Visa Power - Go Get IT!!!! Part 2

I come home... Tired... not due to work but due to the extreme thinking involved to remove mehndi in one day.... So, I sat with Surf Excel, Rin, Cinthol, Dettol Liquid Soap, Dove and a bucket of water... I have never in my life scrubbed my hands so much... I mean it was like washing my hands for the centuries to come.... I kept checking to see if it was light but time and scrubbing made no difference to the color... So, i decided that if I do not look for 15 min may be a miracle wud happen and mehndi wud go off... But after 35 - 45 min of scrubbing, nothing had happened.... I decided to ditch the effort and went off to the party... tho everytime my hands came in front of my face (which I now realise happens a lot... I mean its just impossible to ignore your hands :$..) I thot abt my mehndi, my interview, my life........

12th Dec - 09:30 hrs - Mehndi still no signs of being lighter.... Tho the scrubbing had made the fingers other than the index finger lighter :(.... I come to office and I am talking to my OSC... I inform him about my absence tomorrow due to the visa interview in Mumbai... So, he is like " arre wah!! ur visa interview... cool hai.." So, without even taking a second breath he shoots questions at me...
"What wud be ur salary while in US?"
"Who is your employer in US"
"what will you do if your client fires u"
"who will you report to?"
"how many ppl will work under you?"
"what are your responsibilities while u r here?"
"What is the name of I797?" etc etc etc... I am speechless... I dunno what to say... I ask him, "Y are no questions about ab initio?" He is like " you dont know about these... you havent read the FAQ document.. You havent seen the papers... you dont know about ur client..." I am shit scared now.... I take some pointers from him too (I dunno how many ppl I had asked questions) and then get on with my work... CAlled Ashok... Again no answer... Undeterred I went to the Visa dept... I asked them about the mehndi... they said no issue.. Strike 1... I asked about the session.. they said after 2:30.. Strike 2... I asked to check my papers... they put them in order... Strike 3... Finally they tell me to just make sure the checklist they have provided is taken care of...

18:00 hrs - My session was cancelled... Ashok was never available... I checked for the checklist... I fired printouts... Printer wasnt working... went to the next bldg... got the prinouts.... So, finally I left work with docs (which I believed were complete) and with many people wishing me luck....

23:00 hrs - I am at my house and I realise that I do not have the interview letter mentioned in one checklist after the checklist I referred... Oh Sh$%!@... Called one person who guided me and thus got the soft copy of the letter... But no printout... Called 5 frends who had printers but all of them had to malfunction at the same time... Y god Y??? I tried not to panic but it refused to leave me... Finally I decided to burn a CD with that doc and take a print tomorrow morning.. C'mon!!! its Mumbai... Cybers open by 9:30... So no big deal... So after settling that, checking 4 times if any other checklist is present, I moved to the final step... Go through the hajar docs... Then get some information about the client, company etc... See all the forms, their names and their purposes... See information like pay, reporting authority etc... Thanks to my OSC, I was a student again ratoing revenues, roles, caps, functions, names etc.... Slept at 02:00 hrs...

13th Dec 2006 - 09:20 hrs - Left home... Going to Bombay Central takes 45 min... so even if I had to reach by 11, I left early (people knowing me would find this to be a surprise....) News!!! Cybers close to my area, on the way to station from my house, all closed.... Sh@%$!! One big detour by my dad (thanks to him who seems to know every nukkad and the shop on it like the back of his hand) he took me to one which was open... I was happy but it was short lived... The cyber had Adobe 3 and my doc was of Adobe 7.. It cudnt open.. Sh@!#!! Went to another... he had Adobe 6... What has happened to Adobe 7... Why dont people keep upgrading their systems... The doc opened with errors but a printable one.. So, took the print out and finally reached station to get 9:57 semi fast and got a fourth seat 2 :)

11:00 hrs - went to the VFS bldg, checked in my bag and awaited my turn.... Finally entered the consulate bldg and went for a security check... Met a gal called Sheetal on my way and we got quite friendly... Man there are a lot of people who want a US Visa everyday (and I do not mean just IT Industry) :) There was this aunty (abt 60 yrs) in front of me for the check.. When the metal detector went over her parts of body the kept beeing.. She had something or the other always beeping... It was hilarious... Wud ve lafed hard otherwise but was still tensed abt my finger prints... So, finally when I got to the finger print counter, i apprehensively placed my finger on the scanner... Breathed a sigh of relief when my finger print got accepted... :)))))) My number came just before the lunch hour set in and I was asked 4 very simple questions - Do u work for infosys? Is this your first job? What tool you wud be working on? Explain that tool function to me... Thus, I entered the consulate at 12:05 and left at 12:17....

So, all this jhanjat for 12 min.... :O I wondered if all the panic, anxiety and stress was needed? But lessons learnt in this process:
1. 35 - 45 minutes of washing hands with the complex mixture mentioned above doesnt harm your hands.
2. Adobe is not backward compatible
3. you can reach Bombay central in less than 45 min, haji ali juice centre is very close from station and US Consulate is very famous since my taxi driver got it easily
4. DO NOT LISTEN to everything ur OSC says and last but not the least
5. Getting a US Visa aint that difficult.... :))))))))