The US VISA Brigade

This blog's a bit blunt in-the-face style n I prefer to keep it that way coz I write it within 24 hours of going through a wonderful torture trip to get the US visa approved. Oh by the way I write this stuff for sheer pleasure n don't care what others think about me when they read this stuff, but if in the course of writing if I wag my tail once in a while, I presume I have the full freedom to do so:-) so read on if you like it…

Probably "Me in VISA-land" might be a better title for this write up… like "Alice in Wonderland" but anyways...

So here’s the scene: I am preparing to visit our company’s US office for the first time on a B1 visa and have to take visa interview in hot hot Chennai to enter the land with a bunch of people who seem to be extremely paranoid about security of their lives (more so post 9/11). Now I've given enough number of interviews in last couple of years to be numb to any kind of pressure in facing an interview but I feel this one is different... here’s what happens on the way…

Monday 6am and I'm happily sitting in a taxi to Bangalore airport to take a quick flight to Chennai for the VISA interview scheduled at 2:30pm. And I have no idea about the kind of circus I'm about to witness and participate in for the next 24 hours of the day… I'm well in time for a 8:30am Indian Airlines flight at airport so I decide to grab a snack at a CCD parlor outside the airport. the veg roll is so crappy I throw it right away as it must have been the worst VEG thing I’ve ever eaten in my life. I wonder if just outside an Indian airport if you get this kind of 'veg' food, what will happen when I am inside the airport or when I look for it on the other side of the planet! But I've now got used to the fact that you can't expect to keep your test buds happy once you are out of your home town... this enlightenment occurred to me only after shifting to Bangalore recently after missing all those wada pav breaks n pava bhaji nights:-)

8:45am in the bay of Bangalore airport: sitting in the plane waiting for the takeoff… its getting kinda late... and hot inside... so it’s getting on to some of the passengers' nerves… we are told that there’s 'fueling' going on in the plane... I understand… such a big plane… take your time guys… it’s much better than announcing in the middle of the flight that we’re running out of fuel… pretty odd reason for the amount of delay though… but.. I'm sitting in seat #2D and one of the flight attendants is really *beautiful* so I'm not much bothered by the delay these guys are making;-) but the IA guys look in a mood to delay the flight further… anyways I know no one & nothing in Chennai yet to spend time with once I reach there and above all I'm not carrying my cell phone today, so I'm pretty relaxed...

so back to the 'la chica bonita' in the front, she gets into a fight with a couple of irritated travelers and I can see the anger and frustration building up on her face. I ponder over it... these flight attendants are so much stressed all the time here, I better become a yoga teacher fast n start taking courses for them;-) even organizing & assisting courses for them won't be a bad idea either isn't it?;-) But suddenly my sweet (day) dream is broken by an announcement by our darling attendant - that everyone has to get off the plane & return to the airport! So far I'm thinking that my company done smart work by selecting the IA flight since even if it gets canceled, I have the next Kingfisher flight as a backup option so I still prefer to chill. Bye bye pretty lady, I’m gonna miss you…

So undisturbed by this sudden flight cancellation, I walk out grinning (thanks to the amazing knowledge they give on the Art of Living courses) with a bunch of other fuming passengers... so here we are: trafficked back to the airport, kicked out of airport from one door, again allowed in from another, issued a new ticket immediately to minimize the public pressure now building on the IA staff, then again taken back out of the airport through another door into the international airport! Up we go through the immigration check and various other counters and hurdles, some more passengers have lost their temper and some have started venting their anger on any kind of official they can catch hold of around them… some people have started praying, some have started discussing how such things are happening everyday here and the usual grumble against everyone & every public thing in India. I wonder if people think the same about their county in the other parts of this world…And again we are asked to get out of airport and return to the arrival lounge, this drives some more people crazy and I can see many faces showing the signs of pressure cookers building inside their heads, some are letting the steam go off by catching hold of any IA officials they can find in the vicinity...

If you have come reading till here, congratulations I'm sure if so many people can go through such a parade at the airport, that too when they have other connecting flights to catch and important business meetings to attend in other parts of world, you can definitely digest reading all this merry-go-round game at the airport... so back to the IA bandwagon... the officials now try to pacify the growing unrest & panic amongst the passengers by offering free snacks and voila! Seems like the sounds of “free” & “food” seem to have a magical effect on people! I say to myself: better keep this in mind… you never know when & how these small things about the behavioral patterns of human mind you learn can help you in business when you go around the world in future! Somehow after testing everybody’s patience the plane is repaired and we are back on board scheduled to depart at 10:45! One thing I notice is during all the drama that is going on, I am in a surprisingly relaxed and joyful state of mind which seems to come out of a hidden confidence that whatever happens I’ll be granted the visa with the power of blessings conferred on me by my mom and my Guru. It’s just that I’ll have to go through the heat to be worth it and learn some things on the way.

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So here we are back on board, much to my delight in the company of the “pretty lady” and the rest of the crew! Oh what a pleasant surprise this has been… I never though we’ll meet again so soon... So even though the dumb IA officials have allowed 'free seating' (which becomes another reason for some guys to go crazy), I make sure I’m back to row#2 where I sat before… for the obvious reasons;-) No prizes for guessing this one!

But it looks like the IA delayer drama is not finished yet! We hear they are trying to figure out what happened to the missing passengers! Someone from behind suggests they just drop them and go and the pretty lady gets more irritated... she simply announces that yes they’ve decided to follow the guy's instruction and leave the missing people behind!

Amongst all this drama and confusion as to why the flight is not taking off, one of the IA ground officers decides that he’d like to do some of the paperwork regarding the flight standing right in the front aircraft door enjoying the cool breeze coming there! (they said he wanted to be doubly sure that the the flight would be able to carry the weight of so many people and their luggage! this brought some scary thoughts in the minds of the passengers) its OK, I sympathize for him… what’s wrong if the poor soul wishes to catch some cool breeze standing next to wings of the plane? But some of us seem to think otherwise… now there are funny taunts being thrown from behind... like “What are we waiting for, Xmas?” and my favorite one being… “May be the pilot doesn’t have a boarding pass, so we have to wait…” ha ha ha ho ho ho! i cant control my laughter sitting there right in the middle of everybody...

Oh but the poor attendants! look at them... they are again under attack from the enraged passengers and again, and the same free food experience comes to their rescue as the flight takes off… once the food is served, everyone happily shuts their mouth and be nice to the crew! Finally we land in the land where they approve VISA… VISA-land as I prefer to call it… It’s “the place” where the US consulate will kindly hand me over my passport with visa stamped on it sometime in the evening... I think. But not so easily boy, the waiting game has just begun…

Anyways I’ve already made friends with another guy on the flight whose VISA appointment is at same time as mine, so we rush off together in a taxi, have lunch, and join the long long long queue to get inside the consulate. There is a special provision made by the US embassy to make sure you are fit enough to travel to US and survive in the US deserts there if need be: here's the procedure: you stand in a queue under the scorching heat thrown out by the chennai sun with no shade around the place and enjoy the tanning in what looks to be a never ending queue for unpredictable amount of time. For me it turned out to be bit more than an hour of burning and sweating in the hot Chennai sun. But wait there are so many queues which you have to negotiate to meet the king who is eager to hand out you your visa inside the heart of the palace… If you succeed to pass this sun-burn stage, you'll feel like you moved through the rest of various queues inside in a jiffy because of nothing else but Einstein’s law of relativity.

By the time we get inside the core consulate premises, it’s already past 2:30 and I have already shed good 5 ltr of sweat! We’re lucky enough to get a nice briefing from the chief in charge of the consulate as to how to maximize our chances of getting the visa approved. Pretty hilarious… the guy says don’t give premeditated answers before fully listening to the question… like if you are asked “How old are you?” don’t answer “fine thanks!” ha ha!

Ultimately after sitting in various lines of chairs and anxiously trying to figure out what questions are being asked at the interview counters and what is the approval vs. rejection rate at which counter, I’m finally made to stand in the FINAL queue for the interview. I’ve noticed that those going on tourist visas are being grilled hard by a couple of ladies and their rejection rate is pretty high… and I’m in front of one of those deadly looking ladies! But u know we have always an unfair advantage we call it GRACE and we experience waves of GRACE & GRATITUDE because of the kind of GURU which we’ve got… so I am suddenly eliminated from this queue and put in some other queue probably after God has doubly made sure that my patience is thoroughly tested and that I’m getting somewhat ready for the grill I might face anywhere anytime on the back of this planet. so here we are in the queue at a counter manned by a smart young US chap in navy blue shirts… and boy his hit rate is good!!! Suddenly I realize that it’s my turn at the counter and here’s the conversation that follows between us…

Blue shirt: Hello, how are you?

Me: Doing great! Thanks! How are you? (That was a pretty premeditated answer;-)

Pause…

(Blue shirt goes through my DS156 for a while…)

Blue Shirt: Tell me about this product of your company…

Me (very happy to brag): “Sir, It’s a network security appliance which tells you who is doing what on you network. Meaning which user accessed which files which she was not supposed to do!

(Blue Shirt is pretty interested, wants me to talk more, so I go on for a couple of more sentences full of techno jargon from the networking and security world which he seems to be very interested in listening to)

Blue Shirt: So you’re like a “Big Brother”

Me: (Smile) (It takes a second for my tubelight to click what he means by big bro…)

Me: Yes!

Blue Shirt (Signing my papers): Your visa is approved; it’ll arrive at your place soon”

Me: Thank you Sir!

(I leave the counter blessing the soul in the blue shirt. I am surprised at the end of all this parade how easy it was… and not so surprised at the same time… coz always I had the faith that I’ll get it anyhow).

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Anyways moving on… I hurry out quickly making friends with another happy B1 guy who happens to be living nearby and guides me to the bus stop for railway station… hey but wait… my day in VISA-land doesn’t end here… now here starts the final leg of working on my patience… so far I’ve not traveled much by road or train so far outside my own state and all my recent journeys have mostly been restricted to flights or comfortable sedan drives… and here’s an overnight never-ending? train journey from Bangalore to Chennai waiting for me… in between places where nobody seems to understand what I speak and everybody thinks (or may be expects) that I understand & speak their languages. Anyways I get down at this railway station where thousands of people are waiting to get on the train of their destination and they are all waiting in a way you feel they have been waiting there for days if not weeks & months!

When the company HR decided to reserve a train ticket for me instead of flight, I agreed thinking that it would count as a unique experience traveling amongst so many people of different backgrounds n languages n traditions and I might learn some things on the way so that tomorrow even if I am asked to go and work in a village in the most remote part of India I at least have some bare minimum skills or ideas to handle that… but once I enter the gigantic old British style station all my ideas of adventure melt away and I’m left with nothing but a file in hand and some money in my pockets, staring at the ocean of people in front of me! I'm trying to figure out how do I spend the next 5 hours there. A quick walk around the station reveals its map and the places of interest to me (at such a place and time what else but snacks & books can be on anyone’s mind?) After making a couple of phone calls I decide to try my luck at a net café… sorry: closed… so I enter a book shop and start scanning novels of my favorite authors… and there’s this guy in the shop who thinks I’m here to stay for next few hours so the hulk tries to whisk me off by giving me various hints n threats like “we don’t run a library” etc. I just ignore him and continue browsing through the range of John Grisham & Paulo Coelho books till I finalize on a novel from each of the authors. I enter the ocean of people and manage to find a place for me to sit in front of a flat screen showing train schedules in intervals between rains of commercials pouring out through it… I open one of the novels after I am convinced they are just repeating the same ads & schedules on the screen and that it will take at least a couple of hours more for my train to arrive on the charts. Aha! Finally some training… how to concentrate reading a book 100% in the ambiance of hundreds of people flowing in the background and trains roaring in & out occasionally adding more of such herds of interesting people all around you!

So once I felt I’m confident enough that I can now read a book anywhere in the world, whether I’m sitting on the edge of the grand canyons or travelling on a boat caught up in a thunderstorm, I decide to escape the place and enter a pizza outlet nearby. As in most of other places here, the guys across the counter just ignore me... to my advantage this time... now I can happily get lost in the novel again. Finally someone thinks may be I’m here to eat something so they ask me what I want. I ask for a hot chocolate, but we don’t have it sir, pat comes the reply… so I settle for a junk food read indian version of pizza and dip back inside my book… after gulping down the spicy junky stuff with the help of half a dozen glasses of water, I catch a quiet corner and continue to guzzle the pages when I find some company... a guy who earlier in the day attracted tad of attention of the officers in VISA consulate for the hustle-bustle he was making… my question whether he got the visa approved or not surprised him coz me being a quiet or shall I say cool;-) customer at the consulate he could not recall seeing me there… so we strike a conversation and he tells me that he is going to US and find some customers for his home-run factory’s product in health supplements industry… unfortunately he has a train to catch earlier than me so we quickly exchange our business cards and goodwill wishes and decide to part. The day has been really good in terms of networking; I’ve finished all my visiting cards I brought with me today! So I dive back into the novel again. After a while the electricity goes off so I have to give up reading and focus on the public announcements of train arrivals and departures. Aha! Another learning on the way: I can figure out how they pronounce most of the numbers in tamil… its bit similar to kannada only isn't it! And my train is also announced so I walk briskly and gaily to the platform and start looking for my compartment. Wow! It’s the last one on the other end of train! Good I decided to board the train early enough… although I’ve always hated how my parents asking me to follow precautions everywhere I went; today the importance of taking precautions is reiterated through self-experience - which is more effective than anyone else forcing it on you!

So I settle down in my suite of warm bedding and go to sleep only to be woken at one of the Bangalore stations. Now here is the funny part of the whole trip… I am thoroughly confused where I am so I walk down from my suit towards the door in order to find out which station it is. There is a family talking in Marathi so I ask them where we are and the man says 'cantonment'... and guess what I ask him back… "you mean Pune cantonment?" And this guy’s like where in the world are you young man? oops... I boarded a train in Chennai to come to Bangalore! This is not Pune man even if you so wished it would be!

Finally I drop down at majestic and come back to home sweet home in a blank state of mind… I start deliberating: what was the good part and what was the bad part about this one day trip to the VISA-land? Probably good thing is my VISA got approved… probably only other interesting thing was the pretty lady in the morning flight I must have been dreaming about her all night in my sleep I guess… I hope I get to see her again soon! Third good thing about the trip was the boost in the confidence I got from the whole trip… that I can survive in an unknown foreign land and can sustain all the surprises and situations thrown at me... and still enjoy the whole ride! I guess this is the magic of EXPERIENCING GRACE & GRATITUDE, HAVING A MASTER SUCH AS HIS HOLINESS SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR, PRACTICING THE SPIRITUALITY AND CONTINUOUSLY STRIVING TO LIVE IN KNOWLEDGE. Hope I continue to learn a lot as I start my journey to the country they call 'the land of opportunites'!!!