Match point

All those who have been following my Pakistan saga, if you thought the story had ended, well... surprise surprise! :|

As I mentioned in the shortest post ever written at Sayeshaz, my visa got approved on Monday and I was supposed to pick up my passport from the Pakistan embassy at 4:30 pm today.

Now Prof Z's class was at 6:30 pm today, so I made some precise calculations according to which if I managed to pick up my passport by 4:45 pm or so, I'd just be able to make it to class in time.

I reached the Embassy at about 4:15 pm, and was shocked to see a dozen people in the waiting room, even though the collection counter hadn't opened yet. "Oh man! Hope the queue moves fast", I thought to myself and sat down.

At 4:30 pm, the guy at the reception came to the waiting room and said, "Counter is now open. Ladies first."

"Ladies first." Magical words to me at that point in time. One of the only times I did not react with a "Ladies kisko bola re? Bhai ko ladies bolta hai? Apun bhai hai bhai, bhai logon ke saath hi queue mein rahega!" I did not hesitate in taking advantage of the phrase which I thought was only an Indian thing.

There were only three "ladies" in the queue, so I was at the counter pretty soon. I picked up my passport and after checking the basic things - 10-day business visa, 90 days validity - I made a dash for the lifts. As I waited for the lifts, I happened to open that page again and nearly fell.

There was a little stamp on the page that said "Visa valid for Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi only".

Now I had two choices - I could either run back and try and sort it out, or I could rush to class and come back the next morning. But then I realised that if I had to go back to the Embassy one more time (today was my fifth visit), my mental health could suffer.

So I dashed back, and told the guy at the reception that I was going to conduct seminars in all the three cities and not just in Karachi. He pointed to the counter - which was now teeming with the "men" whose wrath the "ladies" had incurred by cutting the queue earlier. Obviously, they were nowhere close to letting me cut their queue. So the reception guy said, "Madam, you can wait in the waiting room."

Nahinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, not the waiting room again! I knew that if this wait was anything like that wait, even a cab could not get me to Prof Z's class in time. Ironical since I'd blogged only yesterday about how he doesn't let students in after 6:30 pm.

So I waited but luckily it was my turn soon. I told the guy at the counter my problem and he said, "You only indicated 'Karachi' in your form. See?" He pointed at my form.

"But your form asked for 'port of entry'. That's why I wrote Karachi. It did not ask which cities I intended to visit in Pakistan."

"You should have written all three." He said.

(I didn't even know they issued visas for specific cities. If I worked at the Indian High Comm na... and if he'd applied for an Indian visa na... I'd have given him a visa which would ONLY be to some godforsaken village where forget flights, even buses don't go, only bullock carts do. But this was no time to get angry.)

I knew that I could not go back to reapply. This whole thing had been both physically and mentally exhausting for me. My company would just find it simpler to replace me with a Singaporean because of the 'apply on monday, get visa on wednesday' rule that seemed to be applicable to Singaporeans. I felt like screaming a la Sunny Deol "Taaareeeekh pe taaareeeekh pe taaareeeekh!"

"Calm down, calm down, calm down." I told myself.

And suddenly out of nowhere, a barrage of urdu came tumbling out of my mouth. All this while I'd been speaking in English, but I think I had reached the limits of my patience. Aur jab Sash ko gussa aata hai, woh hindi/urdu bolti hai!

Sheesh, what all words I used - 'zikr' and all! If I hadn't been so upset, I'd be patting myself on my back.

Then I dunno what exactly happened, but the guy at the counter went inside, came out after a minute and handed me my passport. I looked at it and there was another stamp on it "Visa valid for Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi only".

Phew. Phew. And oh, did I mention PHEW???

There was no time for me to have dinner, so I decided to pack a burger from MOS and eat it during lesson break. As I waited at MOS burger while they prepared my order, I sent a quick sms to my Marketing Manager to tell him the good news and about my fight for Islamabad and Lahore, his reply came "Hope we can really go there." Apparently, the seminar organisers had warned him that we may have to cancel the trip because of some tension in the region.

Great. Jusssst what I needed at that point in my life. :|

It was like someone out there was using every power in the world to stop me from going to Pakistan.

Playing a game with me. Testing me. Round after round after round. Of course, I had my own set of invisible powers backing me up here so I could go through each round victorious.

Round 1
Invisible power - Creates possibility of parents freaking out and not granting permission to go
Sayesha - Manages to convince parents by telling them how good a move this is for her career.

Round 2
Invisible power - Causes problems in obtaining visa
Sayesha - Manages to obtain visa

Round 3
Invisible power - Causes issuance of visa for only one of the cities
Sayesha - Argues her way out in urdu and gets the stamp for all cities

Whoever you are, playing this little game with me and enjoying it so much, I have something to say to you.

You know what? It's not funny anymore.

It's hilarious.

And I'm not kidding. Really.

That day, I almost cried. Today, I laughed. I think I am done with all the fluctuating emotions I have experienced in the last few days. I can't afford to devote any more of my time, energy and emotions to this. And so I started laughing at myself, at all this. I have been laughing about this ever since I walked out of the Embassy's glass doors.

And now I know for sure that no matter what happens, I'll be fine. Even if I can't go, I have the Pakistan visa on my passport to show off to my grandkids, you see.

So that's it. You do what you can, and I will do what I can. And we'll see who wins. And frankly speaking, I am fully aware that you have the upper hand. But I won't give up without a fight.

All right buddy, so what's comin' up next?