After 4 years in the US, I finally decided to visit my motherland for a month. A lot of planning and preparation was put into this trip, but I still forgot to think about one major thing…….
My visa status changed in Oct 2017. Therefore, I wanted to do visa stamping during my visit to India. My previous visa had already expired in 2018. I scheduled the date and time for my visa interview in Mumbai and booked my flight tickets with British Airways.
I made sure that I had all the required documents with me for my visa interview as there was no way back for me if I had missed something. Finally, the day of my trip arrived and reached the DIA 3 hours in advance. I then went to a BA counter for check-in and that’s when it all started to go downhill.
The lady at the counter checked my passport and said “you don’t have a valid visa in your passport so can’t fly with BA today”. I thought this wasn’t real for a moment as I didn’t know that I would need a visa to visit my home country. I explained the situation to the BA representative and told her that I was going to India to get a visa. Although it was my mistake, the level of treatment that I received from BA was simply unacceptable.
I then tried calling BA to get their help on this issue, but I was put on hold for 30-40 mins. Time was running out and I needed to find a solution. I then talked with my cousin & parents and explained them this situation. Fortunately, I found an Air India flight from SFO to Delhi leaving from SFO next day. I went through all the steps on Air India’s website and made the payment. Since my laptop was connected to a public network, the internet speed wasn’t fast enough. The hourglass on the payment page kept on spinning for a while and I almost had my heart in my mouth. Finally, the payment went through and I got my ticket.
Getting to SFO was the next challenge. I started looking for flights online and found a UA flight to SFO. I quickly booked a ticket and thought that everything would go smoothly from there on. Around 30 mins before the boarding started, we heard the news that the flight was delayed due to some maintenance issue. 2 hours later, I finally boarded the plane. The plane didn’t even get to the runway and it was brought back to the gate. We were told that the maintenance issue that they had worked on had come back and they needed some time to fix the issue. 3 hours later at 2:10 AM in the morning, I finally left Denver for San Francisco.
I then went to the international terminal at the SFO airport and waited for Air India counters to open. The time was 4 AM and I still needed to kill 4 more hours to find out what’s going to happen with me. The AI counters finally opened at 8 AM and I was the first person in the check-in queue. The lady at the counter checked my passport, did some typing, took my check-in bags, and handed me my boarding pass. I took my boarding pass, put on my sunglasses, and sat in a chair close to the check-in counters. I was so happy and couldn’t hold back my emotions. I passed through security and then boarded the plane for Delhi.
I landed in Delhi after 15-16 hours. I completed immigration and quickly changed terminals to catch my next flight to Mumbai. Once I landed in Delhi, I felt more confident and thought that I would figure something out if something didn’t go according to my plans. My next flight was with Vistara airways. The overall service received from Vistara was topnotch. I landed in Mumbai 1:30 hours after boarding the plane. I collected my bags and then headed towards exit. My parents had come to the airport to pick me up and I was so happy to see them. We then got a cab and went home.
The joy of meeting the people I loved and cared about was far greater than all the pain I had been through…..