The US curse

About a couple of weeks ago, my boss tells me that we might have to go to the US to attend an IBM conference in Las Vegas, depending on IBM waiving the registration fee and me getting the visa. So I paid the visa fees and set up my interview date for the 23rd of April. All fine, except that the DMK decided to call a bandh on the 23rd and the consulate would therefore be closed as well. I heard about his at 6p.m. on the evening of the 22nd with my flight due in 3 hours. My interview was automatically rescheduled to the morning of the 29th.

So I changed my travel plans and fetched up the Bangalore airport on the evening of the 28th, to ride good old Indian Airlines. Unfortunately, good old Indian Airlines dropped the ball, and the flight was terribly late, causing me to finally reach Chennai past midnight. And my interview was at 8 a.m. Still I dragged myself out of bed at the unearthly hour of 6, and made it to the consulate at 7:20 a.m. The pre-interview process took another 1.5 hours at the end of which I finally made it to the counter and completed the interview in 10 minutes. My visa has been issued and will be couriered to me within a week.

What about the conference, you say? Turns out we're not going. IBM refused to waive the fee which is USD 2150 per person or about a lakh each for the event alone. And to add to that, we have the swine flu outbreak which some are saying will be worse than the bird flu. And for the first time in my life I've seen a travel advisory against travelling to the US. Coincidence or Curse? You tell me.

Chow.