Thursday, March 5, 2009

Visa..

Hi here i m writing my second blog. So this ones abt my visa appointment. Man wat a period it was.
"Keep looking for the visa dates...""Wat are u doing ..did u check the dates today","Hope we get a date before I fly""I so very want you to come me" Who said so... who else but Shaunak. Desparately trying to get visa dates since the first week of December. But no luck.....
So heres the story... For some reason the visa site was just not showing up the interview dates.. Every day every hour we had been looking at the site...PLEASE CHECK AFTER 24 HOURS .. God knows what those guys meant by 24 hours. We were ready with all the documents. We even got the marriage registered on the next day of marriage... Ahhhh we left our two day honeymoon half way just to go all the way from The Leela to The Marriage Registrars office.. Shaunak even got the family housing in Goleta just a day before he left for India. Everything's in place except the date. We even tried contacting a person inside the Consulate to ask him if the system was down. He says everything's fine no technical faults. even he wondered why the site didnt show the dates. Then someone tells us that they have a quota or something for every type of visa. May be it was over. :((( But then it will open sometime right... but when ..? We didn't know. All we had to do was wait. My ticket was already booked for the 16th of jan late night.. Its 5th of Jan n we still had no visa date. We decided to go through an agent. He says "soryy madam dates nahi dakhavat ahe" . In India there are agents to do evry single work of urs. U say it n they do it. woww. i think later in life i m goona open an agency which tells people which agent to contact for which work. Charge commission from both sides. One for the advice n the other from the agency for suggesting them....
I still remember it was the 7th of Jan a Wednesday.. Mom in law comes n tells us that there is some agent in Poona who can get you the dates you want.. HUH? OK lets contact him. We did that. He said that the earliest date was 16th... Day when i flying.. isn't that too much of a risk that if the visa is regected... I cant cancel my ticket after 24 hours before i fly.. Oh ya and that chap said if you want those days we had to give him 4500 extra.... n he also guarantees the visa 100 % . woww wat contacts that man should be having... But then somehow shaunak wasn't ready to go thru him. Wat if he is a Con. You cannt take risk with all this.., So tehn we decide taht we will postpone my ticket n wait till i find a visa date officially...
Ahhh ..... i cud now wait for Avaneesh first bday... I cud spend some time with friends, I cud go n stay with mom dad... How i am goon amiss them once i get to USA. ...So we had made up or minds... I was NOt flying with Shaunak. We called up the travel agent asking her to postpone the ticket. ...
8th jan 7.45 pm,. Tring tring.. whos it .. The travel agent. The dates are available... huh..? ya she said that she cud see the dates on the site... how come. Put Marathi as the language of interview... WAT...... yes we did that n we cud see 15th jan date available....Didnt it strike the bigshot agent... Oh that simple. We hurriedly logged on to teh site refilled all the forms n WE HAD A DATE... the nxt day we went to the Consulate submitted al teh documents n now iw as waiting for the interview. I was a bit sad.. ahh i was goona miss Avaneesh first bday , i was goona miss spending time with parents with friends.... but then I had to go some day n tht day as 16th as planned.....
Less than a week n i was not prepared . I made quick lists of things i wanted . Do u get this there do u get that..Oh man i was behaving as if i was going to the remotest place on earth. A week full of shopping meeting people. an overnight stay with parents... UFFF i was tired
Then came the day of the interview. It was goona be in Marathi.. hahaha i was feeling so proud... ekdum marathi manus jaga zala types. But the interview was very much in English. It seems even if you atke a date in Any language you have to tell them if u need an interpreter. Ofcourse i didnt need one . all we wanted was a visa date which we got. The interview went good. very good. the officer didn't see a single document. Instead was very much interested in knowing my love story... Whn did u meet him when did he pro[pose were parents invloved.. and all such sorts of questions ....and then she says U GOT THE VISA>
Finally. .. Now the nxt question will i get the stamped passport the same evening. Coz if not that evening they said it will be couriered to the address two days later... OH GOD... help me... we just kep praying.... We went to the Consulate in the evening. A long queue.... Finally at 5 pm tehy let us in.. My no was yet to be aclled out.. There were soo many who didnt get teh passport.. Wat if I dnt...... No i cannot even postpone my ticket...All sorts of worries were running thrugh my mind. My nos called out... I kept my fingers cross. n guess wat HURRAAAAYYY i got teh passport. The guy thr said that i wa really luck to get it today...
Now everything was in place, I was flying the nxt day.. N I was happy.... very vey happy. teh sadness just disappered . I was excited to see teh US OF A. n the most exciting part was goona be my first evr air journey.......
Moral of the story... opposite of murphys law... Anythings that has to go right will go right.
and If u dnt get a visa date in English try other languauges.......

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