how we forget even the hardest of times once they are over.. we don't capture learnings, don't convey them to the next bunch of people who will be facing the same questions as well as we should.. no wonder history repeats itself and the wheel gets reinvented. so here i am recording my experience of moving to barcelona, as much as i can remember..
my visa story started in may when i began to look for the various details. money, police clearance certificate, air ticket, apostille, etc. it seemed it was going to take a lot of time. and it did. the best part is when i can do the things myself at my pace. book my ticket - check. get my medical checkup and report - check. even go to mumbai and pay for the apostill to be received from delhi and submitted to embassy on my behalf - check. spend 4 hours on a rainy water-clogged day in mumbai trying desperately to reach the embassy to get a photo colour copy of the passport for some reason i cant remember now. i reached after it had closed for public. but the security guard was also from pune and he let me get the colour copy. i think i needed it for my pnb loan.
but then the problem begins. financing - run around banks to get certifications, account statements. talk to babus and babis at PNB who are probably having a hard day and decide to take it out on you by not doing even what's in their job purview. the papaerwork just balloons up. and it doesn't help if you are in pune, you parents are in bilaspur and your financial assets are in nagpur. not to forget that you are trying to get a loan on a collateral in varanasi, through the varanasi branch office. well at least those guys didnt have a hard time on they days dad and i met them. they did have difficult days when they had to issue the reimbursements. but coming back to the visa first. so the financial documents were proceeding at their pace, classic of operations management study from my perspective now, then it was just plain lack of coordination. and of course the PCC took the cake.
i first went to get the migration clearance stamp on the passport. little did i know that i could have applied for the pcc on the same day. it could be said that i wasn't asking the right people, or searching the right websites or going to the right information office, but it can be said that it was my fault from the very beginning. and going to the passport office meant, working out of office - so permission required from my boss. borrowing my landlord's vehicle. taking a couple of working hours off and riding all the way to the office. standing in queue for an hour at least. coming back another day in the evening to collect the same. which again meant working another day from office and borrowing the vehicle. and then realising that i would have to do this all again. well so be it. what has to be done has to be done. but it isnt so simple anymore. my application will now do the rounds of the respective police stations where i have lived in the past two years (or was it 5? no probably 2 because i didnt have to "appease" police officers in nagpur), then come back to pune passport office, stamped and be ready for issuance. and now comes the clincher. i only had 2 weeks to do this. or my visa submission, receipt, going to nagpur - packing, staying with parents in bilaspur and flying from mumbai would have gone astray. so the key was to know the right person for pushing ahead my application fast enough. you know what that means right? but it doesn't end here. i lost my temper with the passport officer. i spent a day with hitesh going round multiple police stations trying to track the flow of application only to find that my application had not yet arrived. then going with abhijit to my locality police station, where the man was a gentleman enough to not ask for appeasement in front of a woman. appeasing him, in conjunction with his cordial ways. contacting a politician to pull some strings so that the clogged wheels of my application could finally be oiled and put into action. you cant believe how euphoric i was when i had the application in my hands.
the end of my visa story was just as interesting. i had a train to catch at 7.10 am to reach mumbai from pune and collect my visa. my house was a 10 min ride from the station. and i started looking for an auto at 6.45 am. mind you it was a working day which meant i had my boss giving me the permission again. and then there was no auto to be found at all, and i would not reach in time if i walked all the way. then a safari stopped ahead of me, reversed till where i was walking, the window rolled down and the guy asked me where do you want to go? i noticed you are looking for an auto, and it seems urgent. i am going to the gym and can drop you further ahead. he did drop me all the way to the station, instead of taking the vehicle entrance, i got off at the pedestrian entrance which was on his way itself. i stepped into the train and it started moving. it also turned out that his family was also going to collect their visa later on in the day.
and the rest was history. i kept falling into trouble many times and kept meeting people all along my way who helped me just that one bit to get things going again. to all those good samaritans - keep up the good work! i hope i can pass on this good work too...
For details about the Spanish Visa / Schengen visa go to -
IVS VISA Application Center for Spain, Mumbai: http://www.ivs-spainvisa.com/mum-requireddocs.htm#Residence Visas for Studies (More Than 90 Days)
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