IPL Experience in a stadium

Being out of India for a month, I missed the first phase of cricketing extravaganza - Indian Premier League (IPL) and more importantly I missed opening ceremony at Chinnaswamy Stadium Bangalore. Since I was sure to be back in India by May 15th I had booked two tickets(myself and Raveesh) for the match between Bangalore Royal Challengers and Delhi Daredevils. Also, there was a discussion among 'Ctrl-Esc group' for some get together, ultimately we decided to see a IPL match. Coincidentally Rohith(organizer) booked the tickets for the same match I was planning go with Raveesh. So I had to give away my ticket to Raveesh's friend Devi Prasad.



On May 19th the match was scheduled to start at 8 pm. As there was some entertainment programme before the match, I reached the Gate-12 of McDowell-Best-View Stand at 6 pm. But I had to wait for Rohith, he was on the way and was caught in a traffic jam near Domlur. The one hour wait was one of the most frustrating one and I had to hear Shaan's concert being outside the gate :( I cribbed myself several times for giving away tickets and trusting Rohith's punctuality. The only silver lining during the wait was getting glimpse of the cheer-girls group entering the stadium premises in a luxury tempo traveller. One among them was enthusiastically shooting the crowd outside the gate in her handy-cam.

Rohith finally came at 7.15 ending our long frustrating wait. As soon we entered the stands, toss for the match took place. Delhi's captain Sehwag won the toss and elected to field.

Before start of the play there was a brief performance by the Redskin cheerleaders. The group was introduced as first ladies of American football and personally hired by Vijay Mallaya. They performed facing the pavilion and at a sufficient distance from us. I managed to capture a shaky video(embedded) of the same. But seeing it live through binoculars was a different experience altogether.



Then after Redskins performance, the cheer-ambassadors of Royal Challengers Ramya and Upendra came and waved the crowd encircling the ground. Upendra in his usual style cracked a one-liner in Kannada

"Fouru Sixu okay, Kuttadu yaake ?"

Unfortunately Upendra's comments didn't had much impact on Bangalore's batsmen. The Royal Challengers batting was as usual very boring to watch. But thanks to debutant chap Shreevats Goswami there were couples four and a six and cheerleaders danced for the each boundary to tunes of English, Hindi and even Kannada songs. For most part of the match the crowd seemed to be not interested in cricket and were concentrating more on cynosure of the stadium ... cheerleaders. After moderate start and some late stroke-play(3 sixes in last over) by Misbah-ul-Haq, RCB managed to set a decent target of 155.

In the innings break cheerleaders performed again, this time it was on the stage next to the score board.



While chasing Delhi got off to a flier. The first wicket fell at score of 90. Till that time cheerleaders had a nice rest. For crowd it was a boring phase for obvious reasons. Later, there were some hiccups for Delhi, 2-3 wickets fell in quick succession and cheer-girls and in turn the crowd had something to cheer about. Even after losing a few wickets Delhi cruised to victory and in fact scored the winning runs with a six.

Among the crowd there was decent support for Delhi team, obviously because there is large percentage of migrant population in Bangalore. One of the group claiming themselves part of 'Delhi Daredevils Parivar' had got a nicely prepared banner. Have look at it in the snap below.

Delhi Daredevils Parivar

Overall watching match was an amusing experience, even though I missed initial part of entertainment show. The core part of entertainment section was performance by Redskin cheerleaders. 10-out-of-10 to them for keeping the crowd entertained in spite of somewhat boring contest. Cricket had really taken a backseat !

Now one curious question .. how Washington Redskins have managed to catch the nation's imagination ? Is it only because of their skimpy outfits or white skin ? In my opinion more than skimpy outfit there performances was nicely choreographed to the music. The energetic yet simple, synced-to-music dance provides the perfect entertainment for the crowd.

Read more about Redskins Cheerleaders at
Abc News : Video report of IPL and cheer-girls.
Redskins Official site: Cheerleaders tour to India
Washington Post: Redskins Cheerleaders Shake Up Cricket In Modest India

Accident : Kannada movie by Ramesh

When the movie is one of the most awaited I make sure that I see it in theater's as early as possible. But sometimes this takes a long time to materialize. The same happened to me w.r.t to seeing the movie Accident. The movie released in Ugadi weekend, but because some issue at the workplace I had to work on the same weekend. And the next Friday I had to fly to Paris for a business trip on a short notice. I cannot make time for the movie even after hearing/reading several rave reviews. I came back to Bangalore after 28 days and two days after landing I attended photography workshop by Kalyan Varma.


So the subsequent weekend at last I planned to see the movie with Raveesh. Since the movie had released one month back, it was out of majority of single screen theatres. The options left for us was either Triveni or PVR. We dropped the idea of going to Triveni being conscious of the fact that we may have to stand for tickets under hot sun or end up buying tickets in 'black'. In PVR there was one show(1.40 pm) and we finalized to go on Saturday(17th May).

Booking tickets became a other big tedious process. On thursday I tried to book tickets online 6-7 times !! After credit card authorization the window used to go into infinite waiting state. The behaviour was same with both IE and mozilla. After making 2-3 attempts on Friday, I decided to buy the tickets at the PVR counter itself. So I got at Forum on the way back to my home. Fortunately even after so much delay I got 4 tickets(for me, Raveesh, Devi Prasad, Pavan) at a descent distance from the screen.

About the movie:

The movie starts off with a song in credits sequence. Seems this has become de facto standard in Sandalwood(Kannada film industry) these days. Gaalipata movie also starts with a song in credit sequence.

The story is about a radio-jockey Sawant[Ramesh Arvind]. After coming back from foreign trip Sawant finds out that his wife is killed in an Accident. Rubbing salt to the wound is the fact that there was a guy with his wife in the car when the accident happened. There are all kinds of speculation in the media about an extra-marital affair of his wife.

Dejected Sawant takes break from his work and tries to find out the real reason behind his wife's Accident. In the process he finds out many shocking revelations keeping audience at edge of the seat. Sawant is assited by his friends and colleagues. One among them is Pooja Gandhi of Mungaaru Male fame.

The story is narrated in a nice crisp manner(less than 2 hour duration) .. kudos to the editor and in the second half there are some comical moments as well. From the technical angle there is decent cum creative camera work, which is necessary for a suspense movie. However the movie would have better minus 2-3 songs. The final climax seems to good from musical and lyrical point of view but the dandia choreography is abysmal and it is completely out of sync with the music.

Since the movie is about a Radio-jockey definitely there will be a tie-up with a Radio Station and in this movie it is with Radio Mirchi. In fact one of the famous RJ - Rachana has made a special appearance in the movie.

Overall a good movie to watch and in fact from Sandalwood's perspective it definitely breaks new grounds!

PS: Seeing the movie with Sandalwood Encyclopedia - Raveesh was different experience altogether. Well, I go to know that Pooja(Sanjana) Gandhi's voice has been dubbed in all the movies so far!. Have a look Raveesh's point of view Accident - Film Review.

PPS: It was nice to see the movie shot in many known locations in Bangalore and it was even more amusing to discuss among ourselves "which location is that?". The 'Lovely Resort' shown in the movie is actually 'Shakthi Resort' in RajarajeshwariNagar. The office of Radio-Mirchi shown in the movie is the actual office. I made out when they showed the outside view from the office window. It was the view of Bannerghatta Road in front of Sagar Automobiles.

The 3 mistakes of my life

The biggest-selling English-language novelist in India's history Chetan Bhagat has recently released in third novel 'The three mistakes of my life'. The book was marketed in a effective way. One can read the excerpt of the prologue in author's website and to read the prologue further one has to e-mail the link to three of his/her friends. A nice and effective way to build curiosity, I am sure those who have read the link would have definitely bought a copy of the book immediately.

The story is about a guy by name Govind Patel, his three mistakes and his two friend Ishaan and Omi. Set in Ahmedabad in the period 2000-2002 the story blends together business, cricket, politics, religion and romance in a seamless manner. The plot includes major incidences of that period like Bhuj earthquake, India-Australia historic test series, 9/11 attacks, Godhra riots and also influence of these incidences on the protagonist's life.

Being a very good business acumen Govind earns for his living by doing Maths tuition and later by opening a sports shop with his friends. His personal life changes when starts giving tuitions to his friend's sister Vidya. Starting off with Maths he gradually moves on to Physics to Chemistry and then to Biology(read practicals).

Like his previous book in a true Chetan Bhagat style, the author explains the emotional moments in a simple yet effective manner. Look at they way he explains the dilemma of the protagonist while talking over a phone to his student-cum-friend.

A 'very good friend' is a dangerous category with Indian girls. From here you can make either make fast progress. Or, if you play it wrong, you go down to the lowest category invented by Indian women ever - rakhi brother.

The book recommended an easy read to people who have read and cherished Chetan's previous books i.e. people who don't care about 'Literary Quotient' and believe in KISS principle.

One blooper:
Harbhajan Singh had taken hat-trick in first innings on Day-1 of historic Kolkota test match, but in the book it is mentioned that the hat-trick was on Day-5 post tea session in 2nd innings of Australia.

What other's say abt the book:
Rashmi Bansal: The 3 mistakes of my life: review.
CNN-IBN: Picking up Three Mistakes... is a big mistake.

About Chetan Bhagat in ...
Newyork Times: An Investment Banker Finds Fame Off the Books
BBC: From banker to best-selling writer

Cooking sessions at SuiteMDB

As I had posted earlier that I stayed at Suite-MDB hotel for most part of my biz-trip at Paris. The major feature of the accommodation was attached kitchen and the same facility was not there in Hyatt Regency. It had all the major stuffs from microwave to dish-washer. Also various other accessories like porcelain utensils, knife, spoon, fork were also there.



Hussu Mia - the saviour, who joined me after 2 weeks, on getting to know about the facilities brought almost all the food items from India. It was literally like he had shifted his house from Bangalore to Paris.


Hussu took the charge for preparing the food on first day. His preparation was decent enough but the ratio of water in rice was more. It was almost like ganji. Next day Hussu prepared his favorite recipe - Ghee rice. He has very much emotional attached to it, as the recipe taught by his wife.

Third day when Hussu thought of preparing ghee rice again, I protested saying that it would become monotonous, and took the charge. Starting off with sambhar rice, in subsequent days I prepared to yellow-dal, green-dal and moved on to some experimentation i.e. mixing green-dal with yellow-dal etc.


One day we prepared chappatis too ... with channa-masala. Well, we didn't had any belan to make chapptis .. then how did we managed it ?? ... simple with aid of a Parachute bottle. In fact it was Hussu's idea.

Photography workshop by Kalyan Varma

I was part of two day photography workshop conducted by Kalyan Varma, a techi turned wildlife photographer. There is a small story on how I made into the first batch of the workshop. As soon as read about the workshop in bangalore metblogs I sent a mail to Kalyan that whether it is mandatory for participants to own an SLR ? Kalyan replied that it won't be a problem as he will starting off from the basics.

Being in Paris for a biz-trip, I took a bit longer time for me to. By the time I confirmed my participation, the slots for May workshop were full and Kalyan put in me June batch. A few days later, on May 2nd(Friday) Kalyan mailed me that a slot has come up in the May workshop. I replied to him explaining the situation and kept the slot on hold till Tuesday afternoon (Paris time). When I was about to mail him that I won't be able to attend his inaugural workshop, an official mail came that I need to return back to Bangalore.

I came back on May 9th(Friday) midnight and next day I got up early in morning(without having proper sleep). After voting(Karnataka assembly elections), I straightaway headed to the workshop venue at 10 am.

Some thoughts about the workshop:

• It was nice, intensive and interactive workshop without a dull moment. I hardly dozed in the workshop inspite of sleep deprivation after a long flight journey on previous day.
• Starting off from the basics Kalyan covered some core topics in later stages. The Eureka moment for me was when he explained the relation between shutter speed and aperture with tap-n-bucket analogy. Till that moment I used to take snaps in manual mode with trial and errors technique, never really tried taking photographs consciously by getting exposure right.
• Kalyan had placed some sections very well, like he kept the section on photography equipments right after the lunch on Day-1. By keeping a non-theoretical topic in post lunch session he ensured that participants won't sleep.
• For techniques on flash photography, Kalyan showed various thing such as how to use flash creatively and also the ways to diffuse the flash while taking portraits.
• Kalyan concluded the day-1 by showing some of his favorite pictures from national geographic and other famous photographers(Ansel Adams, Ganesh from Bangalore).
• The day-2 started with an outdoor field session at Lalbagh(6.30 am in morning). In the session we were instructed to take photographs which were quite challenging w.r.t exposure.
• After morning session we were back to the workshop hall and the first session was on 'tricks of the trade' and the subsequent session was on post processing.
• Post processing section was the major highlight of the workshop. Kalyan took a few not-so-good-looking image from the morning field session, and enhanced it by following a typical post processing workflow.
• There was a lot of discussion on what is ethical and non-ethical in post-processing.

After completing this workshop my urge to own an SLR has increased by many folds !

Find more information about the workshop at Kalyanvarma.net

Snaps taken using my S2-IS in field shoot

I voted like an illiterate

Being out of town for one month will keep you completely out of touch with the local news. Well, that's what happened to me when I was in Paris for 28 days. Coincidentally I came back to Bangalore a day before the election day of Karnataka assembly.

Going to home from airport I expected the roads and lanes to completely decorated with party banners and flags like previous elections. Surprisingly no such things were there and I was not looking like as there is going to be elections tomorrow. Chatting about the same with taxi driver I got to know that there is strict regulation by Election Commission(EC) against use to banners.



On May 10th morning I got up early and had to make decision about whom to vote? As this time I could not to any R-n-D about the candidates being out of Bangalore. My major aim was to vote against the incumbent MLA as he had wasted public money for unnecessary spendings. Therefore, I decided to vote based on the party and against the sitting MLA. I went to the polling station and looked up for my name in the voter list. Thankfully there were no discrepancies. I entered into the alloted polling booth and finished the formalities (getting ink mark on my left index finger). Then the polling officer ask me to proceed towards the EVM machine. Like an illiterate I just saw the party on pressed the button next to it.

On the same evening my uncle called up for asking about my 28 day trip. Then the discussion came to the candidate I voted. My reply was some ... party candidate. "Oh that person" was the reply from my uncle. According to him he is vary good person and favorite to win this time. It was a big relief for me, voting like an illiterate I didn't vote to a wrong candidate.

Paris biz trip retrospect and related thoughts

Finally I am back to Bangalore from Paris after 28 days biz trip. More than work the trip was more dominated by Visa extension and other non technical issues. The major plus point of the trip was that I stayed in Paris during core spring season. This is second consecutive year(last year it was Korea) I have stayed in spring season in a temperate region. Pinks flowers, Tulips and Strawberries ... a bliss indeed !

Hussu Mia - the saviour:
He was both technical and non-technical relief for me. Non-technical because he got more than 20 kgs of food items from India which was sufficient to cooking for me have Indian food.

Regarding Work:
I can write thousands of word about this and effects I had because of non technical issues. But as per blogging ethics we should not write about one's company, work and customers. So I don't want to discuss about it further.

Regarding Accommodation:
Because of non availability of rooms, the hotel stay was big adventure this time. First 3 days I stayed in Hyatt, next 2 days in SuiteMDB, then again back to Hyatt for 5 days and remaining days in SuiteMDB. Hyatt Regency is a good posh hotel with flashy building. All that this is fine but apart from high frill facilities, good breakfast and there was nothing worth to mention about the stay. The hotel is next to A1 expressway, so there are no parks and shops nearby. In contrast the stay in SuiteMDB was quite pleasant. The most important thing was that there was attached Kitchen facility, also there was some kind of park nearby and a grocery store which used to be open on Sunday too till 12 noon !

Places I saw this time.
As the work was very hectic, officially we used to work on Monday-Fridays between 9 am to 9 pm and on Saturdays 10 am to 6 pm. After coming back to hotel also we used to work and we were expected to do night-outs too(which I hate the most). We used to get some free time on Sunday, but all the commercial places used be closed, so I had hardly had any purpose to go out. Since we were staying near Airport, the train ticket to downtown cost 8.2 Euros one-way ! it has sufficient enough to dampen the enthusiasm. However the day before leaving i.e. March 8th was a public holiday on account of World-War-2 victory day. We used the holiday to the fullest and explored many commercial places and monuments in Paris. More about this in separate post.

People who became friend
The hero my Visa extension story Kuk-Han became a good friend to me. Got to appreciate her efforts and the way she got me off the boarding gate on the 'dramatic Tuesday'(April-22). While interacting with her, I got to that she is person without a 'Pause button'. She used to talk on and on, also on while driving to the prefecture many a times she used to miss a turn as she used to be busy explaining something.

Side effects of Visa extension

Since my Visa was initially valid till April 22nd and I had planned to do many things after coming back to Bangalore. With the last-minute visa extension I had to cancel many programmes.

Sarpass Trek: This trek conducted by YHAI I was supposed to go with Jatin and his friend. The reporting day was on May 4th. I had kept the booking open till last week of April. Finally I canceled my booking on 27th April. But I didn't get any refund since by the time I canceled the time was past 12 midnight IST.

Indian Premier League: A billion dollar cricket extravaganza. I followed each and every news item during the build up for the league and also blogged about the same with Aditya and Raveesh at unofficialipl.com. Just a few days before the league my travel got confirmed and I missed out glitzy opening ceremony at Bangalore and missed matches of first-phase. Now I am back to witness second phase of the league and planning to see a match of Royally Challenged team of Bangalore.

Mandolin Srinivas Concert: It takes place at Fort High School Grounds every year in April-May. After missing the concert for last 2 years, this time I had promised to my friend Ajaysimha that I will be coming. But unfortunately I missed the concert this year too.

What I almost missed ?

Karnataka Elections Voting: Usually I follow elections like anything and hardly I miss out any news items related to election. This is more obvious because the DBMS project in my college was related to Indian Elections. This time being out of Bangalore I missed out many TV programmes related to elections. The only silver lining was that I came back to Bangalore on the election day itself(midnight of previous day). The first thing in the morning I did in the morning was going to polling booth and vote ! What a coincidence ? it seems I came to Bangalore to vote.

Kalyan varma's photography workshop: I had confirmed my participation for the June workshop as slots in May workshop were already full. On Friday 2nd May Kalyan mailed me that a slot has come up in the May workshop. I replied to him explaining the situation and kept the slot on hold till Tuesday afternoon Paris time. When I was about the mail him that I won't be able to make this time. Then all of a sudden an official mail came that I have to return back to Bangalore. As I already said that I came back on Friday midnight and next day got up early in morning(without having proper sleep). After voting I straightaway headed to the workshop venue at 10 am. It was nice intensive and interactive 2-day workshop without a dull moment. I hardly dozed in the workshop due to lack of sleep.

Visa extension saga continued ....

This post is continuation of Paris Biz Trip-2 and Visa Extension Saga.

The day after the dramatic Tuesday, Kuk-Han took me to the Prefecture for completing the visa extension formalities. For reference we had taken a print out of the e-mail which Kuk-han had received from the prefecture. We showed the print out to a afro lady at the reception and Kuk-han explained her the situation. Taking the printout, she went inside to discuss with her senior(officer). After five minutes she came and said "the e-mail was just for assurance, we have to follow the protocol, we already have received the request letter and will be responding with a convocation(appointment) letter. The extension process will proceed only after you receive the convocation letter". This put me in spot of bother because I was no longer a legal immigrant since my visa had expired the previous day. For this the receptionist gave assurance that since the extension in process there shouldn't be any problems as such.



Waiting for the convocation letter I spent next few days being an informal legal immigrant. On April 28th (Monday) the letter came finally. In the letter it was mentioned that I had to come to Le Raincy Prefecture between 8 am to 12 noon with passport, residence proof and eight euros for getting the extension stamping. Residence proof ?? for a person on a business visit, sounds crazy! For this Kuk-han clarified(by e-mail) from the prefecture that hotel reservation proof will be sufficient.

Now we had to decide when go to the prefecture. Kuk-han was leave on Tuesday and Thursday(May 1st) was holiday for Labour Day. So we had to finish the extension process on Wednesday itself. On Wednesday Kuk-han was busy with her work till 11.15 am. Then we rushed to the prefecture as were supposed to be there before 12 noon, but we reached there 15 minutes late. Fortunately the Estranger section in Prefecture was still open, but no one was there to attend at the reception. After 10 minutes a lady came, she had look at my convocation letter and gave us a token(no. 690). After taking the token, I had glance at the led display. It was displaying the number 613 ... 75+ people ahead of me! we confirmed from the receptionist about the number of people ahead of us. She replied may be about 15-16 people. Then I had a closer look at the display, it was partially covered with a sticker on the top, so from the distance number 673 was looking like 613. This revelation turned out to be a breather for us.

The turns were changing in an interval of 10 minutes approximately. My turn was expected only after a hour, so we went outside to have some food. There were not many options either, but to my surprise there was a Indian Restaurant. Not being particular about heavy food we decided go to a sandwitch shop exact opposite to the prefecture . Being vegetarian I had limited choice, but with the help of Kuk-han I ordered a customized sandwitch. After having food we came back to the prefecture in a hurry thinking that our turn may be nearing.

Within 10 minutes the display tinged the number 690 and showed counter ‘G’. The attendant at the counter had a look at my passport, convocation letter and hotel reservation confirmation. Then he wrote something on a challan and asked us to get a ‘8 Euro stamp’. For getting it we had to go to other section in the ground floor. After getting the stamp, the counter guy stamped a big seal behind my expired visa and pasted 8 euro stamped on the next page and wrote the extension details with a pen. He seemed to be very generous unlike other staff of the Prefecture. He also clarified from me that whether one month extension was sufficient or not.

Stamped Passport

While getting back the stamped passport we had to listen to a big monologue from him. It was more directed towards Kuk-han as he was explaining in French and being specatator I was just nodding my head. He told that it is very unrealistic to expect Visa extension within 10 days and my case they have treated as an exception by allowing me stay during extension process even after expiry of original visa.

Finally, the visa extension formalities were complete and I was a legal immigrant ! The first half of the extension saga turned out like Abbas Mustan movie full of twists and remaining part became like a Karan Johar movie .. it got dragged on and on.

To conlcude, in case you are planning to apply for business visa extension in Paris, keep the following things in mind.

• The whole process takes about two weeks approximate.
• Prefecture people don't receive any phone calls. If you enquire in person be ready to get a rude response. e-mail is the best and the only way to follow up.
• The process has to be started by host company couriering a request letter to the Prefecture. Then Prefecture responds with a convocation letter by post. After that one has to go with requisite documents for the extension stamping. So normally one has go to the prefecture only once.
• All communication has to be done in French. Sounds obvious but it is very important.

Paris Biz Trip-2 and Visa Extension Saga.

No blog posts for so many days... I am in Paris again for yet another biz trip and for some exceptional reasons this trip is turning out to be more adventurous and with a few traces horror full experiences.

Right from the visa interview at French consulate in Mumbai there have been many twist and turns. The head of the french consulate told me about a stupid rule that a software engineer can stay in France for duration of 30 days in a window of 6 months. Since I have stayed already in France for 10 days in February, and he won't be able give me VISA for applied duration(30 days). After hearing a blade - full of technical jargons about my work he agreed to give me VISA for 28 days valid till April 22nd.

Leaving in a short notice

After this our management decided to send my teammate Husain aka Hussu since the planned duration of IOT was beyond April 22nd. Then there was a twist Hussu got visa interview appointment on 22nd April but someone from our team has to be in Paris from April 12th. On account of having valid Visa I had to leave on a short notice. Due to non cooperation from support staff of our company and crappy laptop policies I faced a lot of hardship while getting ready for the trip. I got the travel-laptop just 3-4 hr before traveling !! After getting the laptop I left office at 8 pm, reached home at 9.30, stuffed bags with essential things and left to the airport. For being 45 minutes late I had to stand one and half extra in total for completing check-in, immigration and security check procedures.

First visit to Police Prefecture

It seemed that Hussu will not be getting Visa before April 25th, so my first priority task after landing in Paris was to apply for Visa extension at Police Prefecture. As per instruction of Flora I took the requisite documents and went to Suta(receptionist) at the office. She didn't had much idea about the extension procedure but she insisted that someone should accompany me as French translator to the Police Prefecture. Then Jiwon with the help of Mr. Joung(General Affairs manager) directed me to Kuk-Han Bonaz. She works in admin department as a Legal Coordinator.

Police Prefecture at Le Raincy

On Tuesday(15th April) Kuk-Han took me to the prefecture in her boss's car. Enroute to the prefecture I got to know more about her. She is originally from Korea, married to a French and now settled in Paris. Prior to working with LG she working for working as Korean-French translator for TGV which has collaborated for development of KTX in Korea.

At the reception of Prefecture Kuk-Han did all possible enquiry(of course in French) about the extension. The procedure was slightly complicated i.e. the host company has to send a letter,followed by a few formalities. After coming back to office Kuk-Han composed a request letter in French and couriered it next day.

Request Letter and follow-up

Till Thursday evening there was no response from the Prefecture, so Friday morning Kuk-Han went to the Prefecture to check the status of the extension request. Well, they said it is still in process. In evening, I explained my situation to Kuk-Han in detail i.e. if I don't get visa extension I have to leave Paris on 22nd April 11 am. So regarding this she sent an e-mail(in French) to the Prefecture expecting a faster response.

I had almost given up the hopes, so I spent the weekend as my last weekend in Paris. On Sunday I went to see La Defense one of the commercial center of Paris (more about it in a separate post). Monday morning Kuk-Han got an e-mail reply from the prefecture asking for my ID card. ID-Card ?? WTH ... Kuk-han replied that I have no such thing ID card keeping me in cc. After this Kuk-Han left for the day. I kept refreshing my e-mail every five minutes to check for response from the Prefecture. It was 4 pm in evening and still no signs of response and my return journey to Bangalore was almost certain.

Time to Return

In morning before leaving I called up Kuk-Han saying that I am taking 11:20 flight back to Bangalore. Somehow she was optimistic that I will be getting reply from the Prefecture. But I decided to carry since in case they don't get the extension I will be in big trouble and there were no back up flights in evening to Bangalore. She noted down my flight number AF192 , in case of any breakthrough she thought of contacting me.

Everything was going on normally I left Hyatt by 9 am shuttle, got down at terminal-2E, checked in my baggage, passed immigration section, took automatic train to departure gate, underwent security check, bought some chocolates at duty free shops.

At departure gate

At 10.35 am when it was time to board the plane, the Air-France staff scanned the bar-code on my boarding pass, asked me to show the passport and immediately said "WAIT". She tried to contact someone thru internal phone and after 2 mins she looked towards me said "This is regarding your VISA". After 5 mins the lady next to her called holding the phone "Someone wants to speak to you". Keeping the receiver next to my ears I heard Kuk-Han talking with excitement that I can stay in Paris, prefecture has replied to the e-mail, acknowledging my visa extension request. My initial reaction was "Are you sure!", and also I was worried about my baggage which was already checked-in. Kuk-Han said that she take care of that, I gave the phone back to the Air-France staff and Kuk-Han explained her the situation. Then the staff called up someone by looking up for my baggage details in the computer and ordered to take my baggage off the plane.

Going in Reverse direction

In order to collect my baggage I had to go back to Air France baggage service in arrival terminal. The major task was to go in reverse direction, as you would be knowing the airports terminal will be designed in such a way that the passengers are restricted to move in a uni-direction. The major hurdle for me was the immigration section. I explained the situation to a police who stamps the passport and for some reasons he was not convinced with my words and took me to the verification room.

Immigration section - Verification Room

In the room there was one Afro lady in a dejected mode and also there was one sad gentleman (seemed like an American) he had actually lost his passport and police were asking him to produce some other identification means. In between the policeman came with his senior and seeing my boarding-pass the senior thought I had missed by flight to Bangalore and looking forward for alternatives. I had to again explain the situation (in English) and gave him the phone number of Kuk-Han so that he can make a verification call. The junior and senior went inside and came back after 5 minutes. The junior took photocopy of my passport and took me back to the stamping window and permitted me out of the section.

Collecting my Baggage

Then I went to baggage belt section and wondered where my lone baggage will be. I went to Air France baggage service section and told the staff about my baggage. With my baggage receipt she gave my latest status of my baggage and asked me to wait for 10 minutes. In order to get latest coordinates of Kuk-Han, I tried to call her through a coin phone opposite to baggage service counter. It asked me to insert in 1.5 euros and I put 2 euros and I was not able to dial and anything. I reported this to airport staff around there. He gave me his mobile to call up Kuk-Han. She was right outside at exit and she managed to come inside on special request and did the enquiry(in French) about my baggage. They asked me details about my bag such as whether hard bound or soft bound, size and color. The guy in the counter made some 2-3 phone calls and finally said it's going to come at belt number 40 and he added "I don't know ... When!". I came out of the counter and saw that in belt number 40 there was only one bag and in fact it was my bag !

Then Kuk-han took me to the Air France ticketing counter to cancel my ticket. They took my back boarding pass and asked me to retain my e-ticket. Since my return date was not fixed and I decided to keep my ticket open with a due payment(fine) of 48 euros. All done ... Kuk-Han took me back to hotel for dropping by bag and later to the office. Since Kuk-Han was busy for rest of the day we decided to go the Prefecture next day.

After all these twists it was hard to believe for me that I was still in Paris. The credit goes to Kuk-Han for materializing this unbelievable thing.

I had speculated that this Visa extension saga will go down to the wire, but not to this extent !!!

More about the extension formalities in next post.