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!
