Mumbai nagariaaaa.....

shola hain…
ya hain bijuriyaaa…
dil ki bajariyaa…
mumbai nagariyaaaa ! ! !

well Bombay, aka Mumbai is indeed a city of paradoxes. I’ll relate my experience in Mumbai city, where I had recently gone to get my visa stamped or in the hope of getting my visa stamped…(to put in the exact words).

The fact that I started out this mail with a peppy song itself could give u an idea of the end result – Yes…I got my visa stamped or else I wud’ve started out with a song like “Yeh Mumbai sheher hadson ka sheher hain…yahan zindagi hadson ka safar hain…” and so on. Neways comin back to my story…

It all started out with a mail from the HR gods requesting me to fill a couple of online forms and this process went on for sometime and finally I had disclosed all my info to the HR and it got published somewhere in our Sparsh. This happened like 3-4 months back and then recently I was told to fill a series of other forms and finally go to aamchi Mumbai to get ‘stamped’. As any normal organic tea drinking homosapien wud do, I asked my predecessors what was supposed to happen at the consulate. The responses that I got were very encouraging, if I were a comp-sci grad that is. But being a memner of the Royal Mech family, I was told that I wud have to work my way thru the consular officer’s tricky questions. Hmmm…interesting…so I turned to my fellow mechanical engg(or non comp-sci) grads for their experiences. At this point I find it worthy of mention that this act of knowledge gathering did improve my PR !!! Again the response I got was pretty encouraging.
A majority of them told me that it wud be a cake walk-thanx to the brand Infosys. The questions wud be pretty HR-ical as in where u from n how long in the US and stuff like that.

So there me was in Mumbai city, having that frame of mind. I reached Mumbai the previous nite and me n a buddy of mine went to this nice place that the educated people call a resto-bar … or was it a retro-bar. Neways…we’ll name it as just ‘the bar’. The point is that the ambience was neat. The crowd was young n hep n attractive and the best part was almost all were football fanatics and the Chelsea vs Arsenal match was just about to start on the huge screen in the bar. Could u ask for a better environment to spent a nice evening ? The match starts off and needless to say there were fireworks from both sides both on screen and off screen. We had a nice time there and since I had my appointment only at 12:30, we went on to just roam around the place. The next morning, I was all dressed up for the big date with the consulate. Did a check on all docs and finally reached the consulate.

The scene at the consulate is interesting. This was my first visit to a consulate of any country for that matter…and I was just recollecting the comments made be others during their visits. I cud a long Q filled with aspirants. The aspirations cud be seen on their faces as it was so obvious…the first step to a successful n flourishing life…few of them for visiting visas, some working visa(I fall in this category) and majority for the student visa. The air was filled with too much of hope yaar…

I set foot into the temple, there was no bell or else I wud’ve rung that 3 times. The initial security frisking is done…felt ticklish J and then it was time for fingerprinting and that went off fine too. For the record, I found out that I have beautiful fingerprints J I was given a token number and me was waiting for my turn. Meanwhile, I cud c the rest of the junta goin thru all the procedures. Some were jumping up in joy and some were all tears. There were even a couple who scorned and shouted and had to be taken off the consulate premises. Another interesting observation was that the majority of the population there were of the Patel species. Not that I understand gujju but along with the token numbers, the names were also called in most cases and I can say for sure that almost 95% of the names had a suffix ‘Patel’. It was also interesting to note the fingerprinting lady instructing some people to give the print of a specific finger of a specific hand --- in HINDI. That sure was fun with their angrezi accent J

Finally after around 104 minutes of waiting, my token was called and I went in line…needless to say. Behind 4 patels. I was the fifth n last n the only non-patel in the group J. The person on the other side of the counter was a smart lookin guy and he seemed to have a funny bone as I cud c all before me laughing some time thru the discussion with him. I also found it strange that all 4 before me got their visas rejected…that got my heart pounding a little but hey…I have the Infy brand all over me and I felt as if I was having the brahmastra. So there I was in front of my …err…consular guy.. giving me an evil smile as I entered. We wished each other and exchanged pleasantries . As per the ideal script that I had in mind he wud c the infy tag on my neck, and cheerfully blurt…”oh another infoscion…haven’t seen one of u guys in some time…hehe…there are so many of u guys and I must say u guys are doing a wonderful job for the United States of America. We are proud of your services. Im issuing you a visa Mr. Raj.” And that shud be the end of it. But NO.

That guy asked me for my I-129(that’s the form where u have all ur info in a 4 page doc) and then started to type some crap in his monitor. “So Mr.Raj, u have applied for an H1 B visa huh!” comes the first statement. I go “ Yes Kevin(he wanted me to call him Kevin !!!) that is correct”. Now Kevin starts reading the first page of the form line by line. I cud c his eyeballs move from one end to the other and back like a typewriter…”So what is it that you do at Infosys mr.Raj” comes the next Q. I felt like replying “Kevin. I am a part of a very large family of well educated and highly skilled software engineers who do almost everything within and outside their capacity and capability so that all Americans including you have a wonderful life but at 1/30th of the price” but instead I gave him a professional answer on what Infosys does. “Hmmm…interesting…” comes another quip from Kevin. “So why do you need this visa Mr. Raj?” says Kevin and I wished I cud say “So that I have the pleasure of shoving it up your sad ass…u fat cunt” but I go for a much more polite option of telling him that I am to be the osc for a project with Daimler Chrysler and gave him some functions of an osc. “Wow…Daimler Chrysler huh!! awesome” came a quick reply. And I am like “duh” but with a smile on my face. “What technologies do u specialize in Mr. Raj?” and I was like listing a few of my multiple talents n skills. Just before I grab my breath “So whats so special about this J2EE Mr. Raj that you are working on the same platform for Chrysler too?” and I was like “teri ma ki $#%%@#%@#$%@#” but then again, I gave him a couple of technical advantages of j2ee. Well call it occupational hazards but u get to know some advantages of the technology u work on over a period of almost 2 years J So I was still safe. By this time our Kevin was nearing the end of page 2. As he was about to turn to page 3 comes a set of HR-ical questions and that was fine. Page 3 was more of HR and in page 4, there comes a Q – “Mr Raj, what will be the backend for your application?” damn…I replied DB2. “DB2 huh…IBM DB2..hmmm”. I felt like that was it…a couple of Q’s on DB2 and I would be easily cornered but thank God for small mercies…he knew shit abt that. That was the end of DB2. page 4 was finally over and then he turned to the screen in from of him. “Are u married Mr.Raj?”. “I am not married…still single n ready to mingle” came my quick reply(although I left the …still single n ready to mingle part J ). “Wow...why aren’t you married? As far as I know, 25 is indeed an age for Indians to be happily married. Hmmm…nice…” says Kevin. I wished if he could just stretch his lower lip over his head and swallow himself. Who the hell does this fart breath think he is to decide by what age I should marry…again the humanitarian in me gave him the benefit of being an absolute foreigner to our traditions n customs. I still had the ‘trade mark’ charming smile on my face al this while. “Do you have any family in the US Mr.Raj?” came the next Q. “I have my elder brother in the United States” came my answer. “Is he a citizen or is he on an H1 as well?” and I go “He is not a citizen and he is on an H1 visa”. “How long is he there in the US Mr.Raj?” and I go “He has been in the US since 2002”. “Oh ok. Thank you Mr.Raj”.

At this point of time, he drops some crap down and excuses himself to get that, cracks a joke to his colleague on his way up and then suddenly tells me, “u sure seem to be interested in Automotives Mr.Raj. A mechanical engineer and now building software for automobiles…that’s real nice. So Mr.Raj…have u been to any other country before?” I go “Nope”. “It should be real cold in Michigan at this time of the year and u better be prepared to tackle that cold. It can be real dreadful Mr.Raj”. This gave me a hint that I mite be after all…goin to the US. Finally he concluded informing me that “Mr. Raj, I am issuing you a visa. Have a nice time in the US”.I politely thanked him and bid adieu.



Gotta go for a get together now and so im stopping. All u people have a gr8 time.


Celebrate life !