Your Indian Host

I got back to my apartment as soon as humanly possible and logged into my expeditor site, following the links to the Indian Visa application. I input the Temporary Application ID I had so carefully saved and… Nothing.

So, I painstakingly re-entered the 15 position TAID I had clipped earlier with my Snipping Tool, checking and double checking against the snip, and… Nothing.

So, I reset the page and double-triple-deleted the TAID field… and so slowly and carefully entered the 15 letters and numbers, and… Nothing. 

It dawned on me that this was one of those times that my hyper-sensitivity uber-anal-ity to making plans and following steps, checking-and-re-checking, was overwhelmed by a simple human error of my own making. Apparently in my OCD-fueled panic over the requirement for actual travel dates, I'd forgotten to save the application for which I had already worked through Page 1 and most of Page 2. Damn, damn, damn! Nothing to do but start over, it was only two pages after all, and I still have my research notes on how to fill out the form.

At the top of the application is a new TAID, in case you are a new applicant, so I deleted my old application info which was saved off into OneNote, captured the new TAID, and re-started the app. I breezed through page 1 -- do not put in your social or your DL number. I skated through the spam filter to page 2. I filled it out all the way to the end, including my new, valid, and confirmed travel dates, and moved on confidently to page 3.

"Name, full address (including zip code) and phone number of your Indian host."

What? What does a tourist staying in a hotel do??? But that's a question for another day.

It was 6:30 pm EST, so my actual Indian host was asleep half a world away. And as luck would have it Lek would be moving from corporate housing into a more permanent apartment -- address yet to be determined -- between now and my visit. Add to this the pressure of really needing to get this application off to my expeditor for processing, and I reached the only logical conclusion that using Lek as my official-for-Visa-purposes-host was not going to work.

So, I sent a text and an email off to Lax: "Need name, full address including zip code, and phone number of Indian host in order to complete the Visa application. Please help. Help!"

And me and my OCD waited.