Visa woes

With the impending wedding to the France-settled groom, the only thing remaining was to get the visa... Sure I have an admission letter.. a grant.. all the funds... the insurance and every conceivable thing on earth. So you would think getting the visa would be a piece of cake, right? Wrong. Its a whole week since I actively started the visa formalities and 20 days since I first did. And finally just yesterday I collected my passport with the visa splashed across its pages. My experience with Alliance Francais forced me to rechristen it as Alachal Francais... I have been there up and down a trillion times.. ok 4 times to be precise and spent no less than 6 hours each visit. Mr S there turned out to be real helpful but even then the stupid online form/system left a lot to be desired. It was forever before I could get the No Objection Certificate - something I believed trivial/unnecessary before I realized that the time I was investing at AF was essentially the time I would be saving at the consulate. And so Pa and I finally set off on Tuesday to Pondicherry where the consulate was situated. Having been told by many sources that the lines start forming at wee hours of the morning, we left the night before and got to a hotel in the hopes of finding ourselves at the start of the line early next morning.

5:00 AM - We were at the locked doors of the consulate, the first ones at the helm of the non-existant line only to be informed by the guard that no person in their right mind was going to come before 7:45AM to the consulate doors that opened at 8:00AM.

7:00 AM- The guard was right.. There wasn't an ee-kaka (housefly/crow) around.. It was the perfect situation to feed the rumbling stomach at Adyar Anand Bhavan.. And off we went.. A sumptuous breakfast later... there were still no people.

8:00 AM- There were 4 of us - the same 4 who made multiple trips to AF.. The consulate doors opened. I was first in and first out - all under 1 minute.. And the result? Visa approved. But pick up the passport the next day.

Nonsense. Multiple Pondy trips and a couple of sleepless nights later, I have my passport with the visa stamped.

A week to go. I am unlikely to blog until afterward.