Yet another Chennai update
The US visa process turned out more straightforward than I had imagined
In a way it’s good that I had to travel to Chennai twice for my US visa. I remember being insanely tense before my previous trip, that I had to go through what seemed like a bureaucratic procedure (not helped by the fact that I had to travel to Chennai). However, I think that visit (combined with the fact that I generally had a good time in Chennai then, meeting lots of friends and going to IIT) helped ease my tensions and eased this trip.
I was happy taking the Vande Bharat TO Chennai, and so I booked the Vande Bharat to Chennai. I found it hard to sleep in Mail, and had a horrible next day then, and so I booked the Vande Bharat for the way back as well. I had liked my stay at The Park (though it’s what might be described on TripAdvisor as a “tired hotel”), and I booked a stay there again. I knew that smartwatches weren’t permitted in the embassy so I made sure I carried my old “normal” watch. I had collected restaurant recommendations that I hadn’t acted upon (thanks to the people I was meeting) and I executed on one of them today.
Again, things didn’t turn out per plan or precedent. Insane rain yesterday meant I had a hard time getting to the hotel (including a fall). My experience with Uber Premier was wholly different from the last time - one driver didn’t budge until he had found out what the destination was and how much the charge was. And then he dropped me off at the station and didn’t turn off the trip, presenting me with a much larger bill. I had to raise a complaint on the Uber app to get the fare fixed.
The Visa Process
I had an 8 am appointment for my visa. My hotel was walking distance from the Consultate, and I decided to get there at 7:45 (massively underestimating the lines) and left my room at 7:20. It turned out I hadn’t charted out the walking route properly (crossing Mount Road at Gemini Flyover isn’t for the fainthearted). Through some meandering roads, and relying upon my general sense of direction (remember no smart devices, and so no maps!), I got there.
The US consulate in Chennai has effectively taken over the entire footpath in front of it, converting it into a waiting area. The footpath is actually cordoned off, and there is some shelter for part of the area where the line will be. As it turned out, that wasn’t the entirety of the line. I was sent further up Mount Road (beyond the entrance of Oxford University Press) to join another line (it was ~7:20 then).
I got lucky there - there were two parallel lines on the footpath, and the one I joined ended up moving much quicker than the other. Someone from VFS checked my appointment date and time and waved me on to the part of the line in the pavement, but under the canopy.
That line moved quickly as well, and after a security check (where the security person got a bit annoyed that I took time to empty the tray after the check), I was inside the consulate.
For the longest time I was the only guy in the line (and it was fairly long on all sides, so I might have seen more than 50 people) to be in a collarless T-shirt! The vast majority of people there were in formal full sleeve shirts (largely white) and formal trousers. Women were also formally dressed. From the conversation around me, a lot of them were students headed to the US for higher studies. There was a lot of elderly people there (likely wanting to visit their children in the US), but they were dressed “normally”.
I probably had to go through three different lines (mild Tirupati feels happened!) before I got into the final line in front of a visa officer’s window. The first thing I heard was the officer at the adjacent window telling someone “that doesn’t sound right". Presently I saw the person at that window walking off with his passport - his visa had been denied.
The two people in front of me in this mini line were both students headed to the US, and were answering questions on who will fund their studies, etc. They were addressing the visa officer at our booth (a white lady) as “ma’am”. Somewhere in the middle I got a bit tensed as I fumbled through my document folder, but was largely calm.
Q&A
I had started my preparation by asking ChatGPT what documents I should take. And so I had, in my folder, my company’s incorporation documents, my last two years’ income tax returns, an invitation letter for a meeting in July from someone I spoke to last week, a credit card statement (to show my credit limit) and even a mock itinerary (ChatGPT had insisted it’s good to keep that, and I’d asked it to generate one for me, which I mildly modified and took). I had a few other things as well which I don’t particularly remember now.
Apart from my old passports (which I showed since the visa officer wanted to see where all I had been) I wasn’t required to show any of the other documents I had taken. However, I realised that presence of the documents in my folder meant that I could answer the questions in a particular manner, knowing fully well that I had “proof”.
For example, she asked me my salary. I said “last year I made ____” (the tax returns meant I had proof for it, and I didn’t have to explicitly say that I currently don’t draw a salary). She asked about immediate travel plans. And I spoke of a potential trip for a collaboration discussion in July (which is what my invitation letter says).
Soon I was walking out without my passport - meaning my visa had been approved. This time I asked some cops standing outside on how to cross Mount Road, and they pointed me to a nearby subway.
Last night’s rain meant that it was impossibly humid in the morning in Chennai. On the 10 minute walk (around 8:45 am) back to my hotel I sweated so much it was not funny. I instantly regretted wearing jeans (my original plan was to change back into shorts after the visa interview, but those were dirty now thanks to last evening’s fall). And I’m glad I wore shoes - this is not intuitive for Chennai but rain really messes up the city.
I chilled in my room for the rest of the morning, drinking another dose of coffee brewed on my Aeropress Go. Lunch was at Courtallam Border Rahmath Kadai, a recommendation from Udupa. In general, I think South Indian Muslim food is highly underrated (apart from Hyderabadi biryani, maybe).
UPI
I don’t know if it has anything to do with Tamil Nadu being an anti-BJP state, but I found the acceptance of UPI to be rather low there. Yesterday’s auto driver had insisted I pay him in cash (which worked in my favour, since I had exact change for the agreed ₹300, but no more for the extra money he started demanding while dropping me).
Today at the railway station, I wanted a snack before boarding my train. I spotted an Adyar Ananda Bhavan and asked for a Pongal. When I instinctively took out my phone to pay for it, the cashier said he couldn’t accept it and asked me to order using a nearby kiosk.
I presently got confused and got into decision fatigue looking at A2B, KFC and Star Briyani (sic) all together, not knowing what to eat. I walked closer to Platform 2A, from which my train was due to leave, and spotted a smaller A2B there.
The vada looked better there, so I got that as well with Pongal. They had run out of chutney! I mean - who can operate a South Indian restaurant without chutney, but the Tamils think it’s okay to do so (and that tomato chutney is a valid substitute for real chutney)!! And having handed over cash, in my limited Tamil I couldn’t communicate I wanted to cancel my order!!
The pongal was good. The vada less so (I threw most of it - it was soggy). The pongal was good enough to eat without chutney.
I’m writing this from my train. Vande Bharat doesn’t have on-board WiFi (I don’t know why I assumed it does), so I’m tethering to my phone.
You may think I’m creepy but twenty minutes into the journey I guessed that the lady next to me on the train is my friend’s brother’s mother-in-law. This guess was basis recognising my friend’s brother’s wife across the aisle. Not wanting to creep them out, I pinged said friend’s brother to check if his family was on this train, and the answer was yes.
With full benefit of hindsight, I needn’t have bothered with the pongal. They gave both a snack (a samosa and a bunch of packed snacks) and dinner. I was pleasantly surprised that dinner came at 7:20, far closer to my dinner time than what I ate last night.
PS: Thanks to superior leg space in trains, I realise I prefer window seats here (compared to flights where I prefer aisle). Then again, it’s too dark now to see anything outside.
PPS: The Hu has a “live at Glastonbury” album out. Listening to that now, and it’s excellent.