Thursday, May 03, 2007

The Land Of Miracles

'Welcome to America',
Greets the voice behind the glass.
I stare at my papers in disbelief,
At the instant fruition of fantasies

A swoosh of the pen
And I stand transformed,
Into an alien

22 comments:

Pallavi said...

hahaha...visa interview cannot be described any better!

shreya said...

over here, its "bienvenue du canada"...and even after three years of constantly being bombarded with it, i think i got it wrong!!

Persona non gratis said...

Since america has its own world cup football and baseball, we obviously landed here from another planet

Anonymous said...

Shreya: I thohught it would be "au Canadia" ? I might be wrong tough, it's been years since I've had French.

What does the alien think about it?

Parth said...

@All: The alien's off to Canada tomorrow to be alienated all over again. Wish me luck. And no, I can't speak a word of French, but I'll try and solve the welcoming problem nonetheless

Anonymous said...

Bon Voyage
:-)

Sridhar said...

bonne chance with the USCIS!

Wannabe Mom said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Keerti Prasad said...

:) Thanks.

Anonymous said...

bienvenue!! where the hell will you be staying, or do i have to make Shreya croak?!

Parth said...

Yello, everyone. I am back. Realienated, readmitted, reinstated (do I sound like Milton?)

@Nocturne: I was in Vancouver, but have to admit that I must have overlooked the French if it was indeed present anywhere.

@Happy Wanderer, Niranjan: Thanks for the wishes. It was a breeze, relatively.

Parth said...

@Nocturne: You can make Shreya croak anyway, no excuse required :-)

Lotus Reads said...

Beautifully expressed, Parth, I know the feeling all too well!

Lotus Reads said...

What??? You're here in Canada??? Where???

Lotus Reads said...

Note to self:

Read all comments before commenting.

I see you have returned from Vancouver. Did you have a nice time? Next time do try and visit us on the East Coast, you may have more opportunity to practice your French!

shreya said...

Why do Parth and Nocturne want to make Shreya croak?

And Parth, no French-Canadian welcome??

Parth said...

@Lotus Reads: I opened my inbox in the morning to a flurry of comments from you. I am back from Vancouver with my visa in place. I have been there a few times before, so there's a distinct familiarity with the place. Any time I am coming through the east coast, I'll be sure to touch base with the lot of you.

@Shreya: I had no clue why Nocturne would want to make you croak, but it didn't seem like a bad idea, so I went along with it. There definitely was French all around, but the accompanying English distracted me, and I might have not noticed the difference. Oh, and there were street signs in Punjabi in the Punjabi market.

RS said...

We recently went to Seattle and from there to Vancouver to get our visas extended. Had a pretty funny experience at the US consulate, firstly, we were "punished" and asked to go back to the end of the line because we didnt tear open all the sealed envelopes and so we sulked and stood behind the loong line.

And inside, the interviewer took an instant dislike to Kamal, he talked to me for 5 minutes about India, US, marriages etc, showed me the thumbs-up sign etc but was not exactly pleasant with Kamal :p

Parth said...

@RS: Luckily for us, the questions were pretty standard. Exactly the same as three years ago. We were forewarned about the sealed envelope trap, so we escaped it :-) Next time you are in Seattle, drop me in a line. We should meet.

RS said...

Sure, One of my close friends, Srinivas Badrinarayanan works at Microsoft. So, I do plan to visit Seattle again - love your Pike place market!

Stone said...

Thats in my plan for September, a visit to Vancouver via Seattle!!!

Parth said...

@RS: What, no word on how much you liked the Microsoft campus? :-)

@Stone: Do get in touch when you do so. We can meet if it works out.