How I got my U.S. Visa

In an earlier blog post, I had written about how I got my passport. Here's another one on how I got my U.S. Visa. It's been a while since this incident occurred but this post has been a long pending one...

Sometimes circumstances leave you confused whether you are lucky or unlucky. Let me narrate a small incident during my U.S visa interview process. I had a small cut in my finger just a day before the visa interview. I had put a band aid to prevent it from further damage.

I live in Bengaluru and so had to travel to Chennai to attend the interview. I reached safely, stayed at The Park, Anna Salai, and went out for the interview at least an hour before my scheduled time which was at 10:30 am. The queue was much longer than expected. About 100-odd people were queuing up at the consulate’s designated “Q” area that extended up to the Anna Salai main road. 

My turn ultimately came and I walked in with confidence, filled up the necessary forms and was sent for the biometrics. Just when I took out my pointed finger to give the biometrics, a lady officer behind the machine, stopped me at once. “You can’t do this, you have an open wound.” I got terrified, thinking what I will do next. I explained to her that it’s just a small wound that has already healed and that I have no problem in removing the band aid and going ahead with the biometrics. She repeated, “You may not have a problem, but others have…I can’t allow an open wound to touch the machine.”

I was sent to the someone in higher authority who probably had discretionary powers in dubious situations like these. Again, it was a lady officer. She asked me “What’s the problem?” I narrated the incident in simple words that I have been denied access to biometrics because of a small cut in my pointed finger, the fact being the wound has already healed.

The officer looked at my Visa category. It was an “I” category visa meant for foreign journalists travelling to U.S on assignment. I was travelling to the U.S. to cover the Oracle OpenWorld event in San Francisco, on behalf of InformationWeek India magazine. To my surprise, she said, “No problem!” She got into further conversations with me and revealed in an excited tone that she had been a journalist too in the past and she loved her profession. She got the biometrics done with all the other nine fingers, barring the pointed finger and directed me the next step. 

The final step is when a senior officer takes your interview face-to-face and tells you on spot whether your visa application has been accepted or rejected. After a couple of basic questions, she told me, in direct words, “Your visa application has been accepted!” Wow!  

For a few minutes at the Consulate, I cursed my luck thinking “why me?” Why did I have to get that small cut on my finger? But afterwards, I realized I was actually very lucky. A house wife, standing in queue just before me was denied the visa, right in front of my eyes. She didn’t get a visa though she didn’t have any wound. I got my visa despite having a wound. That’s luck right!