Visa Experience Part 1

“Just look into the eyes of the person, be confident and don’t be nervous!”

Such words and others (Many, many others) were the cause of tension for me the last week as I attempted to get my Visa for the doctoral studies I would soon pursue at Rice University. Of course I was as cool as cucumber till news came of Sameer Rao getting his name on the Visa wait-list and not the instant approval: Despite the external differences, both him and I are smooth talkers- Our mouths are probably our greatest strengths and in this case our greatest weakness.. Talking incessantly was not good here- not good at all…

Forgive me for making this sound like something out of a suspense novel! I can’t help write such for my mind thinks in a way that makes even the most routine of jobs seem equivalent to building a skyscraper all the way to the moon... But before I get ahead of myself I need to go back in time: Back to Thursday, 18-06-2009 and the time was 5:25 am. I was talking to my senior at Rice, Sravani, who told me all it took was the I-20 form which said I was funding myself through a fellowship and the Visa would be mine. Well Sam had a superb GATech admit with a full fellowship too, and as far as sensitive topics go- Nothing is more sensitive than a Chemical Engineer attempting to study Nanobiotechnology (Read Michael Crichton’s Prey for more).

I took advice from many corners, some human, others from the internet. But there I was at 9:30 pm on Saturday, 20-06-2009 sitting in my train seat waiting for the train to depart from Mangalore Central railway station on its way to Chennai Central. Within 5 minutes though, everything changed…

No- Robbers did not attempt a burglary, there was no terrorist attack and neither was a couple fighting through its marriage with the bride attempting to jump off the moving train (The one who this happened to, knows it and I need not mention the name here!) but something far more uncomfortable for me, atleast for now. I had seat 30 in the AC 3 Tier coach and the 5 closest seats to mine got occupied by a group of college girls who I soon learnt were on their way to Salem for a trip. Now those who know me will have giggles by now and as I attempted to make light humour of this situation by informing some friends, the responses ranged from “Oh ya great dud… very lucky… Introduce ur self to them and give ma number ok…… ;-)” and “Oh wow.. J why don’t such things happen to me man… L” to “How fortunate you must b! Take advantage of the situation, my dear friend 4 such golden opportunities rarely knock twice. ;-) lol. Enjoy.” The only “enjoyment” I had for an hour or so in the beginning was listening to some splendid, and utterly nonsensical, express Malayalam with the words “Kankanadi” and “Parotha-Meen” coming in nearly every sentence for some reason..

People fail to realise I have already had my share of good luck for the entire summer and it was bound to run out. So it indeed did: I wake up in the morning to find them replaced by a family with not 1 but 2 wailing kids! Ok so maybe I woke up a lil late given that I slept a lil late (Ahem!) but nothing was to stop the infants that day… I was willing to tolerate it if it weren’t for the adults accompanying them who seemed to have a penchant for making conversation with the babies…

I ask you- Why is it that a perfectly functioning human adult lowers his/her IQ by a 100 points when in front of a cute (And awake) baby? The multiple sounds of “Gilli, gilli” and “Baa baa” resonated throughout the compartment for the better part of the morning and retiring to my top berth was no help as they put on the fan at high speed (I was right underneath the AC shaft). Lunch soon arrived and the Chicken Biriyani tasted a bit funny- little was I to know that it was not going to be funny for long…

The time was 2:50 pm on Sunday, 21-06-2009 and the ingeniously placed announcement board in the compartment announced Chennai central was a minute away. I gathered my luggage and got down, following the crowd into Chennai- A place I haven’t been to in over 7 years and all the times it has been mentioned, it has been with a shudder: People do NOT want to go there, and I was about to find out exactly why…