Landed in BOM on a DL codeshare ORD-ATL-CDG-BOM. Took me approx. 3.5 hours from touchdown to getting in the Uber.

Prior to departure: I took a PCR test on Sunday eve for a Wed afternoon departure. Received the report Monday afternoon. Noticed that the provider only put in a date and not the time. Figuring that this may not be acceptable, I ran for another test so that I could now be conclusively within the 72 hour window. Received that report on Tuesday afternoon and proceed to fill out the Air Suvidha form with all the vaccination details, etc. Clearly wrote that I was arriving from the US and made no mention of France as a transit point. I also noticed that the Air Suvidha FAQs were updated to indicate that a transit is not considered as coming from that at-risk country and a test is not needed (the language is typically Indian so it allows for all kinds of flexibility as usual) I printed out the FAQs as well for good measure.

At ORD - My docs were thoroughly verified, and the check-in agent asked me that I needed to fill out a form for transit for France. On visiting the French site, it was only for entries and exits into France. I told her this and she said you may encounter problems later. A quick scan online did not yield any forms to be filled out for transit passengers so this was clearly incorrect. Whatever DL system she was looking at was pointing her to some incorrect info. At the gate, the GA paged my name and asked to verify my docs once again (OCI, Covid test and Air Suvidha form)

At ATL - No issues and no one wanted to see any docs. I boarded with my boarding pass and passport.

At CDG - An agent walked down the line and checked that everyone had docs but didn't actually look through any of them. Flight was delayed by 15-20 mins as they needed to get some stuff onboard.

On the flight from CDG to BOM - The flight attendant distributed 3 forms that seemed like they needed to be filled out. However not everyone got them and they ran out. As it turned out later no one even asked for them so it was all a huge pointless exercise. I am assuming they were from some prior regulation before this one.

At BOM - The saga begins. Flight landed about 5 mins late. No big deal but for some reason they kept us in the plane for a good 15+ mins after arriving at the gate. On disembarking and walking down the corridor a guy was checking whether everyone had the Air Suvidha form with them before he would let us go further. After that there was a huge line up of people from all the various labs for registration and a line of booths for sample collection on the other side of the corridor. Since I had the FAQs printed out I walked past the booths and tried to move to the immigration hall that was after this testing area. No dice. An Air France guy told me everyone needed to be tested. By this time a number of folks from USA/Canada were there and all said that tests were not needed. Some confirmed that other people had just come in a few days ago on the same itinerary and were not tested since coming from USA/Canada. Then a Govt guy (not Airline) came over and went over the same thing - Maharashtra is different from Central Govt rules, rules changed yesterday as you were in flight and some other more creative "dog ate my homework" equivalent reasons. At this point I realized that there was no winning this one and I better get the test done.
I went to a registration counter where there was just one guy in front of me whereas others had 2-3 people in line. Another mistake. Apparently his wife and kids were standing further away. So I had to wait while the agent processed the paperwork for each of his kids. Also, he had some issues with his credit card and tried with multiple cards until one worked. I'm guessing his bank may have seen some charge and blocked it. I was feeling real good having INR cash since there is no currency conversion available in that area so if your credit or debit card gets declined for whatever reason, you are likely SOL.
Once I got registered, I was given a receipt for the payment, a consent form which I had to sign and a couple of stickers. I took all that paperwork and went across to get tested. A guy was profusely sweating in a hazmat suit taking samples. Now this is where it gets ridiculous. The guy barely tickled my nose with the nasal swab. I seriously wonder what sample he was able to acquire since he didnt even get into the sinus. There is no way in hell this was a proper test. On a positive note, I knew then that the test would definitely come back negative. While waiting for him to swab me, a guy walked into the booth to collect the samples and that's when I noticed that the samples were actually just the swab inside the folded consent form. No test tube to hold the swab so if the guy happened to bump into someone and drop his lot of swabs that would have produced some comedy gold. After the sample collection I walked to the immigration hall where a guy checked my receipt to confirm that I had paid my dues to Mr. Adani and contributed to him reaching his next billion.

Immigration had just 4 counters open at the time and the lines were pretty long. The rest of the counters were closed. I figured that it was to slow people down so that there wasn't too long a wait for the test results. Eventually they opened up more counters and there was the typical running of people trying to get ahead in another counter. I stayed put since I had reached further along but the processing was slow. Apparently, their fingerprint scanners are damp and sweaty, and you sort of have to clean them yourself and do multiple tries till they are captured. I'd estimate I was in the immigration line for a total of 20-30 mins.

At baggage claim, it turned out that Air France had pulled off a number of bags since the flight was full and one of my bags didn't arrive. More joy! However, the agents were prepared since AF likely communicated earlier and they had the incident reports half filled out so that did help. That whole process of declaring value, etc took another 30 mins or so. By then my test results had arrived on my email so I knew that once I wrapped this baggage paperwork, I was good to go. Since I had to be manually processed by customs, I was also able to bypass the huge line of people scanning their bags on the way out. Curious what they scan for these days. Back in the 2010s it was for laptops and God save you if you brought in more than one.

Good luck to anyone else who wants to make this trip. Some positive developments are that the cost of the Rapid PCR test has now dropped to INR 1975 from 4500 just a week or 2 ago and I wouldnt have needed to procure more cash if this had been done earlier. On the other hand, I think they will now use the reduced rates as a justification to test everyone now. Make the trip at your own risk.