Well, yeah, very glad to blog about my US trip. Another item ticked off in my wish list - actually a set of items. :)
Preparation for the US trip involved so many last minute things. Its a loooong story indeed.
To start off, I had applied for the passport only two months before the final date was definitively confirmed. The passport took its own sweet time (2 whole months) to land - but hell, no complaints - after all, the last visit to the police station cost me just fifty bucks and finished the last set of formalities. I had contacted an agency to complete the application formalities but that agency made me realise that I might as well could have gone around on my own and saved 1000 bucks. Only thing they did was stand in the queue and submit the form. Sigh! :)
The agency was a surprise - I had contacted the Superseva setup in office thinking they do this kind of stuff... Stupid Superseva itself outsources such services. And the agency that they forwarded my application was somewhere in BTM layout - an area that I have never visited. To begin with, agency rejects application saying my passport pic is funny - they cant see my ears. So took another set of phutwa, filled the form again (such that I know the set of questions by heart now.) :D Then agency says I need to appear once in front of them - a part of their process to reconfirm my credentials. Ugh! Duffer wont come to my company. I have to go to his place. Duffer doesnt even talk properly - eats his own words and talks in Kannada which I am bad at... :P And then I follow up after a month of unshakeable faith in the agency that they would do things for me like police verification. I was getting pressure from my manager and I was putting pressure on this agency fellow but no use. Then with my colleague's help, started tracking the application online. Police verification had not happened though it had been almost a month. Contact agency and fellow says "Madam, neeve nimma area police station ge hogi helbeku. Innu badhilla alva? Neeve hogbidi! Illa andhrey, tatkal ke apply maadi!" Bloody fellow! :(
So, one fine day, I pick up guts and shed my laziness - Went to the police station with a friend of mine - Police says bank statements and letter proof isnt enough. Get a government-related service proof like voter id / BSNL phone bill / gas agency receipts / KEB bills only. All in daddy's name except for voter id - I havent voted in these 8 years and my area has some BBMP official's wrath - have never received a voter id, no matter how much I apply and fill and drop forms hither thither. Sigh! Agency had told me my dad's name in these bills/receipts will not help me but police says they will take it. What contradictions and what not things I have to go thro. Coz of me, my family and frnd. And to top it, I dont know driving either. :( So come home and dig for BSNL phone bills / gas agency receipts / KEB bills. Dint bother abt SBI - SBI bank service sucks - 12th main branch at indiranagar. So, though I have an account there, balance is zilch and so am not sure if acct is still alive. :)
Go back the next day to the police station - no use. They need two ph bills - One most recent and one from last year. :( So come back sad-faced. Then dig for more, throw tantrums at home and come again to police station - person not available in the morning. So come again in the evening - Constable says "Naanu ondu white paper / form kooda thogondu barakke heldhe alvamma?" I fume at him and my friend (who assured me that he would speak for me but never did so - only was a great moral support and help overall) tries to calm me. I storm out and my friend says "Looks like tis time to actually bribe them. No other proof required from your side but he is acting fishy." I stare at him coldly for his early realisation (we were aware of this bribe stuff but were waiting for the police fellow to ask directly - such duffers... :) )and take out a 50 rupee note and almost literally shoved it into my friend's hand - it got crumpled. :) Poor thing, goes inside and constable looks up and says "Thanks, sir. Everything is actually over. I was only waiting for....... I would have submitted long back." What audacity! My friend and I had a squabble over this issue though it was no fault of my friend. Both of us were angry at the police but couldnt do much about it. During the squabble, my frnd tells, "50 rupees - is nothing nowadays. Y dint u give 100?" I seethe with frustration and say "Sriram told me he gave the police 50 bucks. So I decided to do the same. And anyways, we have done so much running around and this is almost the end of passport verification and application process. Lets see what happens. If he is not going to forward my passport application, I dont care. I dint want to give him 100 at any cost." :) My blood still boils but then I need to make peace with the fact that I only bribed him with 50 bucks inspite of all that running around he made us undergo. Uff! :) Going to the police station after a day's work - Sigh, poor friend of mine who had to come a long way. I just dint have the guts to go alone to a police station
Again, few more rounds of pressure from manager and peers and me pressurizing the agency fellow ( - no use except that I let out my steam in the end for good) and also was tracking online - Passport reaches home at last but I wasn't at home on that exact eventful day and had WFH only the previous day. :) So I wait for weekend and collect it from post office after patiently waiting for my area's postman to come from his long break. Every min of wait in the post office seemed like an eternity - Imagine almost getting there and having to wait. But happiness at last. :D
Luckily, the travel dates kept getting rescheduled and delayed - worked out in my favor overall in the end. :) At one point, it looked like it would be too close and I would have to go for tatkal. Tatkal is for just one year and otherwise you get passport for 10 years. Nothing wrong in ppl suggesting tatkal since my situation was so last-minute but still I dint want to go for tatkal after such a long wait and effort put in. Stubborn, lazy ol' moi! Agency fellow coolly used to tell me, "Madam, neeve nimma area police station ge hogi helbeku - even for the second round. Innu badhilla alva? Ashtondhu urgent andhrey, neeve hogbeku! Illa andhrey, tatkal ke apply maadi!" Basically, go thro the same shit all over again - right from getting a company letterhead validating my work experience, 6 months bank statements and a letter from bank in M G Road for a charge of 54 bucks or so and bear M G road traffic etc. Bloody fellow! He got an earful from me in the end! :(
All this was happening since May. He he. I wouldn't shake a limb regarding the passport application just coz I dint actually believe I was fated to go US. :P Pessimistic no. 1 but then over-optimistic too! All's well that ends well. :) Then, after this mega-serial drama with a lot of high-strung episodes, I went to the visa interview to Chennai - have already blogged that experience. ;) Filling the visa application was another headache but then went smooth overall. Fatefully, I filled the visa form again just like the passport form - coz I had screwed up some address or something. My company travel coordinator was helpful but looks like I always need a lot of spoon-feeding. :P What not my manager and peers scared me abt the interview but it was so damn cool! :) I know for sure that if any of my frnds have to go to US for the first time or apply for passport, I would be eager to help them out to the core with whatever I can. :D
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