Middle-men ecosystem

In India, one thing I quickly found out is that the ecosystem is built in such a way that unless you do your own thing, you will be bleeding money. Take visa applications for example. All my life, I have done my own visa applications (and I have done it many times, thanks to my foreign student/worker status as well as my love for travel). US visa applications from Kolkata are easy. I have driven to Washington DC at 4 am to reach the German consulate on time. I have driven all day to apply for a German visa in Chicago, struggling with finding parking more than driving. I have traveled for 8 hours in a bus to go to Berlin for a US visa. Long story short, I am used to spending a lot of time to get a visa.

Back in India, I have an upcoming conference in Canada and need to apply for a visa. The travel agent my employer hires assures me that they will take care of everything. That, they do. They do the paperwork and get me appointment dates. They compile the application together, book me a car, and come to my office to give me my file. All this looks great on paper. But here is the catch!

I don’t need a car, I can take an Ola/Uber. Yet, they hire a car for 4 hours that will wait till I submit my visa paperwork and bring me back on campus. It roughly costs 1,500 INR. I could have taken a cab for less than 150 INR round trip. But they do not let me do that.

They tell me that “their man will be waiting in front of the Canada consulate.” I am still not clear what the role of this man was. All he did is take the stairs with me to the second floor office, hold my bag (although I asked him not to), and wait for a few hours till I came back. Yes, I needed a photocopy in the meantime, which I could have totally done on my own. I ask him to go home but he assures me that his travel agent office is next door and he is happy to wait. Till date, I still don’t know what his job was, but he would have taken a commission in the process.

And yes, he put me in some premium waiting lounge without asking me. All that premium lounge does is seclude you from the suffering of the common man. While everyone waits in the common area, only six people get to wait in a special room. They ask you for tea and coffee, which I never needed anyway. They have a bowl of unhealthy chocolates and cookies in front of you to munch on. They assure you with bold letters on that application you signed that up to six sheets of photocopy is free for people in the premier lounge. How much does 6 pages of photocopying need? I am used to carrying 2 extra copies of all documents anyway. I still had to wait there for 2 hours. The man whose role I did not know assured me that I would have had to wait for five hours otherwise. I was half ready to stay there for a few more hours and see if his claims were true. Oh, and they charged me 2,000+ INR for access to the premier lounge I never wanted in the first place.

You might be wondering what a miserly, complaining woman I am. Yes, I am careful about my money, that money came from my grant and I have a limited budget. The visa itself cost me 14,000 INR, but with a car and a middle-man and a premier lounge, I will be shelling close to 5k INR more in my estimate. I watch my money like a hawk, and I am proud of it. And other than money, I also have problems with the lack of transparency. The travel agent I worked with never told me about these add-ons and the amount I have to shell out in the process. If you are not careful, you end up wasting a lot of money. The ecosystem is built in such a way that there will be a middle-man at every node asking for money.

It has been a sharp learning curve for me the past 6 weeks. Surviving and thriving in India takes a different mindset. I am very happy that I am back for many reasons. But I have quickly learned to get my alert radar very active. Every person I do business with, I clearly ask them how much money they will charge and how many people will be getting a share of that money. Talking about money is somewhat of a taboo in our culture, but screw all that. I have quickly learned to unlearn a lot of my prior programming. I know that if I have to survive here for the next 30-35 years, I will be encountering a lot of middle-men after my money. The only way I can deal with it is by keeping my alert radar at high levels all the time and doing as much of my paperwork as I can on my own.

PS: On a different note, I am considering moving away from blogging. I have found other platforms on social media that are way more interactive. The only reason I keep writing here is sheer nostalgia for having owned this space for 13 years now. I started blogging way before I knew of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram. Now, I have found all those platforms and no longer know what I am doing here.

sunshine

24 hours in Berlin

“Sushi on conveyor belts looks the prettiest. Colorfully decked up, as if going to a Halloween party,” I thought, sitting at a Japanese restaurant at the Hauptbahnhoff and eating an early dinner. I have just arrived in Berlin for my visa interview the following day. A little hungry, I wanted to finish off dinner before heading to my hotel. I saw the usual around me, a McDonald’s, Burger King, Turkish kebab place, and a coffee shop. None of them appealed to me. I was craving for something hot and soupy. That is how I found myself at Tokio, devouring a steaming hot bowl of udon noodles with seafood as my mind went in ten different directions.

“Berlin has always been a city of necessities for me,” I further reflected between mouthfuls of body parts of sea animals I did not recognize. I only visit the city when I needed something. Berlin never gave me a chance to woo her.

I sadly reminisced about my life in Germany for the last two years. This trip was like getting closure. I had first planned to visit Berlin in 2010. The trip never happened. I injured my leg on the streets of Sicily, pulled a muscle, and after covering a dozen different places in that first Europe trip, Berlin is the only place I did not visit. I went there for the first time last year, to get a US tourist visa. I had a whole lot of things on my mind then, including why I am visiting the US as a tourist. I did take an extra day and saw some of the usual suspects, but I never saw Berlin extensively. Over the next year, I went to Berlin many times, but every time to catch a train or plane to somewhere else- Budapest, Hamburg, Poland, Croatia. I never stepped outside the very coolly designed Hauptbahnhoff with four different floors of trains and restaurants. My ICE trains always arrived in the basement floor. The U-Bahn and the S-Bahn and the Regional Bahns (different kinds of trains) always left from other floors.

Post-dinner, I had to take the S-train and then a bus to get to my hotel. Déjà vu, I was not only in the same hotel, but also in the same room I stayed last time. I had an 8 am interview the next day, so I tried going to sleep early. I wasn’t even carrying a laptop or camera. I have been practicing living minimally and traveling light these days. Even without the internet distractions, it took me a long time to fall asleep. This never happens, I am usually asleep even before I hit the bed, and wake up much after it is time for me to wake up. But tonight was different. I had a hundred different things on my mind.

I went there armed with everything I had, my passport, every degree and accolade earned since high school, my 80-page long petition, a CV, and of course my knowledge. I was prepared to talk about anything. The future of research. Women in science. NGSS. NCLB. The training process in medical schools. Grant writing. My next five papers in the pipeline. Full form of ERIC. H-index. How tenure works. Why I think I deserve this job. The names of Native American tribes. The future of education globally. And a 5-minute synopsis of the history of the United States. I was going to rock this visa interview.

And the only question they asked me was, "Your tourist visa was in your stolen passport. Did you report it to the police?"

"Of course," I said, taken aback. How else would I get the new passport they were holding?

"Visa approved," they said rather impassively, momentarily throwing me off-guard. I kept standing there, expecting them to ask at least some questions from my HLM class.

"You can go home now," they said, their voice laced with impatience. "Next?"

Seems like my passport thief in Greece was more on their mind than understanding the intellectual mind of a budding faculty member.

And as for going home, of course I'll be going home now. A new home in a new city to start a brand new chapter of my life.

I was inclined to see a little bit of the city, since my train back was not until evening. However, I was carrying all important documents except my passport, and did not want to risk another robbery attempt. I have seen 16 new countries in the last two years, including 10 new ones in 2016 alone. I was kind of done traveling and sightseeing for now. I paid four times more for a new ticket and took an earlier train back home.

People have different favorite memories of a city. Berlin could mean a lot of things to a lot of people. To me, my personal little haven in Berlin will remain that triangle between my hotel, the US consulate, and the nearby metro station. Those are where I have most of my memories of Berlin, of getting visas, walking those streets, taking the bus, drinking coffee, or eating. In a strange way, this is where I got closure. This is where my journey began, and this is where it is ending after fighting a long battle of finding my way back to the US being exactly who I aspired to be.

sunshine

German Visa

When I arrived in Germany, I had to go to the Rathaus (city hall) to register myself. There, they gave me a piece of paper that I took to another building called the Ausländerbehörde (Aliens Office) with other documents. There, they asked me to come back in three weeks to collect my residence permit after which I could go to any of the Schengen countries without a visa. And a tiny Sunny Deol voice inside my head shouted, "Tareeq pe tareeq, tareeq pe tareeq" (translated as, appointment after appointment, appointment after appointment, when will I get the permit?). 

My basic impressions of the visa system in Germany- There is a lot of paperwork and going back and forth involved. Even the Ausländerbehörde reminded me more of India- tons of files and paperwork stacked in their office. They actually sent me a letter at home, giving me an appointment date and time (compared to being able to make an appointment online). I have to be patient, knowing that they might ask for hundreds of documents and take weeks, and ask me to come back instead of mailing in my residence permit.

However, I absolutely do not feel uncomfortable, unlike my previous experiences in other countries where the security drove me crazy. No security check, no metal detectors, no one patting you or sniffing you. The officer will actually smile and not keep giving you suspicious glances. Things are more laid back and way more relaxed. 

I would love to know a system where once they see that work or studies is taking you to different countries, you will not need a visa anywhere in the world.

Until then, I love the fact that Germany exempts me from paying my visa fee, saving me some 100 euros every time.  

sunshine

Every day after that day

48 hours since my bombastic entry into Greece. My first armed robbery (armed because they stole my valuables from literally under my arm). Hundreds of messages from friends and family wanting to know how I am doing. How am I? I am okay. Trying to cope after coming dangerously close to having to sell a kidney. I feel 10 times heavier. I have splitting headaches and nightmares. When bad news comes in little installments over a period of time (like an impending breakup or obesity), one gets more time to prepare. But when the same dose of bad news happens in 60 seconds leaving you almost bankrupt, the mind does not know how to respond. It was traumatic to take another metro after that.

But then, there are many good things that happened after that. The Indian embassy gave me a temporary passport in 2 hours. I met Sara, a fellow traveler from Singapore. Together, we did some sightseeing in Athens and hiking in a nearby island. Disaster was about to strike again when while hiking, we were chased byan angry donkey and had to run downhill for our lives after huffing and puffing and hiking for 40 minutes. We never made it to the top again, the donkey blocked the trail. Robbed by Greek thieves and then death by a donkey? There would be no dignity for me after that.

Now the big question that was plaguing me was, should I or should I not go to Malta next? And the even bigger question. Will they or won't they allow me to take a plane to Malta on a handwritten, temporary passport? I decided to leave it to my fate. What saved me is that they did not steal my German residence card. That would have jeopardized my entry even to Germany as my new passport has no visa. Between stealing a passport and stealing a residence card, they somehow cushioned my loss by stealing the passport.

The people at the airport were a little intrigued by a new passport with no stamps. I decided to shut my mouth until being questioned. A handwritten passport could have been a problem. But I boarded the 6 am flight. When the security people at the airport in Malta wanted to check my passport again, my heart stopped. They could ask me to return. They did not. They said, "Oh, you have a new passport? No problem, the residence card is good enough."

All this seemed to have happened a lifetime ago. Greece and Malta later, I came back to Germany, applied for a new passport, obtained one, and flew eastward ho to Kolkata for a few weeks. The mangoes and litchis have been cushioning my sense of loss so far.

sunshine

Robbed

Less than an hour into landing in Athens, I was robbed off my passport and many hundred euros in broad daylight inside a crowded metro. I have been traveling alone for many years now. I have traveled close to 25 countries so far, and many of them on my own. I usually stay at hostels and fit in easily with an international crowd. I am not shy or awkward and stay extra alert while traveling. I can read maps and I can navigate my way around even in obscure little towns where I do not speak the local language. I usually show up at airports an hour extra ahead of time. I usually get two printouts of documents kept in separate places. I stick to the crowded parts of a city, do not venture out at night, and never go for a drink with people I have just met at hostels. In short, I do all that I can to stay safe and not get drugged or killed while traveling, and in general. Then how did this happen to me? It's a useful (and very expensive) experience to share.

After landing in Athens, I bought a € 10 one-way ticket from the airport to Omonia. This required me to take the blue line from the airport to Syntagma, and then change to the red line for two more stops to Omonia. I had a trolley suitcase on my left and a small handbag on my right. I got down at Syntagma to change to the red line. When the train came, a group of men and women got on the train from the same door as mine. They were a part of a big gang. But this, I realized later. The moment I got on the red line metro, these people kind of surrounded me and did not let me move. 

"Omonia, how many stops? Next stop?" one of them asked me naively. They were all standing too close for comfort. 

"Two" I said and tried to move away. The crowd would not let me. Have you ever played kabaddi? You will know what I mean. They closed in on me. A man on my left held my left hand rather amorously. I jerked away my hand. He looked at me and smiled, asking to hold my trolley suitcase which was in my left hand. I immediately knew that something bad is going to happen to me. Intuitively, yes. I turned to the man on the left to grab my suitcase. He just would not release my hand. He squeezed it just like a lover would do. That was when someone on the right took a bag that was inside another bigger bag and had my passport and all my money. All this happened in less than 60 seconds. They got off at Panepistimio, the station before Omonia, and walked out in a group. By then, I knew that I had lost something, and something big. I just did not know (yet) what it was. 

When I got off at Omonia, I was relieved to see that my purse was with me. But the relief lasted for a second. Because my passport bag next to it was gone. 

So here are a few things you need to know. This, I can tell from my experience and talking to the police as well as the embassy: 

1. These guys operate in huge gangs, specifically inside the airport (yes!!) and in the metro stations. Women are also a part of these gangs. I was told they are refugees, but I do not know about that. 

2. They pretend that they do not know each other, but they do. When they target someone, they just close in on them. 

3. They use a distraction technique, holding your hand amorously or smiling flirtatiously, slightly pushing a heavier luggage from your hand. But remember, they have no intention to flirt or take your suitcase. This is meant to distract you in one direction while someone is working in the other direction. And they work really really fast, within a minute or so. They just get off at the next station and walk out. 

4. Distribute your money. I was going to once I checked in to my hostel, but it was too late. 

If you are a victim of a stolen passport, do the following: 

1. Immediately go to the police station for tourists. I first went to the metro police, who asked me to go to another police station, and I had to go to three police stations until I found the right one. 

2. Cabs in Athens are super cheap. If you still have some money, just take a cab. 

3. The police does not care. They see cases like this everyday. I was told that sometimes they are involved too, but I do not know about that. However, you need to take the police report to the Indian embassy (or the embassy of your country) as soon as possible. That report was written entirely in Greek. At the embassy, someone will translate it and issue a "temporary passport" that will let you fly back to the country of your residence. It is a hand-written passport and mine was valid for one year. The police report is the first step. The embassy cannot do anything without that. 

4. The Indian Embassy in Athens is super nice and helpful. When I explained what happened, they said they will try to get me a temporary passport within the next day. It's just like applying for a normal passport. The embassy charged me € 126 for a temporary passport, and issued it to me within two hours. They are super nice people. 

5. Take your temporary passport and get back to your country of residence. From there, apply for a fresh passport. 

6. ALWAYS travel with a photocopy of your passport and a few passport sized pictures. This, I did not do. The embassy needs to get all the information from your passport, which is why you need to carry photocopies. 

7. Get in touch with the embassy of your country as soon as possible. They are the only ones who can and will help you. 

8. No matter how much shock you are in, don't forget to eat and drink water. An empty stomach and dehydrated body will do strange things to your brain. You need to be alert and make judgments very quickly. I am pretty sure I hallucinated the entire night. 

So how does it feel? To say that I am shaken and shattered would be an understatement. I was too afraid to go to an ATM and take out money at night, and had to wait till the next morning to find some of my confidence back. My legs had no strength to move. I have never felt more helpless in a foreign country where I knew no one and was not even carrying a cell phone. I would not wish this on anyone. But I am glad that I was physically not hurt (I was told that some of them carry razors and pocket knives too). The thing is, it's not that I suddenly realized that my stuff is gone. I knew all the time that something bad is happening to me. But they put you into a trance. They distract you. As a woman, I would watch out for someone who is holding my hand. At one point, I feared that I might be mauled or molested. But that is a distraction technique. All this will be over in less than a minute. And a woman traveling alone with luggage makes a great target. 

I have many things to be sad about, but many things to be thankful about too. 

My passport is gone, but is replaceable. 

Thank God my US visa was not in this passport. 

They stole all the cash, but my bank cards, and most importantly, my residence permit was in a different bag and were not stolen. Without my residence permit, I could not have reentered Germany. Although I was within the Schengen area, airlines and airports are super strict these days after the Paris/Brussels attacks. You need to carry your passport at all times. 

I wish the money went to someone needy. It is a lot, but I will earn it back eventually. Passport, I will have a new one. But what I really lost that day was my self-confidence. I felt violated. I felt like someone had crushed my confidence and reduced me to nothing. I had no strength to walk on a street without cowering and feeling like I will be attacked again. It made me feel small. It made me blame myself for the hundreds of things I could have done differently. But as long as you are alive, everything is replaceable. I saw Athens after that, and traveled some more with my temporary passport. 6-7 men robbed me in broad daylight. But 60 people jumped in to help me. I am grateful to all of them. And a big thank you to the people of the Indian Embassy. You went out of your way to do much more than getting me a passport promptly. You made me feel safe and understood. 

And lastly, a little bit of something that perked me up. Miss Universe 1994 Sushmita Sen had the same experience at the Athens airport in 2012. I am very sorry for your loss Sushmita, but this might be the closest I have come to saying "same pinch" to a Bollywood celebrity I like. 

sunshine

Visa Woes

The process from applying for a US visa to getting one took a toll on my peace of mind. It didn’t help much that I had done it before and had a fair idea of what to expect. The forms seemed different now, the fees had gone up, and the one thing that still remained is the very long list of things to do and documents to bring to prove you don’t intend to stay there for the rest of your life. I haven’t ever applied for a visa for another country, so I don’t know how simple or complex things are.

So when I got a US visa and decided to make a hop trip to Europe for a few days, the thought of applying for another visa overwhelmed me. The process was a little different, the picture specifications different, and I had to wait for my friend to mail me a letter of invitation in original. I tried to be as meticulous as possible, going through every little detail mentioned in the website so that I didn’t screw things up like I was on the verge of doing the last time. It didn’t help that a lot many instructions were given in German and it took me a while to cruise through the website and find out the English options.

Anyway, so the invitation letter arrived, and I armed myself with all the documents on a fine Thursday morning to apply for the visa. It seemed that unlike a US visa, one did not need to make a prior appointment but could just walk in and submit the documents. You would anyway be called later for a personal interview, so it was a 2 day thing. The address for the consulate seemed a little unfamiliar, and some Google mapping, asking a few people here and there, and an argument with the cab driver later, I reached my destination.

I reached the consulate first thing in the morning, confident that I had everything I needed. I get into the building saying a silent prayer and face a burly man on the other side of the glass door.

Visa man: What visa?

I: Tourist visa.

Visa man: What country?

I: (What an IQ for a man working at the German consulate. Obviously Germany !!) Germany.

Visa man: When are you traveling?

I: 3^rd week of July.

Visa man: Too early to give you a visa. Come back after 15 days.

That’s it. Nothing in the website told me that I was too early. What a start to the process of Schengen visa. Now I just hope I get one on time, because if they send me home for another reason, like say some important documents missing, I don’t think I will have enough time to come back.

I think I need to pray harder to the Schengen Gods now.

sunshine

Raj- The Savior

It was a perfect recipe for the biggest goof up. Well, come a certain Monday, I received my I-20 form (the document that allows you to get a visa interview date in the first place). I read it and re-read it for the umpteenth time, happy that things were working out finally. By Tuesday, I had paid the money to the bank, got myself a professional set of photos for the visa interview, compared it with my last set of visa photos taken 4 years ago, and thunked my head multiple times on the wall after seeing the massive havoc adipose tissue has caused to my face ever since. By Wednesday, I was looking at the set of dates available for the interview.

Available days: Monday. Tuesday. Thursday. Friday.

Monday was 5 days away. Tuesday 6. Thursday 8. Putting it off until Friday would surely cause me a nervous breakdown.

And then I remembered. My friend was visiting Kolkata from Bangalore for a couple of days, arriving on Sunday. I really wanted to meet and maximize my time with him. Guiltily, I weighed my options. Ideally I should have scheduled my interview on Monday. But that would mean being sufficiently engaged with the preparations for visa interview that I wouldn’t have enough time to spend with him. Although my foremothers would advice against doing anything crazy for a guy you are not going to marry (which includes postponing a visa interview by 4 days), I pressed the “confirm” button for the Thursday 8:15 am slot. Foremothers’ voices were put on mute for a while.

By Sunday, the Raj Mistry had sufficiently jinxed my plans of meeting my friend for the next 3 days. He decided to work under supervision starting Sunday and hence now I was not meeting my friend at all. The Raj Mistry by the way isn’t your next door Shah Rukh Khan look-alike guy from Karan Johar movies (though the name would suggest so). Amongst all the hilarious names prominently used by Bengalis like Pocha, Nadu Gopal, Joga (Jaw-ga), Keshto, and Poltu, Raj Mistry is what you call the craftsman who makes basic repairs in the house. Some home repairs had to be made at my friend’s place and he called to say he would not be able to meet me during this trip.

So now, I had just postponed my visa interview by 4 days for a reason that was not to be. Did I just hear the sarcasm-coated voices from my foremothers?

Sunday evening, I was bored to death. I tried making 4 different plans with friends but none of them worked out. Without sufficient preamble, getting hold of someone free enough on a Sunday evening turned out to be an impossible task. I wondered if the Raj Mistry was having fun with his chisel and hammer.

Bored, I resorted to my ever available friend- the internet. I logged on to Gmail and barely found anyone online. Need I be reminded it was Sunday evening and everyone was having fun outside? A friend from Florida logged in and I was glad to chit chat. His sister was just done with her visa interview and I asked how it went.

Sunshine: Visa is expensive. I just shelled out some INR 6.5k.

Florida Friend: Are you sure? My sister just shelled out INR 17k.

Sunshine: What !!!!

It turned out that there was a visa fee, and there was a SEVIS fee. They were separate. I don’t really goof up visa related things (or important things for that matter), but it seems senility is hitting me and I had this time. I don’t know how I missed the part where I had to pay the $200 SEVIS fee. I jogged my memory and remembered a friend of mine had done the same mistake and realized it on the day of the interview. The trouble was, it took 3 business day to get the SEVIS fee processed. I had Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thursday was the visa interview. And here I was nicely sitting at home, happy that visa related things were taken care of, and cursing my friend and the Raj Mistry.

It’s been a while since I had felt such shock, and felt relieved at the same time that I had realized and hence checked the possibility of a goof up right on time. Things could have gone wrong at multiple stages. I could have decided to listen to my foremothers and got the visa interview scheduled on Monday. The Raj Mistry could have not shown up and then I’d be meeting my friend and not be online to talk to my Florida friend. Fate had conspired in a way to get all my plans of going out on a Sunday evening jinxed so that I’d be online and talking to my friend. It turned out, like always, that I had done the right thing but for all the wrong reasons.

sunshine

Another visa interview- 4 years later

The morning of the visa interview didn’t really start on a good note. Things screwed up, albeit in a harmless, comical way. I always prided myself for being a sound sleeper but sleep eluded me the night before. It must have been a combination of the thoughts of my visa being rejected, me having to hunt for a job and a local groom in Kolkata, and the elephantine mosquitoes feasting on my blood that put me through a state of trance, of half wakefulness and half sleep. I woke up long before the shrill, annoying cry of my alarm went off.

“I am going to look my smartest self”, I sang to myself as I poured a fistful of shampoo in the shower. 5 minutes of vigorous head massaging later, there was no lather. I wondered was this a new shampoo that promised healthy hair without lather. A very un-bespectacled me squinted at the sachet. Darn, it wasn’t the shampoo, it was the conditioner. The shampoo sachets were all missing. I had just poured a sachet full of conditioner on my oily hair sans any shampoo. First goof up of the day.

A number of other minor goof ups followed. One actually happened 4 days before the interview, but that will make another sensational blog post soon, I promise. While waiting at the traffic signal, I saw the name of the e-stalker painted colorfully behind a truck. Not a good sign. I was reminded of the person who during a frustrated moment of male chauvinism had told me that he wished I never get my visa approved and stay back. I didn’t know whether to be alarmed, it’s not nice to be cursed at or being ill-wished upon. So even though I asked the person to “Kat le”, I got a little superstitious about it. This of course saved my Facebook friends from the boring visa updates like, “5 days to go, biting my nails in anticipation”, and “2 days to go for the visa. Counting hours”.

I was about 90 minutes early for my 8:15 am interview and decided to kill time by talking to G and hear baby Kalyani babble on the phone. Strolling on the road since the consulate wouldn’t let me in, I was deeply engaged in conversation about the most trivial stuff like Seattle weather on a visa day when the crow decided to bless my freshly laundered clothes. 3^rd goof up of the day. I didn’t really know if it was a blessing sent from Heaven or a bad omen.

Anyway, before any more goof ups could happen, I was quickly summoned to the consulate where the lady on duty checked me at various ticklish places, wanting to ascertain if I would giggle and say, “Okay okay, I am here for my visa, mother promise”, or would giggle and say, “Okay okay, I am a wannabe terrorist. There are arms hidden up my armpits”. Soon I was summoned to the same open waiting area I had been to 4 years ago. I particularly noticed 2 people, one who looked exactly like my school senior who I had last seen 14 years ago, and another girl with excess facial hair, probably a first timer, who kept folding her hands, closing her eyes, moving back and forth and praying. I was half-tempted to hug her and assure her everything would be fine, but checked myself lest my sisterly intentions are misunderstood. I wondered what she was so nervous about.

Next I was called to the main lobby, which is nothing like what I remembered from the last time. The seating area had changed, the counters were all this way and that way, or maybe my brain had garbled up and was seeing mirror images. The plasma TV showed Aaj Tak on mute. Things had definitely changed in 4 years. Not to mention the fact that I was older, fatter, balder, but ironically still in the same boat, waiting for the same PhD visa interview that I had been to 4 years ago.

So I decided to wait for my turn and observe the world around me lest I fall asleep. There were students, working professionals, families, and parents visiting their children. Everyone had a story, a purpose of being there in the same room at the same time, and I wondered what each one’s story was. I saw a particular guy wearing an IIT Kanpur Techkriti tee shirt (showing off?) and arched my eyebrows when I quickly checked my sarcastic self remembering an anonymous commentator on my blog who had remarked, “But why do you hate IITians? I am from an IIT too”.

The counters where the actual interview happened were all covered, unlike the last time, so that whether you were granted or denied a visa, the world did not witness your own private moments with the visa officer where you struggled through the paperwork trying to find the document the officer asked for, or tried to convince him why you wanted to study in the US despite patriotism coursing through your veins and how you vowed to take the first flight back home the moment you were done with your course. I once again looked at the people around me, in various degrees of nervousness and expectations, all destined to fly to different parts of the US if everything went well for them today, and imagined them all scattered taking Patel shots at different places in a few months’ time, some grinning in front of the Statue of Liberty, some making a V in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in SF, some in skiing attires and snow shoes on their way to Mr. Rainier, and a group of desi men, all heavily ignored by the white girls despite their desperate attempts, rolling on their own in the beaches of Miami. Friends had strictly asked me to wear a salwar kameez to convince the officer of my patriotism, a desperate measure to tell him I was definitely getting back to India once I was done (if I hadn’t acquired a green card husband by then). I wondered if the visa officer was that stupid to not see through it. The usher droned mechanically to everyone every 5 minutes, “Please keep your documents ON your hands”. I was half tempted to correct him, but checked myself. Like he cares if the documents were on my hands or in my hands.

The room felt like a jail, where prisoners were ushered this way and that way, and spoken strictly to if they went up to the wrong counter or produced the wrong document out of nervousness. No, not a jail, maybe a school, and everyone was supposed to obey these people, follow a strict protocol, and conduct themselves well, because their dreams of visiting the US depended on these men who had the authority. The mangoes I had for breakfast irritated my throat, but I stifled a cough lest I am suspected of carrying cough germs and asked to come back later with another appointment on another day. Needless to say, I was nervous. The school senior look-alike girl had her name called in a while. She was indeed my senior from school. The name and the face was unmistakable. Another insignificant co-incidence and probabilistic game of meeting people you knew in the larger scheme of things.

The visa officers, who I could not see, called people one by one. One had a garbled voice with a thick American accent and I could barely understand the names he mumbled. The other one of course had a very clear and distinct voice, and there was something endearing about the voice. I secretly prayed the second person would call my name. Sometimes, little prayers are answered without God making much fuss. The guy soon called my name clearly and I trotted on my way. One look into his face and I received another tiny shock worth a few millivolts. For there was no white skinned American guy waiting for me. Our visa officer looked our very own Indian, in fact South Indian self. He must have been an American born of South Indian descent. I had barely entered the room when he said, “Promise me every information you have is true and you are not hiding anything”.

I looked confused.

“Just kidding”, he said after a meaningful pause.

So our visa officer had a filmy sense of humor too?, I thought.

The next 10 minutes passed with me answering a multitude of questions, thanks to my visa status changing from F1 to H1B and now back to F1. What program did I join back in 2006? Where was I working after that? What were my GRE scores? Why did I choose to come back to India for a few months and not join school directly? Was I ever out of status in the US? And so on…

Finally, “I will cancel your…… (as he said this, he scratched my last F1 visa. Did I just hear the word “cancel”? My heart sank) …….. last F1 visa and will approve your new visa. Congratulations”.

I has almost stopped breathing. I had made it. Yaay !! I was tempted to kiss his bald head, instead I jived and dived out of the interview room without so much as a thank you before he could change his mind. My day was made. I was especially skeptical about my visa this time for 2 reasons. First, I’ve had this status change from a student visa to a work visa, and am getting back to school again. Second, I am joining the PhD program in a totally different field, something I have never studied before, and it might have been difficult for me to justify my field transition.

I took the metro back home. While taking the auto in the final leg, I saw a picture of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar smiling back at me (his usual expression), as if telling me “All Iz Well”. All is well indeed.

I thought I will sleep peacefully tonight. It’s almost 4 am, and I am still too excited to sleep.

P.S. 1: If you have a visa interview scheduled, good luck. Feel free to ask me questions. And salwar kameez or no salwar kameez, wear your confidence with you. When the officer asked me for my official appointment letter, I realized to my dismay that I had forgotten to get it. One of the many goof ups of the day. Instead of apologizing, I confidently gave him my financial assistantship letter (which is different from the appointment letter). He didn’t even realize it.

P.S. 2: No, I was not asked for documents showing liquid financial assets, bank papers, or asked questions about funding. I wasn’t asked to convince them that I have ties in India and I will be back before they know.

sunshine