10 years business visa!!!!!!!!!

Now I have full authority to romp in the states. B1/B2 category 10 years multiple entry visa. What else could anyone ask for. Full recovery of the 100$ application fees. But god damn was there a major mismanagement case at the embassy at the time of my interview.

Interview time is 12 noon. I reach by 11:15. And there is a huge line waiting ahead of me. People having an interview time of 12:15 and 12:30 were ahead of me. Time's running out and the lin's not even moving. I asked around and some of the officials told me that it doent't make a difference if the interview time gets exceeded. So eventually at around 1:30 I reach the counter for verification of the form. After getting all the forms verified by the surdi sir inside, I went in the complex. I wasn't carrying anything that would be objectionable. No cellphone, no pen drive and no iPod. So while most of the people were busy emptying their pockets, I happily wandered in for my interview.

Inside, the first thing that had to be done was anohter verification, this time with finger prints. My guess is the prints were for their internal records database. I was given a number and was told to wait for my turn. Damn. There were a hell of a lot of people in front of me. So happily I was sitting and trying to catch on with some sleep, not that I didn't any, but just that all that waiting got me lazed out a bit. So eventually I hear my number being called out. I thought FINALLY!!!!

But nooooooo!!!!! I had to wait, this time in a line, again. And there were atleast 40 odd people in front of me. Yippeee!!!! What fun. Well waiting, and waiting, an waiting. I find myself in the front of my line. This time around I wasn't much excited. I was much too busy getting all my papers together out of my folder. "Next candidate please" was the call from the lady behind the wndow wearing specs and a cream coloured shirt, my guess is, in her early 30s. I approach her, not for flirting, but for the interview, and she asks me general stuff. I tell her that I am going for a conference where I'll be presenting a technical paper. I also mentioned that I was doing it on an undergraduate level, to which she replied that its pretty rare for UGs to go for presentations. I was trying to give her my papers but she never asked for even a single document. I finally managed to slip in my invitation letter to her, which she returned in less than 15 seconds. Now either she had already made uyp her mind that she wasn't gonna issue me a visa, or she had already done that, so she didn't even bother to ask for any papers. I was desperately hoping for the latter option. Then, all of a sudden, I hear a 'Thank you, next candidate please". Thats it. That is it. It was all over.

I came out, all of a sudden felling extremely famished. I had earlier enquired inside that I could either pick up my passport in person the next day afternoon, or I can wait for it to be couriered to me. I told my peon to collect it the other day, whi the hell would wait for a whole week.

I was sitting in the office in the evening the very next day. The courier guy came and suddenly asked for me. I recognised the envelope that he was carrying, which was similar to the one that my friend Sudy had also carried when he gave his interview in the Mumbai office. I knew that it was my passport. I tore it apart, got my passport, and started flippiong through the pages. And there it was, the beatufiful visa with my photo on one side and my name on the other side. Buut my eyes went directly to the last line in the visa - Date of issue 11Jan2007 , Date of expiry 09Jan2017. Aaaaaahhhh!!!! What a relief. In fact what a nice investment for the 5000 rupees visa fees. It can't get any better than this......

The trip down south – To Cochin, not Australia

Well the day had finally come. I was going to meet my cousins after 15 years. That’s a god damn long time I know. So I had a flight on 20th December for Cochin at 10 in the morning. We reached Cochin at around 12, I think, don’t remember exactly. Everyone was astonished to see “such a small airport”, that too international. But it was still big enough for me. Hey, you look at the Pune airport and then tell me what you think. We met Ayush at the airport. I had last seen him when he was I think 3 years old. And damn he looked thin as compared to the pictures I had seen earlier. Of course he had to, he had to clear the NDA medical test. Later got to know that he lost 16 kgs. in a MONTH!!!!! Damn!!!! Amazing.

So en route to the house, we picked up Dolly chachi from the office. She looked the same; didn’t change a bit in the last 15 years. At home, I knew Aneesha (my cousin sister) and aunty (Dolly chachi’s mom). But I didn’t know how Ramesh uncle (Dolly chachi’s husband) would react. I had no clue what would be the scene at the house.

When we reached home, everything turned out to be just fine. It was just like a family reunion, which literally was if you come to think of it. Everyone settled down and had a nice chat. We were yapping happily till around 3-4. Aneesha had to go for her tution, and the ladies (Dolly chachi and my maa) decided to go off to the beach. The rest of us were just loitering around in front of the TV. Later on, I also wen to the beach with Ayush. Ayush went back and the 3 of us (Dolly chachi, Maa and moi) were roaming about. Well the beach wasn’t exactly the Juhu beach or the Marina beach or even the Kovalam beach that one would expect. It seemed that the tsunami had wiped out most of the beach and the water had covered most of the coast. Then later we headed to Kashi Art Café. It was the in place to be in at Fort Kochi. You can say that it was the Cochin counterpart of German Bakery here in Pune. Nice cozy place where you can just lay back and relax the whole day. And cheap too; well for a person who digs the coffee at Barista, it sure was cheap. Later in the night, we ended up in the Cochin Club. It’s a nice comfortable place in front of the beach. All exclusive and peaceful. Really invigorating.

The next day we set off to a place. I forgot the name of the place. We were supposed to be boating over there. It was a houseboat where we had coffee and lunch. Really nice. Damn expensive!!!! It appeared hiring a houseboat with 2 AC rooms over there cost 25000 bucks a night. DAMN!!!!!!!!! It wasn’t exactly staying at the New York’s Ritz. But we didn’t pay, at least I didn’t. Later we headed off to Munnar. Munnar is a hill station around 6 hours from Cochin, mainly famous for the tea estates. We already had the cottage there where we were to stay for a couple of days. The good thing was that it was a independent cottage and not a resort cottage. So complete privacy and seclusion. By the time we reached Munnar, the sun had set. And the cottage was on the outskirts, off the highway. We knew which resort was nearby and we eventually reached there. From the resort we called up the caretaker of the cottage and confirmed the directions for the cottage and decided to move off. BIG MISTAKE!!!!! Bad roads, no lights, deep cliffs, and wow, night time too. How interesting. The freaking car almost dropped off!!!! Finally we reached the cottage, thanking our stars we were still alive.

The next couple of days, we were just going around the place. Usual time pass and shit. The usual sights that you from a hill station. But there was a first. 12000 acres of tea estates, called the Kanan Devan Hills Plantation. Tea estates as far as the eye could see. I was just wondering that if thus place has so much tea, and not many people know about this place; then what be the scene in Darjeeling, and Assam. WOW!!!!!! That was some spectacular sight. A couple of days there was all a person would want to refresh himself from his tired schedule.

Next stop, back home in Cochin. It was Christmas eve. We had a simple evening at the house. Nothing much jing-bang. Next day we had been invited to the Lobo’s residence for Christmas lunch. Dolly chachi and the Lobos are really good friends. They had a huge house on the waterfront. It wasn’t a house, it was a palace. Lovely place that was.

The next few days in Cochin just passed by lazily, as everyone would expect. Of course, there was nothing much to see there and you were on a holiday. What else would one expect to do. On 28th, my parents left for Delhi and Ayush left for Pune to report for NDA. An even better opportunity for me to get bored. But it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. Thankfully I had just bought Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth 2. So completed the whole campaign, and a couple of rounds of “war of the ring” (I’ll write the preview later on). Other than that I found a better past time for myself – teaching Aneesha science and maths for her 10th CBSE boards. How wonderful!!!! So now the routine was so set that she would solve a maths sample paper in the morning while I was sleeping, then we would clear off her doubts in the paper and then start off with science. Then one fine day, probably it was the worse day for Aneesha, I saw her solving one of the sums. And I decided to check her complete paper. Atrocious. Such stupid mistakes. I believe that instead of telling a person directly where they have gone wrong, let them find out what they have done wrong and how to go about solving it. And it was 3 days of mathematical nightmares for both of us. GOD!!!!! Madness. The two of us were solving one of her papers till 7 on New Year’s Eve. I had lectured the poor girl so much that she almost forgot what day it was.

New Year’s Eve was celebrated at Taj Malabar. They had a Moulin Rouge show over there. But what was more attracting was the 42 non-veg. dishes and 42- veg. dishes of different cuisines. And of course, the unlimited hard drinks. What else could you want. Approaching midnight, everyone was now on the dance floor. There was this amazingly hot chic there, but alas, married. Who gives a damn!!!!! HOT and seductive. WOW!!!!!!! I assumed probably of Latino origin. The whole night I was staring at her, and her perfect ass. NOW I knew I was in heaven. Midnight struck. Happy new year!!!! We popped a bottle of champagne, and continued to mingle around till 3, when everything finally got over. So a nice start to the new year. Lets see how it goes.

The next day was again, dull and boring. I had my flight back to Bombay on 2nd at 7 in the morning. Worse flight of my life. Indian airlines, couldn’t expect anything better. Reached Bombay and caught a bus for Pune. Reached Pune at around 4, completely pooped. And there, back to square one.

Now just waiting to go to Delhi for my project with Carin Energy.

Post-exam boredom

My 7th semester exams got over on the 16th of December. I was already laughing on the faces of the guys in the other streams who had exams till as long as 27th-28th. To top it all of I wasn’t going home, where any sane person would go after slogging it out for the exams. Instead I was getting ready to leave for Cochin on the 20th. I had no idea how I was going to spend those 2-3 days in between, coz everyone, had already left by 17th morning, or too busy to go out as they were packing. So those days were worse than the exam time when we used to study for 14-16 hours a day. At least during the exams, we had something to keep ourselves occupied. These days were so boring. For the first couple of days, it was ok to go out for a while with whatever friends were there. It had already been really long since I had been anywhere out coz of the exams. I think it had been around one and a half months since my last outing, that too was probably from the airport to my house. So you can expect how sad and monotonous my life had been during the exams. I desperately wanted an outing, no matter where and no matter with who, but I HAD TO GO OUT. 17th I was accompanying Rohit (my roommate) and dropped him off at Dabba’s place at night. Called up Sangram, had some chai and caught with some time pass talking for around 45 minutes or so. By around 10, Rohit and Dabba left. Me and Bangi (Sangram) decided to go for a beer at Apache. I called Sudi over there and had a couple of drinks together. Bangi left at around 10:30. Me and Sudi were there for another half an hour 45 minutes. Generally talking about stuff. We dispersed at around 11:30. Reached home and again, started getting bored. Couldn’t get awink coz it was early enough for that. Of course its going to be early, if I say we used to sleep at 6-7 in the morning during the exams. Somehow went off to sleep at around 1.

Well the next day won’t be so boring, I knew that. Had to buy some stuff from M.G. Road and Koregaon Park. Sudi and I were already going there. So called up Anish and we were off to Kayani’s after lunch to buy some cookies. Got hold of Swapnil from Ruby Hall and all of us were at M.G. Road within 15 minutes. Next stop, KP. And where better than German Bakery. Sudi called up Bhot (Karl) and we were there, just doing pure time pass for an hour. What else should we do? Got some Osho chappals, which was the reason we had gone there. Now I was hungry. It was 3’o clock and I hadn’t had anything to eat since morning. So. Burger King zindabaad. Went to M.G. Road Burger King. Called up Mujeer also. There was a mass hysteria over there coz everyone wanted different drinks and they only had aerated drinks. And to top it all off they had only a couple of flavours in that. Madness. Then home bound. Well what would I do when I reached home. It was only 4:30 by the time everyone dispersed. So decided to go to Babba’s (Omkar’s) place. To do what? God knows what. Something was better than nothing. Watching the idiot box whole evening. Now I had some work when I reached home. Had to start packing. I was leaving for Bombay by the 8:30 bus the next day. So good riddance of Pune, at least for now.