consulate. To imagine the plight, just think about standing on the footpath, besides one of the busiest roads of Chennai, in full formal attire. It was only by 11.45 that we reached the front of the queue. By the time, it was difficult to say I had a white shirt on. But the best thing it did was to calm me down. All and any nerves I had jumped back in place by this time. I then realized something which I had probably not noticed as yet. I get tensed building up for the grand finale; thinking about it. But when it is actually there, I am quite
unfazed. I remembered the times when I had to take sessions or conduct meetings or debate or extempore. It was always the prelude that was difficult to negotiate, the actual challenge was always easy..

Once the initial verification was over, I proceeded to the finger printing area. I placed my index fingers on the glass panel, and then I got a slight start. The person in charge took some time looking at the screen and then at me. He frowned his eyebrows, hit something on the keyboard, rubbed
his chin, and I had taken it for granted that my finger print matched some dreaded al-quaeda criminal. In my mind I was already seeing the visa team back home saying "gwad you are the first one to be rejected on finger prints... you have disgraced the company"... But, finally, he said thank
u sir and that was when I finally heaved a sigh of relief.

Once that was done, all I had to complete was the actual interview process. I was asked to change counters three times. most often having given my place to ladies with kids. Finally, to my relief, I saw a roly poly simple guy sitting at the interviewer’s desk. The kindness on his face was clearly
registering, and I felt even more relief. But then disaster struck again. There was this guy infront of me, who claimed 9 years of experience, and from the questions of Mr Roly Poly, one could fathom that they were not convinced. He then left his seat and came back with a lady, who started off
in a loud voice saying the certificates this man produced were fake. There took place a heated debate, and again my hopes of being issued a visa were being washed down the drain. This guy immediately took off; now there were two people infront of me. And at that point, I was amazed to see how the interviewer switched off and right back on again. None of the anger he showed to the fake guy was evident on his face. Within two minutes, he'd approved the visas of the people in front and suddenly it was my turn

"Good Morning sir, can I c ur documents please"
"Good Morning to you too sir; here they are"
"Can I see the supporting documents"
"Yes"
"Hmm.. So what is UST going to make you do once you are in the US"
I gave him the prepared answer with a lot of tech stuff.
He did not allow me to complete
"What branch of engineering did you do?"
"E&C"
"Ok sir, your visa is approved. Your passport will reach you after three working days"
"Thank you sir, have a nice day"

And it was over in a jiffy. And I was an H1b holder.

By the time I reached the apartment. it was 2.45. I then sent an sms to all my friends and team mates. After that I just collapsed on the bed and had a pretty deep sleep. Got up by 6, had a masala dosa and a coffee and then friend rice in the night.

Republic Day
The flight was originally scheduled for 12. But in the morning, by 9 itself I received a message saying it was delayed until 3.55. Consequently I reached the airport by 2.45. I checked in immediately, only to learn that the flight was delayed by another hour. Finally, after 2 hours of wait, it finally took off at 5.15 and I was in trivandrum by 6.30. And, so here I am now, blogging about my visa experience.

And for those of you who doubt why this post is titled so - did any of you people ask Roshan Andrews why notebook was called so, after watching the film? If you have not, don’t ask me about the title either. If you have, then you need an explanation - which is - this acid is released during
digestion process, and when people are tensed, it can lead to acidity and all related stuff. Rings a bell? No? Neither for me!!