Nothing beats an interview which starts with a beautiful brunette (BB) looking wide eyed and smiling congratulations at you. Trust me, I speak with experience.
Bluedart delivered my passport today, with a US Visa (F1) for five years. And this Visa followed quite a laborious and to-a-no-end journey of digging through convoluted personal finances, capricious university websites and breezing through 45 seconds of pointless chatting (OK! Not the pointless, but it did not have much of a point to it either). Preparation for visa interview usually entails engaging the (quite needless) services of a Visa counsellor, creating pretty creative balance-sheets, learning by rote a sum total of fifty questions and pursuing with equal vigour, the relation between the number of visa rejections and the hair colour of the visa officer.
The first step, that of Visa counsellors is a cottage industry by itself. The small scale industry that helps people emigrate and ensures that they leave this country for good. (Ironically, increasing prosperity in India, propels an increasing number of students abroad, year on year.) The second step is one with enough intricacy and arcane mystery to defeat any old sherlock holmes story you loved best, the financial documents created by an Indian wishing to emigrate... Oops! Sorry! an Indian wishing to go to the US for higher studies. The third step involves knowing fully well how to pronounce the 'oops!' and 'sorry!' and to never introduce them in the context that I have used in the previous sentence. The fourth step is completely voluntary and more often than not indulged in with a speculative fervour in sync with the land without a Las Vegas: where repressed feelings find a variety of outlets. My favourite, atleast from this day, would be dark brown.
After a few sleepless nights and misplaced attempts at comprehending finance and discovering a new fullform for the acronym BS, I decided to place all my bets on a not-quite-digitally-touched up photograph to scare the interviewer into granting me a visa. Anyways, I reached the vfs office, (my worshipful emulation of this Japanese concept still intact) just in time. Before I could finish the quite steeply charged 150 bucks cup of coffee (which reminds me, coffee with too much sugar tastes as crappy as one without any), we were called to board the bus which was to transport us to the embassy. It was quite an uneventful journey (the only worth mentioning non-event being that I did not have to fight for a window seat with a resourceful five-year old).
At the embassy, I passed through a door where people confused pull with push (quite personifying that eternal dilemma that is every door's destiny). Following this I subjected myself to the indiscreet inspections of a metal detector and was fingerprinted. Digitally. Digital fingerprinting reminded me of the travails I had to undergo at the Indian passport office, first for finding an inkpad and then sqeezing any molecules of ink left on it to my thumb. Digital fingerprinting is better. Much better if the screen is not dirty and the attendant there does not clean your fingers 10 times, forgetting in her earnestness that its the screen that is dirty. I also got a token here, a pink slip with a number, which was to be my identity till the time that this number is called out on the speaker. After getting the token, all I did and all that everyone does is sit quietly, listen carefully and just pray that you don't have to visit the loo anytime soon. Because the number is announced only once.
Nervous and not so nervous faces were scattered in the waiting room. Providence (or rather an anonymous VISA officer), being especially gracious, my token number was called, along with 10 others, before 10 minutes of waiting were over.
10 people make for a long queue, but at the grocer's or the railway counter. It's faster at the US consulate. You get your yes or no in 30 seconds flat. I was fifth in the queue when the BB called me inside.
BB : Hi!
Me: (forgot the good morning M'am I had parotted, and with that, in a chain reaction, forgot a whole lot of other things) Uh.. oh... Hi!
BB: (Smiling) Can you pass your token please ?
Me: (Passed the token, still in a daze, forgot to smile oh.. sure.. as I had practiced)
At this point in time, BB gets my documents out of the envelope that has been given to her. Then gets my form out and stared wide-eyed. Raises her eyebrows. I see her looking at the photograph. As I eliminate the chances of any hair-raising and frightening details on my face, I consider the possible of malicious intentions disfiguring my countenance. I prepare an elaborate answer on how the al-quaida may have had a role any size mismatches of my photograph.
BB: (The raised eyebrows and the wide eyes are followed by a wide wider widest smile) 1570!! You got a wonderful GRE score! Congratulations!
Me: (Feeling quite gratified but at a loss of understanding. I mean, these people are supposed to be some of the rudest on the planet, right.) Thanks!!
BB: So, what degree are you going to go for at Rutgers ?
Me: MS in Electrical and Computer Engg
BB: MS.. (Some guy comes behind her and starts talking with her. I wait for a few seconds). So, who is going to pay for your education.
Me: My parents. (Suddenly remember the lines I had rattofied) My mother and my father.
BB: So, what do they do?
Me: Tell
BB: What is your income ?
Me: Tell
BB: What are you savings ? You must have savings right ?
Me: (No I don't but I especially created them for thsi day!) Tell... If you want, I can show you the documents..
BB: (Starts writing something and waves her hands, as if she does not have time to deal with such petty trivialities)
Me: (feeling relieved at not having to explain something I did not myself understand)
BB: (Starts typing something) Why did you choose Rutgers ?
Me: Its got a wonderful wireless program. I want to specialize in wireless communication....
BB: (Body language interrupts me) Take your I20 please... (Then holds her voice like Amitabh in KBC. The pause continues for some time after which, the eyes behind the spectacles start smiling) Ok! Your Visa has been approved and you will be getting your passport in 2-3 weeks.
Me: (Finally return this smile) Thanks!
I visit the loo after this and experience the fact that US consulate toilets are not very different from other ones.
(Completing this post from IIML. Call it an irony. Call it poetic justice. Btw, only I can understand the latter. So you better refrain from guessing. )
Bluedart delivered my passport today, with a US Visa (F1) for five years. And this Visa followed quite a laborious and to-a-no-end journey of digging through convoluted personal finances, capricious university websites and breezing through 45 seconds of pointless chatting (OK! Not the pointless, but it did not have much of a point to it either). Preparation for visa interview usually entails engaging the (quite needless) services of a Visa counsellor, creating pretty creative balance-sheets, learning by rote a sum total of fifty questions and pursuing with equal vigour, the relation between the number of visa rejections and the hair colour of the visa officer.
The first step, that of Visa counsellors is a cottage industry by itself. The small scale industry that helps people emigrate and ensures that they leave this country for good. (Ironically, increasing prosperity in India, propels an increasing number of students abroad, year on year.) The second step is one with enough intricacy and arcane mystery to defeat any old sherlock holmes story you loved best, the financial documents created by an Indian wishing to emigrate... Oops! Sorry! an Indian wishing to go to the US for higher studies. The third step involves knowing fully well how to pronounce the 'oops!' and 'sorry!' and to never introduce them in the context that I have used in the previous sentence. The fourth step is completely voluntary and more often than not indulged in with a speculative fervour in sync with the land without a Las Vegas: where repressed feelings find a variety of outlets. My favourite, atleast from this day, would be dark brown.
After a few sleepless nights and misplaced attempts at comprehending finance and discovering a new fullform for the acronym BS, I decided to place all my bets on a not-quite-digitally-touched up photograph to scare the interviewer into granting me a visa. Anyways, I reached the vfs office, (my worshipful emulation of this Japanese concept still intact) just in time. Before I could finish the quite steeply charged 150 bucks cup of coffee (which reminds me, coffee with too much sugar tastes as crappy as one without any), we were called to board the bus which was to transport us to the embassy. It was quite an uneventful journey (the only worth mentioning non-event being that I did not have to fight for a window seat with a resourceful five-year old).
At the embassy, I passed through a door where people confused pull with push (quite personifying that eternal dilemma that is every door's destiny). Following this I subjected myself to the indiscreet inspections of a metal detector and was fingerprinted. Digitally. Digital fingerprinting reminded me of the travails I had to undergo at the Indian passport office, first for finding an inkpad and then sqeezing any molecules of ink left on it to my thumb. Digital fingerprinting is better. Much better if the screen is not dirty and the attendant there does not clean your fingers 10 times, forgetting in her earnestness that its the screen that is dirty. I also got a token here, a pink slip with a number, which was to be my identity till the time that this number is called out on the speaker. After getting the token, all I did and all that everyone does is sit quietly, listen carefully and just pray that you don't have to visit the loo anytime soon. Because the number is announced only once.
Nervous and not so nervous faces were scattered in the waiting room. Providence (or rather an anonymous VISA officer), being especially gracious, my token number was called, along with 10 others, before 10 minutes of waiting were over.
10 people make for a long queue, but at the grocer's or the railway counter. It's faster at the US consulate. You get your yes or no in 30 seconds flat. I was fifth in the queue when the BB called me inside.
BB : Hi!
Me: (forgot the good morning M'am I had parotted, and with that, in a chain reaction, forgot a whole lot of other things) Uh.. oh... Hi!
BB: (Smiling) Can you pass your token please ?
Me: (Passed the token, still in a daze, forgot to smile oh.. sure.. as I had practiced)
At this point in time, BB gets my documents out of the envelope that has been given to her. Then gets my form out and stared wide-eyed. Raises her eyebrows. I see her looking at the photograph. As I eliminate the chances of any hair-raising and frightening details on my face, I consider the possible of malicious intentions disfiguring my countenance. I prepare an elaborate answer on how the al-quaida may have had a role any size mismatches of my photograph.
BB: (The raised eyebrows and the wide eyes are followed by a wide wider widest smile) 1570!! You got a wonderful GRE score! Congratulations!
Me: (Feeling quite gratified but at a loss of understanding. I mean, these people are supposed to be some of the rudest on the planet, right.) Thanks!!
BB: So, what degree are you going to go for at Rutgers ?
Me: MS in Electrical and Computer Engg
BB: MS.. (Some guy comes behind her and starts talking with her. I wait for a few seconds). So, who is going to pay for your education.
Me: My parents. (Suddenly remember the lines I had rattofied) My mother and my father.
BB: So, what do they do?
Me: Tell
BB: What is your income ?
Me: Tell
BB: What are you savings ? You must have savings right ?
Me: (No I don't but I especially created them for thsi day!) Tell... If you want, I can show you the documents..
BB: (Starts writing something and waves her hands, as if she does not have time to deal with such petty trivialities)
Me: (feeling relieved at not having to explain something I did not myself understand)
BB: (Starts typing something) Why did you choose Rutgers ?
Me: Its got a wonderful wireless program. I want to specialize in wireless communication....
BB: (Body language interrupts me) Take your I20 please... (Then holds her voice like Amitabh in KBC. The pause continues for some time after which, the eyes behind the spectacles start smiling) Ok! Your Visa has been approved and you will be getting your passport in 2-3 weeks.
Me: (Finally return this smile) Thanks!
I visit the loo after this and experience the fact that US consulate toilets are not very different from other ones.
(Completing this post from IIML. Call it an irony. Call it poetic justice. Btw, only I can understand the latter. So you better refrain from guessing. )
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