Immigrant Visa

I had a successfull interview in the Mumbai consulate. As every body else mentioned it was a breeze. Let me describe the details.

Hotel:

We stayed in Royal Castle in August kranti marg. It was Rs1500 room. I will recommend this room to anybody who has a kid. Reason being it is much more spacious than any other room in the hotel and gives lot of space for the kids to move around. There are three other types for 1200/900/600. The 1200 is little smaller and the the 900/600 are unlivable. They are very small compared to what we got used to in US. The hotel staff is very curteous. TIPS of 10/20 Rs in a day keeps them pretty happy. There are two staff who are almost there all the time Pandey-ji and Bablu. Both of them are very helpful and soft spoken. Day time usually Mr Tiwari is there along with the owner Mr Deepak. Deepak has visited US and talks well and guides you. Mr Tiwari has a smile on his face all the time.

Donot expect (like me & my wife) that the hotel will be in a nice place and will have porch etc. This hotel is on busy street (40feet wide) and has lots and lots of traffic with jams now and then. This hotel is on the first floor. Inside the hotel it is clean but the streets are dirtier than I thought. By the way any other hotel and streets other than a 3/4/5 star hotels are similar.

There are two restaurents. Hotel Shiv sagar towards Kemps Corner(2 minutes) is decent and lot of crowd at night. Another one east down hill towards the grant road station is Hotel Krishna on the circle. Both of them are Pure veg managed by Karnataka Udupi guys. Their sambhar and chutney with idly vada is very delicious.

It is advisable to take taxi if you are travelling to VT/Churchgate (bus nu 122). It will cost you between 30-40 bucks. If you are travellig north then train is faster and better. Do not travel in train between 8-10 am towards vt/church gate and 5-7.30 pm towards borivali/andheri/kalyan as these are peak hours for commuters.
Medicals:

I did my medicals in Hinduja. I think people coming for CP are unnecessarily worried and come to India 4-5 days in advance(like I did) I think it is not needed. If you are doing medicals in Hinduja then you need only one day. It takes 2.30 hrs in the morning and 2 hrs in the afternoon(worst case). You have to be there at 7.00 am and fill out the registeration form (new patient). You have to pay 1400 for adults and 800 for kids. Then go to the first floor and wait for your name to be called. The reception will guide you to the wing you need to go to. They will very carefully fill out the paperwork (they do not want to screw up the docs, so be patient). The nurse will then draw some blood. The attender will take you to the next building for chest X-ray. Here also you might have to wait. After the X-ray you are all set to go. They will tell you the time to return for physical, usually it will be after 1.30pm. Come back and sit comfortably till your name is called. Doctor will do a formal physical which will take 10 minutes and then you are all set to collect the reports. IT IS ALL DONE BY 4.30 PM same day. I will advise every body to go to Hinduja, so save the precious VACATION time.

By the way one has to report to the OPD which is on the east side of the road. think the west side is for in patient. This check up is "executive health check" and I did not see any 'executive'ness in this.
it took Rs70 and 1/2 hr from Royal castle. Hotel Shobha (take a left at east building gate and left again near the petrol bunk, walk 10 minutes) is also a nice place in Mahim for breakfast and lunch on the day of your medical. Again this is veg and Udupi guy's.
Interview:

We reached there at 8.00 am. PLEASE DONOT goto RAJ Pavalion. Go straight to gate 15 minutes before the interview and inform them your interview time and MENTION that you are there for IMMIGRANT VISA. The day I went there were 600-700 NIV guy's and it was a crazy rush. People from Raj pavalion were flowing in till 1.30pm.

You have to pay the apps fee $260 per application. I talked to cashier and he told me that we can get $$ DD from US PAYABLE in US (NOT India). This is for people who do not have time in India before the IV interview. Getting DD is not difficult. The forign banks charge a lot, try to get from National banks, there are plenty of them nearby.

There were three people collecting the documents One young guy(very smart and polite) and two ladies one old and one young (pretty). The young guy called me and took my packet 4. He returned 230-II and 9003 prepared by attorney. They need the one they sent us. We hand filled it before we left US. He DID NOT look at any of my originals. Out of curiousity I asked him and he said " what we need is I-797 and the papers your lawyer sent. They are complete and by looking at you I can make out every thing is OK". That was a surprise to my wife as we had spent quite some time checking and cross checking whether we have all the documents in place. He takes the $260 cash receipt. To give an example how simple EB cases are, it was taking 20-30 minutes for family based cases and it took me 5 minutes to submit my documents. I do not know whether every body's experience is same as mine. I was the only EB case on 3rd July.

After 1/2 hr my name was called. A young white guy was there are the counter with smiling young Indian lady. He asked us to raise our right hand and then we took the oath. He asked whether my second son is American, to which I said yes. He asked me
1. Which company do I work for
2. What do I do there (I wonder whether he understood what I said I do). I guess it is just a formality.

Then he said "OK", the lady started filling the blue slip. He asked to pay the money turned and walked away. THAT's IT. I was through.

It took me 2 hrs to pay the fees due to the heavy NIV rush that day.

I came back at 4.30 to collect the IV and the security said I was late. I was supposed be there at 3.00pm. He gave me a shock when he said IV officers are gone. Then he went inside and came back and took me inside. The same documents guy was there and gave me the IV's.

I have tried to explain as much as possible. If anyone of you have any questions please feel free to ask me.

All the best to the guys/gals waiting for IV interview. DO NOT get tensed. If your case is clean then no problems at all.

Murali