The D Day

Yes the day I have been dreading has arrived; finally. I am getting ready. I am just unable to decide to wear Indian or to wear something Western. What if I wear an Indian dress and they think that she is too Indian and might not be able to adjust to ‘their way of living’; What if I wear a western outfit and they think that she is already quite westernized and might not want to return to her country once she lands there...Some more what ifs…now I am going to stop thinking and just wear something I like. And voila, my dress for the damn interview is ready – a black formal skirt and a stripe shirt.
I am on my way to the consulate. I have stacks of print outs and a big fat book that I plan to read on my way. I read and then I read some more. And whilst I read I am thinking to myself that I am quite sure that the more I read the lesser questions they shall ask me. So I read some more! I arrive and the clumsy girl I am I stand in the incorrect queue for the first 10 minutes. Then someone comes and tells me the correct queue to stand in. There are 2 young girls standing ahead of me. After about 5 minutes of just waiting and not having anything to do, we three girls get chatty. As it turns out all three of us are students and we go on yapping about this and that and then about that and this!
The time seems to pass by quite well and the long queue doesn’t seem so long anymore. (So I guess it turns out that all is well that ends well because if I wouldn’t have stood in the wrong queue earlier I would not have been standing with these girls now and instead would have been getting super bored!)
After a while we move into the consulate and get certain procedures done with. And we wait for our respective turns. The wait seems quite a torture. It seems the walls are moving closer into the centre of the room and are going to squeeze us soon. We three are sitting together; silence engulfs us. I can hardly hear anything. I get the feeling that I am sitting in some kind of vacuum. We are waiting. We can see interview cabin door number 8. The interview of each visa applicant who enters this cabin lasts about 12 to 17 minutes (now this is considered a long interview!) Everyone who is going into this cabin is coming out with a ‘visa rejected’ expression and her/his passport in hand. This applies for everyone who goes into this door. We three do not want to say anything, but we are all hoping and wishing that our token number doesn’t come for this cabin. After about 25 minutes the third girl’s token number is called and her interview cabin is number 8. We three look each at other – both of us wish her luck and she goes in. I have never skipped as many heart beats in my life as I might have in those several minutes. We could see her partially; and every time the interviewer spoke and she showed her documents we almost thought the unthinkable. It’s been long and the interview is still going on. We are getting restless; the second girl is even sweating a little! We are worried because it so seems that they never really need any real reason to reject a visa application – they could just do it...- they have the power! The next minute she comes out and she smiles a big smile and shows us a thumb up…! And we are relieved – o boy! At least the jinx is broken! After a while the second girl’s token number is called out and what else but it is the cabin number 8…it is a long interview but I am confident she will come back with a ‘visa granted’ smile. And guess what - she does come out with that big smile. Now I am all alone. All I got to do now is wait and wait some more. It’s been about 40 minutes that I have been waiting and my token number has not been called out yet. I start to get a feeling that I was day dreaming and that I might have missed my number. I am almost pondering if I should go to the official desk and ask…And I hear my token number being called out and to the cabin door 3. I enter. She is a pretty looking young lady. She asks me why I want to go there. I speak for about 15 seconds. She is busy looking at the screen in front of her. She asks me which state I am going to. I answer. She smiles. She says you are going to have fun. Then she says, ‘your visa has been granted.’ That’s all. It’s over. My visa interview lasted for a minute. It was a breeze.
I walk out of the cabin and the feeling is nice. I seem to not notice anything. I do not see any tensed faces, any what-will-happen expressions, nothing at all…the room seems pretty empty to me…I walk out of the consulate; happy.