A friend tweeted "After coming on twitter, how many have you blogged"! hard hitting reality, when you get hooked on to expressing yourself in 140 word limit, i guess, it somewhere impacts your ability to write longer statements. Particularly when you have to think, formulate and create narration. Anyways, since now, i have kind of explained my inertness on blogging, i may as well sit down to pen another one.
This one again brings in lot of perspective towards what we got caught into and the impact that it had on me (in particular) and a few relationships in close quarters over the period of last 6 months. The whole thing began with our long awaited trip to India. It was more than a year of virtual chit chat and it was time to get real with parents, brothers and friends. The occasion was big too, marriage of my wife's brother. We had a pending task, which we came to know later, will cause the excruciating pain in our lives. The task was to get H1B stamping for my wife.
We started from NJ on 24th of May and reached Delhi on 25th. On the same day we completed OFC thing for her at Nehru place Delhi and were all set to go ahead with VISA stamping interview. Since it was last Monday of May, the embassy was closed for Memorial day and hence we had to wait until Tuesday morning for the interview. We had wonderful time with Didi, Jiyaji and pupul. Nidhi did some shopping and we were all upbeat about meeting our parents and celebrating the wedding. Everything was going according to the plan.
Nidhi went in for the interview and things went fine, the counselor collected her passport and asked Nidhi to leave. Now in most cases, this is a sign of approval. We were confident too as Nidhi was working in USA for past 5 months and we had all the paper work in place. Counselor was also handed over additional documentation that might be required for processing. Again, everything was falling in place and we were happy.
We reached jaipur and the big party began, every min, every hour was such a pleasure. Being with family after more than a year seemed unbelievable. We were all having so much energy to spend on each other and therefore all that was coming out. The remainder of the week just flew and Ankit (my wife's brother) got married in one of the most memorable marriage of my lifetime. We had so much fun and i could have such good bonding with Nidhi's extended family. I most certainly earned a lot of new members in my life. Be it fun with Gopal and Ashok mamaji over lunch,or recording of Nutan mausiji's performances with song or dance with Ajju mama or some good time with Kukku mausi, all that remain deep in me still. Best of all, i could spend so much time with Nanaji and Naniji (I had lost my naniji in 2007 and we miss her every single day still).
I could see my mom having such good time with Nidhi's Naniji as if she was her own mother. Overall, extremely satisfying experience and wonderful memories. We tried to accomplish everything possible and kept the wedding things to near perfection with whatever little we could do. The marriage got over and we suddenly realized that Nidhi's passport should be on the way back to us. We started tracking it and counting the days. But we had so much left still that we kept this at a lower priority, moreover, we had nothing to worry about as no additional information was asked from us.
The visit continued as per plan but somewhere, our anxiety started to build up. Towards the end we started calling and asking the status and we were introduced to something spectacular called "Administrative Processing". We didn't knew what it meant but to us, it came down to the level that Nidhi had to stay back. It was not until very late that we would know that this means a "black box" where you'd not get any information ever. Anyways, this became clear on the day i was scheduled to leave for USA.
We thought, its OK, we can still manage things as this might just be a matter of few days, but it was not meant to be. I returned back and joined office as per the plan and the wait for Nidhi's VISA started. Days got converted into Week and then into Month, and later Months, nothing moved. Administrative processing remained as is, no change in status, no information asked, no documentation asked. Every time we called, DOS told us, that there is no update.
One thing lead to another, and just by sheer bad timing, first Nidhi's mother had to undergo a surgery for stone in Kidney, and then a bigger one hit us, my dad had to undergo open heart surgery. Now those of you know Open heart, you'd know what it means for its difficult to explain in mere words. What also went wrong was the fact that behavior of a few close people was not only objectionable but also pathetic. I'd not dwell on the topic as even after this nonsense got over, few of them are still weird. That might be my perspective and i might be terribly wrong, but isn't this my blog??
Finally after going into one crisis after the other, we decided to close this whole thing down. We filed in for a revoke of VISA after 4 months, and started preparing for dependents VISA for Nidhi. This would take another month to complete. Luckily it moved fast and got completed in time. Nidhi could travel to be with me on 22nd Nov. Almost 6 months after we had gone to India.
This whole incident taught me a few things: -
1. One has to keep brain where mouth is - Watch what you say, coz it might just be 5 seconds of words, but it can haunt you for a life time. So just be careful in selecting words particularly in the case of some specific relationships.
2. Anger Management - No one is there in the world to bear your anger, not even your family. So you might have anger management issues, but if you expect people to bear with you, you'd be surprised to see who all walk out of your life. If you can afford, good for you, for once if people walk out, seldom they come back in. Also, you are not the only one who could get angry, so be sure that if someone else is angry you calm down. But this is only when you want those someone in your life, else, its ok.. blast and walk off.. but there is a word of caution in there.. you might end up alone... wait.. if you have anger management issues... aren't you already alone?? look around..
3. In Laws - Are not friends!! there is obligation, and it should be maintained that way. Its not about girl or a boy, its about understanding a certain obligation and keeping it that way. This needs certain maturity to understand, what i found out was, a few didn't had that. Worst was that it was the case that the same few believed that they have it!! you can't understand what mayhem is created due to this.
4. Wrong or Right - I came to know that even if you are right and you end up loosing a relationship, you become wrong... while even if you are wrong but you keep the relationship alive.. guess, you end up right. Now this is not applicable to all relationships in life, but it is applicable on certain few, most important ones. If you pursue, right, truth, and other syllables, you'd end up tall, perfect, etc but also, Alone, Damned. Now you might still try to debate on this.. but i can tell you.. right to me is when family is together and wrong is when its not.. everything else is plain, simple BULLSHIT!! so if you intent to say something different, read the previous statement again!!
Finally, its important for me, actually very important for me to see that I and Nidhi are still together. I am still close with my parents and siblings. I still talk to them everyday and i am still very much a part of their life. I am trying to strike a balance and that's the aim. I also got Babloo didi and Rakesh Jiyaji added to the list, they are the two best things to have happened to me in last one year. Love and Respect for both has grown.
Yeah.. feels good to write so many words, and it definitely feels good to blast off on a blog rather than to people!!
This one again brings in lot of perspective towards what we got caught into and the impact that it had on me (in particular) and a few relationships in close quarters over the period of last 6 months. The whole thing began with our long awaited trip to India. It was more than a year of virtual chit chat and it was time to get real with parents, brothers and friends. The occasion was big too, marriage of my wife's brother. We had a pending task, which we came to know later, will cause the excruciating pain in our lives. The task was to get H1B stamping for my wife.
We started from NJ on 24th of May and reached Delhi on 25th. On the same day we completed OFC thing for her at Nehru place Delhi and were all set to go ahead with VISA stamping interview. Since it was last Monday of May, the embassy was closed for Memorial day and hence we had to wait until Tuesday morning for the interview. We had wonderful time with Didi, Jiyaji and pupul. Nidhi did some shopping and we were all upbeat about meeting our parents and celebrating the wedding. Everything was going according to the plan.
Nidhi went in for the interview and things went fine, the counselor collected her passport and asked Nidhi to leave. Now in most cases, this is a sign of approval. We were confident too as Nidhi was working in USA for past 5 months and we had all the paper work in place. Counselor was also handed over additional documentation that might be required for processing. Again, everything was falling in place and we were happy.
We reached jaipur and the big party began, every min, every hour was such a pleasure. Being with family after more than a year seemed unbelievable. We were all having so much energy to spend on each other and therefore all that was coming out. The remainder of the week just flew and Ankit (my wife's brother) got married in one of the most memorable marriage of my lifetime. We had so much fun and i could have such good bonding with Nidhi's extended family. I most certainly earned a lot of new members in my life. Be it fun with Gopal and Ashok mamaji over lunch,or recording of Nutan mausiji's performances with song or dance with Ajju mama or some good time with Kukku mausi, all that remain deep in me still. Best of all, i could spend so much time with Nanaji and Naniji (I had lost my naniji in 2007 and we miss her every single day still).
I could see my mom having such good time with Nidhi's Naniji as if she was her own mother. Overall, extremely satisfying experience and wonderful memories. We tried to accomplish everything possible and kept the wedding things to near perfection with whatever little we could do. The marriage got over and we suddenly realized that Nidhi's passport should be on the way back to us. We started tracking it and counting the days. But we had so much left still that we kept this at a lower priority, moreover, we had nothing to worry about as no additional information was asked from us.
The visit continued as per plan but somewhere, our anxiety started to build up. Towards the end we started calling and asking the status and we were introduced to something spectacular called "Administrative Processing". We didn't knew what it meant but to us, it came down to the level that Nidhi had to stay back. It was not until very late that we would know that this means a "black box" where you'd not get any information ever. Anyways, this became clear on the day i was scheduled to leave for USA.
We thought, its OK, we can still manage things as this might just be a matter of few days, but it was not meant to be. I returned back and joined office as per the plan and the wait for Nidhi's VISA started. Days got converted into Week and then into Month, and later Months, nothing moved. Administrative processing remained as is, no change in status, no information asked, no documentation asked. Every time we called, DOS told us, that there is no update.
One thing lead to another, and just by sheer bad timing, first Nidhi's mother had to undergo a surgery for stone in Kidney, and then a bigger one hit us, my dad had to undergo open heart surgery. Now those of you know Open heart, you'd know what it means for its difficult to explain in mere words. What also went wrong was the fact that behavior of a few close people was not only objectionable but also pathetic. I'd not dwell on the topic as even after this nonsense got over, few of them are still weird. That might be my perspective and i might be terribly wrong, but isn't this my blog??
Finally after going into one crisis after the other, we decided to close this whole thing down. We filed in for a revoke of VISA after 4 months, and started preparing for dependents VISA for Nidhi. This would take another month to complete. Luckily it moved fast and got completed in time. Nidhi could travel to be with me on 22nd Nov. Almost 6 months after we had gone to India.
This whole incident taught me a few things: -
1. One has to keep brain where mouth is - Watch what you say, coz it might just be 5 seconds of words, but it can haunt you for a life time. So just be careful in selecting words particularly in the case of some specific relationships.
2. Anger Management - No one is there in the world to bear your anger, not even your family. So you might have anger management issues, but if you expect people to bear with you, you'd be surprised to see who all walk out of your life. If you can afford, good for you, for once if people walk out, seldom they come back in. Also, you are not the only one who could get angry, so be sure that if someone else is angry you calm down. But this is only when you want those someone in your life, else, its ok.. blast and walk off.. but there is a word of caution in there.. you might end up alone... wait.. if you have anger management issues... aren't you already alone?? look around..
3. In Laws - Are not friends!! there is obligation, and it should be maintained that way. Its not about girl or a boy, its about understanding a certain obligation and keeping it that way. This needs certain maturity to understand, what i found out was, a few didn't had that. Worst was that it was the case that the same few believed that they have it!! you can't understand what mayhem is created due to this.
4. Wrong or Right - I came to know that even if you are right and you end up loosing a relationship, you become wrong... while even if you are wrong but you keep the relationship alive.. guess, you end up right. Now this is not applicable to all relationships in life, but it is applicable on certain few, most important ones. If you pursue, right, truth, and other syllables, you'd end up tall, perfect, etc but also, Alone, Damned. Now you might still try to debate on this.. but i can tell you.. right to me is when family is together and wrong is when its not.. everything else is plain, simple BULLSHIT!! so if you intent to say something different, read the previous statement again!!
Finally, its important for me, actually very important for me to see that I and Nidhi are still together. I am still close with my parents and siblings. I still talk to them everyday and i am still very much a part of their life. I am trying to strike a balance and that's the aim. I also got Babloo didi and Rakesh Jiyaji added to the list, they are the two best things to have happened to me in last one year. Love and Respect for both has grown.
Yeah.. feels good to write so many words, and it definitely feels good to blast off on a blog rather than to people!!
