There are 2 adjectives that can define a person's liking towards something - love and obsession. Before you jump to conclusions, I am talking of sport (here atleast). You can find people who love a sport, follow it, etc etc and you can also find people who are obsessed with a sport. These people take their love for the sport to another level altogether. While people who love a sport limit themselves to an extent, people obsessed with it have no self imposed limits. They take fandom to an entirely new level.
As far as I am concerned, I am obsessed with Kimi (not f1). Kimi has been in my mind for as long as I can remember (from 2001 I suppose), he has been in my thoughts for the same duration and I don’t see him getting out in the near future. Kimi has given me such ineffable emotions that can only be savored.
I am into a career that in my view will not take me beyond the borders of this country. In fact, I had accepted that as a given fact. I had committed myself to the fact that I would in all probability never leave this country. But things started to change as I entered my articles. That was when I actually applied for a passport (for our offsite which never happened). So I ended up with a passport of new use (in my opinion) as I would never (i.e., in the foreseeable future leave the country). But if only I knew what the future had in store for me!!
Kimi won the championship in 2007 and I was more desperate than ever in his admiration. And then there was a fact that he would not stay in f1 for long and that he would never take part in the Indian GP (which would supposedly happen in 2011). I had this one chance to exploit, one and only chance to ever get to meet him in person and that was in July 2008 – British GP (cause my brother lives in London). Given that my birthday was in July, my brother thought it would be great if our family made it to London in the month of July. Fate had it that my parents would not be able to do so and I was left to chose if I wanted to go or not. I would have said no but for Kimi….
I went to London and subsequently to Silverstone to watch Kimi but it would be simple to finish it in a sentence, as in reality what I had to go through for that was immense. I did not go to London because I had the money or the resources or the wealthy paunchy brother to spend on me, it was for Kimi (mainly). I would have left my attempts to go after the initial shake up if my trip was solely for entertainment, but I went on only because of the thrill of watching Kimi and a formula one race from 10 feet away…..that was what I had become in a decade of f1 viewing and 7 years of supporting Kimi – that was what Kimi had turned me into.
After months of discussion, I finally decided to go to the British GP in Silverstone. My Brother had booked the tickets in Feb 2008 itself but I had not applied for the visa because one of my friends had got it within a week and I was confident that it would be the same with me. So I applied with great confidence for a family visit visa on May 30th. And I used to check the status online. It was all going well and finally on the following Wednesday (June 4), the status online showed “processed application handed to courier”. I was happy beyond anything. Though the words could mean both a rejected and an approved application, I never really thought of my application being rejected. That was something that had no place even in the farthest corners of my mind. The very thought was out of question. I told of the same to everyone and even joked with them that the site had a poor choice of words as in my opinion they should change the language used above for accepted applications (as in my case). Then on Friday, June 6th, I got the letter from the embassy. They had rejected my application for a family visit visa (of the lowest duration) on grounds that they were not satisfied I would return back to India after the race.
You can imagine what was going through me at that time. I had just 3 weeks before my intended date of travel. I had office and all. I had every other thing to do and on top of that, after going through all the things, my visa was rejected. I had 2 options – give up and accept defeat, accept the fact that I would never meet Kimi or never go out of the country and on a more important note I was rejected a visa the first time ever I had applied OR go for an appeal and try and convince the visa officer that I would not try and settle in the UK. All that in 3 weeks or at a maximum 4 weeks as the race was on July 6th and it was 4 weeks away.
I went through all the possible sources of information and after all that I came to know that an appeal process would atleast 3 weeks if everything went well and smooth i.e., if my letter to the immigration officer was convincing enough and if he felt that he would not need to meet me personally (in Chennai) then he would overwrite his decision and issue a visa. That itself would take 3 weeks and another week for me to send back my passport and get it back (all lower end timelines). That would mean that I would get the visa on July 4th; and the race was on July 6th. It was an outside shot. A very slim probability and a very high monetary risk involved and it was up to me to decide if I wanted to take it. If I got the visa on July 4th, I could take a flight on July 5th and since one gains time while going to London from India, I would land on the night of July 5th in London giving me less than 12 hours before we would start off for Milton Keynes and Silverstone.
I took the chance. I had to. I didn’t want to be a rejected item. I decided to send my appeal papers to the embassy. Even if I didn’t get the visa in time, I wanted to get it. I didn’t want to lose this one. On June 12th, I was going to fax my papers to the Appellate Tribunal in London. It was then that an Angel (as I would call her) called me from the Embassy in Chennai telling me that if I sent the papers to London, it would take months for the appeal to be completed and that if I sent the papers to Chennai then the visa officer would look at them and decide on whether to send the same to London or not. So I sent them to Chennai. Since there was no facility to follow the progress online, I used to call them every alternate day for the updates. On July 1st, I had to make a very big decision. There was no word on my visa and though I had been kept the tickets blocked till then, given that there were only 3 days before the date of journey, there would no longer be a blocking facility. I had to either confirm the ticket or risk having no seat available on the flight. My brother told me to book the ticket on the last possible moment of departure – July 5th morning IST. I took the risk again. I asked my agent to book the ticket for the flight on July 5th, Saturday, the last possible moment for me to start in order to reach on time (Though my agent was hyper at the idea of me losing 50,000 bucks if my visa didn’t come in time, he booked it for me).
July 3rd, Judgement day. I called the embassy for the update and a familiar voice answered me (even they had got used to me calling regularly). She told me that my visa was approved and that they would be sending it to me on that day which meant I would get my visa on July 4th, one (rather half) day before the last possible moment of departure and my flight. I asked her if she was sure twice and even she couldn’t help laugh. You could sense the emotion, the delight, it was like Will Smith getting the job in the climax of Pursuit of Happyness. It was pure joy. Something that was least expected to happen had happened. I got through the appeal process in the least timeline. The visa officer was convinced with my argument and had overturned his decision. I was heading to Silverstone!!!
But there was still a problem, my leave. My manager was really good. I mean look at all the ifs and buts involved in the plan. I had told him about my position and that I would have to go for a couple of weeks if my visa gets approved. It was contingent, it was an outside chance and I was on a crunch engagement. But he gave me permission. Even my senior manager approved it. Everything that was supposed to happen had happened. Now I had to just stay at home on Friday July 4th, receive my visa, collect my ticket and fly away to meet Kimi!!!!! All that begins well ends well!!!
Did I meet Kimi?? Why dont you read on....!!!
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