Going to the Philippines consulate (chennai)

i left for Chennai Thursday, went via the night train, found it quite comfortable actually but for the short shawl which didn’t cover my feet and the kid who cried like "wa", "wa", "wa", I mean what kind of kid cries like that? Generally you hear a continuous noise being emitted from a kid’s mouth, never found it obstructing my sleep though.... slept through that noise and more.

in the morning, i went from the station to my sis's place in mahalingapuram, freshened up there and left for the consulate.

it was nearly 10 when i reached the consulate, had managed to hitch a shared auto from the station to the SPIC house, one piece of advice for all people traveling to Chennai, stick to trains, they are less crowded and you get where you want faster without being robbed in the broad day light!

went inside the ground floor where a single lady was sitting at the desk, guessed that she was the same one i had been speaking to for the past few days from her accent

she was a nice person and a helpful one @ that, quite garrulous though, she was talking words at the rate of 4 words a second, in between talking she asked me if I had all the forms etc. then she talked some more and took out a letter on which she stuck something which looked like a small sun, orange in color. Then she took a ribbon and put it through the hole that she had punched with a puncher...

meanwhile another person had arrived, he was also from AIM-the b-school where I am going to study for my MBA. The confusion had begun.

Then suddenly the lady asked me "do you have a demand draft for 500 rupees? Addressed to the Philippines consulate Delhi"

i asked incredulously "what 500 rupee demand draft" upon asking which she told me to go Bank of India which was located about 1/2 a km from the SPIC house.

i went there hoping it would be over quick, banks take their own freaking sweet time to do things without realizing that for most people time is money, I waited for nearly 25 minutes while the DD got 'processed' first by the cashier, 2nd by the lady sitting near the front entrance, and then signed upon by the old wizened manager, by the time I left that place it was nearly 40 minutes since I had entered in spite of repeatedly reminding people that this was urgent, guess they don't know that word in a government office.

what a horrendous waste of time, maybe they should start making E-DD's on a machine which is @ the bank premises, after all we have e-tickets, e-train tickets etc...

i ran back to the SPIC house to find that another colleague had arrived at the scene. by now I was in tearing hurry to get aboard my train which I thought left @ 1.30, I hadn’t checked the tickets properly, hence my new friends allowed me to get ahead of them. That was nice of them, need to thank them as they were really helpful to me.

Then the lady dropped another bombshell: "have you got the original call letter attested by a notary?", i said "No" and so did my new friend who happened to be a localite from Chennai.

Then she said "you boys are killing me:" while maintaining the smile of congeniality all the time.

now it was my friends turn to look surprised, I said "lets go and finish this off, I have a train to catch" so we set off on his pulsar bike but not before he made a dozen enquiries on his mobile about where this notary would be.

we were driving to adayar to meet this notary, when I saw the saidapet district court looming on the left side of the road, I told him to stop as the lady had also mentioned this same place, it was a fortuitous sighting.

while my friend parked his bike I ran to the court premises feeling the smell of a government office in my veins. I was assailed by a tout the moment I entered that place, but what was more surprising was that a white haired lawyer with a flowing black robe and most of his top hair missing started fighting with the tout saying " I haven’t made anything since this morning, let me have it etc" alarmed that my papers would get torn in the melee I said "both of you fight later, i need this thing notarized urgently"

the tout finally gave up wondering at the ferocity of this old lion, by this time my new friend had also arrived at the scene, he looked at the oldie who immediately took us towards the side of the building, he asked to remove the originals without which he would get the Xerox copies attested. Some NOTE RISATION!!!! after getting the seal we got fleeced of about 50 bucks per page, there were 8 pages in totality.

Once we completed this process we rushed back to the SPIC building, when we reached near the building I realized that the U-turn was nearly 4 K off that place, damn!!!

Came back and rushed to give the lady everything when she pointed out that I needed Xerox copies of the medical report and the weird certificate thingy which she had made, this was really beginning to be a long day and I was certain that the 1.30 train was a remote possibility.

My friend was dispatched to get the copies from the top floor of the SPIC building when he was stopped @ the door of the lift by the security man, the lady got totally fed up and went with my friend while I was left wondering, meanwhile my new acquaintance from Bangalore sudarshan started helping me arrange my documents in the proper order as I was in a rush.

By now the lady had returned and she started reviewing my documents one by one.

In about 5 minutes she had managed to put all my documents in a fair order.

Meanwhile Kumaran- my new friend from Chennai arrived with the Xeroxed copies.

Suddenly she pointed out that we needed 2 copies of the visa form filled up for the documentation to be completed. I groaned inwardly hoping that I would at least be able to make it for the next train, my list of surprises was growing longer. Luckily I had another blank copy of the visa form anticipating just this kind of a problem.

I filled up the 2^nd form just to find that some of the information was missing, in about 10 minute’s time I had managed to complete the 2^nd form as well as filling in the missing information in the first form.

Once I had finished the 2^nd form the lady made me take out my documents in no particular order, these things I handed over to her in the due course of time, in the midst of all this she found time to make another envelope into which she put 3 of our passports and some other documents. Post this I checked my train ticket to get back to Bangalore and found that the train was supposed to be @ 3.30 and not 1.30, what a piece of fortune, my friends gave me nervous looks while this new case unfolded. I gave a smile back, hey mistakes happen!!

Finally my documents were verified and put in a large brown cover along with the X-ray taken @ Bowring hospital, my visa verification was complete.

A couple of tips before one goes to the visa consulate in Chennai

Get in touch with your batch mates and join one of these groups which might have been formed before the start of your course, you might miss several things otherwise, unless of course you are lucky!!

Check with the lady over phone about document requirements before you leave your city for the Chennai consulate.

These chaps finished their documentation process while I stood there as a mute observer, left that place at around 2.00 when the lady started complaining about not being able to finish her lunch etc…. my other friend kumaran went with her to have lunch post which he would need to finish his formalities.

I hadn’t had anything since morning so me and sud walked up to the guindy station and had a cool drink, I bid him goodbye from there but not before getting his number/gmail id etc, had got kumaran’s number as well.

Went to the 1^st counter at the station and found it empty, then went across to the 2^nd counter and saw a million people standing and waiting to buy tickets, god why can’t they make some one day e-pass which can be obtained from the internet? Waited and waited and then saw another queue which seemed smaller, asked someone to hold my place while I jumped to the other queue, only to find that snails crawl faster than this queue.

How is it that the queue you jump to always ends up being the slower one? I wonder? It must be the law of queues, “no matter how hard you try you will waste the next X minutes of your life in this queue”

Got the ticket after an agonizing 20 to 25 minutes of wait, took a train going to tambaram and got down @ park station which is across the city central station.

One thing I noticed in the trip was that the people in Chennai are generally quite helpful in terms of giving info etc. that really helps when you go to a new place.

Reached park station and rushed out with the rest of humanity over the most well made steps that I have seen(must have been made by the brits), had a hot samosa and banana before grunting with all out effort to reach the station.

@ the station I asked someone where the train would come and they pointed out platform number 3, reached there and asked some people where D-7 would arrive, all of them pointed to the other end of the platform, had a mango juice before proceeding.

I was totally exhausted by the day’s events and finally asked a comfortably seated cop where the “compartment was?”

He smiled and replied “go to the middle of the platform and run in whichever direction the compartment comes!!” that was a rare good one coming from anyone let alone a cop.

The train finally arrived and I got into my compartment, reaching seat number 77 i sat comfortably reading Jeffrey archer’s prisoner of birth when my phone rang, my friend at the other end pointed out “there have been 9 serial blasts in Bangalore be careful” , I sighed “another day in the life of an Indian” are our lives so cheap? why cant the fucking government do something like hot pursuit/reverse terrorism instead of issuing statements about intelligence failures?? Impotent sons of inbred bitches, (even eunuchs are braver than them, and this is not to offend any eunuch), the kind of statements made by the home minister, makes you feel like shooting him first instead of terrorists. when will the leaders of this country grow balls? i wonder? when will our friendly neighbors be called to account for innocent lives perishing in these sinister attacks??

The train rolled on and I called one of my friends asking him to pick me from the station.

The first part of my visa journey was completed.

ashwin