Visa Madness
Early this morning I rose from my too short sleep to schlep my way downtown. This is a daily grind for most people, and I felt blessed in my foggy, grumpy state that it isn't something I have to do. Being a writer certainly has its downsides, which I will get into shortly, but the ability to set your own hours makes up for almost all of them. So despite the humid haze of hot still air and smog that was hanging thick over Yonge Street, I was mostly happy.
My joy was only added to by the fact that I was on my way to get my tourist Visa for India. I had a bag full of all the forms for me and Mo, and she was my grumpy morning traveling companion as we wandered down the listless street and into the surprisingly quiet subway. We got to the Indian Consulate General in good time and in good spirits.
Neither of these things would last.
It started with the guy at the desk near the door, a small man with a wicked mustache who looked much like the villain in a Bollywood picture I watched last week. He spoke perhaps 5 words of English, and dealt with it by speaking to every in very, very slow Hindi -- the way Americans speak to those who don't speak English and assume that if they talk slow enough in the language natural to mankind, the unenlightened barbarians will be able to recall their dim ancestral memories of a time when they too spoke the language of the Lord Jesus Christ and understand the communication. He also would not speak with you unless he was seated in his chair and his chair was behind his desk. This was a problem, you see, as he didn't have any of the forms he needed to have, and so would get up and run around the office trying to find them. And the whole time he would not respond to anything you said or did, because until he was behind the desk and in the chair, the world did not exist. Not even his fellow consulate officials were immune to this, and once he ran across the room, leaped into his chair, and then shouted an urgent message across the room to a woman who had asked him a question all the way back when he was standing next to her.
As soon as we got in the door the first thing he made us do was take a number. Only then did he ask us what we were there for, and upon finding out (laboriously) that we were not Indian Nationals (because I look so like a Tamil) he made us take a different number. We then went to wait in line, and realized that the numbers we'd been given (E57 and E58) were going to be some time away, as the sign was currently on B02. So we settled in for a long wait, and several hundred people settled in around us as well.
You may recall that I said it was hot and humid this morning. There was also no air conditioning in the room, and several hundred grumpy people waiting in a line. Within a half hour the temperature was over 100 degrees, and the humidity was that of a swamp in the still time of year when the water turns fetid. So we would stay for the next 3 hours.
In the midst of our wait, punctuated by Mo and I taking turns reading the second book of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, I realized I had the wrong forms. So I went up front to get the right ones, only to be given another number, go through the drill of only being spoken to when Mr. Official is sitting, given another number, and finally getting the forms. I discarded all my unneeded numbers, and wondered if that would cause a problem.
Oh how foolish I was. The folks at the desk knew that there were too many numbers being given out, and they had a remarkable way of dealing with it. They would call for 4 to 6 numbers at once, despite their only being one window open. Sometimes no one would go up, and the officials would take a break, other times 20 people would go up all at once and have a tussle over who got served. Never was I so glad that I'm well over 6 feet and 250lbs, that I have a killer 1000 yard stare, and that I used to play highschool football.
After body-checking my way to the head of the line, I then got a crash course in culture shock. You see, it seems that the Indian Consulate doesn't think that being a writer is a job. It is more in the nature of being a birthday clown. When the woman looked at my form she asked what I did, when "writer" was clear as day on the sheet. I explained that I wrote books. She then asked me if I worked with children, or did shows. I said no, I write books. She then went into the back room and got her supervisor, who came out and asked me what I did. I told him I was a writer. So he gave me a blank sheet of paper and told me to write down the names of some things I had written. Luckily I've written books enough that I could fill out most of the sheet with things that were obviously books. At this point the boss accepted that I wrote things, though he still asked me twice if I had another job, and if I worked with parties.
While this was going on Mo was being given her own run-around. The forms she had submitted, which had been given to her by work from the Indian government directly, were not good enough for them. So they had her get new forms and fill them all out from scratch. These forms, for those interested, were exactly the same as the forms that she'd brought in. Then she filled them out wrong, and by "wrong" I mean filled them in exactly by the numbers. You are not, as it turns out, supposed to actually put all the information the forms ask for in the places where it asks for it. So Mo had to fill out the forms a third time, and this time do it right, and by right I mean wrong in the correct way.
Just as my forms were being accepted the lady next to me, whom had gotten to the front of the line in one of the moments when only her number had been called, realized she didn't have change. Of course the Consulate had no change either. So I gave her the four dollars she needed and promptly made a friend for life. She was from Rajastan originally and was taking her daughter home to meet the extended family. She told me that I should get used to "all of this" with a sweep of her hand across the sweltering room and the current tussel to get to the front of the line because "it will only be more crowded and hotter when you get there."
While our new friend went to get change, despite me telling her a dozen times she didn't need to pay me back, we waited for another 3 hours for Mo's Visa. As she's going on business, she gets same day service. As I'm a rodeo clown, I have to wait a week. My friend brought me change, and a bottle of water, for which I was ready to do puja. I played peek-a-boo with a cute little Sikh girl until her mother decided I was evil and dragged her to hide behind two Hell's Angels (they were going to Agra, wanting to see the Taj Mahal) who were apparently less frightening than I.
When we finally get up to the front to get Mo's Visa, they do not have it. In three hours they had managed to lose her passport. It took them 30 minutes to find it. Then they lost her pictures, and took another 30 minutes to find them. I went looking for a bathroom and on the way back was given 3 new numbers to wait in line with. At this point I must confess I lost a bit of patience, and proceded to stand at the counter and ask the lady there every 2 minutes and 30 seconds if they had my wife's visa done yet. I do not know if it is a national specialty, but the look of pure vexed hatred she gave me by the fifth time I asked was enough to kill all of my sperm in a single second. But finally my annoying persistence paid off, and visa in hand Mo and I headed for home.
But on the way she broke her two temporary crowns, both fell out of her mouth and onto the street. A stray dog paused to sniff them while Mo cursed and went running for a phone. So she is now having emergency dental surgery done, and I am at home in my lovely air conditioning.
Now I have to go, I have a party to write for.
My joy was only added to by the fact that I was on my way to get my tourist Visa for India. I had a bag full of all the forms for me and Mo, and she was my grumpy morning traveling companion as we wandered down the listless street and into the surprisingly quiet subway. We got to the Indian Consulate General in good time and in good spirits.
Neither of these things would last.
It started with the guy at the desk near the door, a small man with a wicked mustache who looked much like the villain in a Bollywood picture I watched last week. He spoke perhaps 5 words of English, and dealt with it by speaking to every in very, very slow Hindi -- the way Americans speak to those who don't speak English and assume that if they talk slow enough in the language natural to mankind, the unenlightened barbarians will be able to recall their dim ancestral memories of a time when they too spoke the language of the Lord Jesus Christ and understand the communication. He also would not speak with you unless he was seated in his chair and his chair was behind his desk. This was a problem, you see, as he didn't have any of the forms he needed to have, and so would get up and run around the office trying to find them. And the whole time he would not respond to anything you said or did, because until he was behind the desk and in the chair, the world did not exist. Not even his fellow consulate officials were immune to this, and once he ran across the room, leaped into his chair, and then shouted an urgent message across the room to a woman who had asked him a question all the way back when he was standing next to her.
As soon as we got in the door the first thing he made us do was take a number. Only then did he ask us what we were there for, and upon finding out (laboriously) that we were not Indian Nationals (because I look so like a Tamil) he made us take a different number. We then went to wait in line, and realized that the numbers we'd been given (E57 and E58) were going to be some time away, as the sign was currently on B02. So we settled in for a long wait, and several hundred people settled in around us as well.
You may recall that I said it was hot and humid this morning. There was also no air conditioning in the room, and several hundred grumpy people waiting in a line. Within a half hour the temperature was over 100 degrees, and the humidity was that of a swamp in the still time of year when the water turns fetid. So we would stay for the next 3 hours.
In the midst of our wait, punctuated by Mo and I taking turns reading the second book of the Lone Wolf and Cub series, I realized I had the wrong forms. So I went up front to get the right ones, only to be given another number, go through the drill of only being spoken to when Mr. Official is sitting, given another number, and finally getting the forms. I discarded all my unneeded numbers, and wondered if that would cause a problem.
Oh how foolish I was. The folks at the desk knew that there were too many numbers being given out, and they had a remarkable way of dealing with it. They would call for 4 to 6 numbers at once, despite their only being one window open. Sometimes no one would go up, and the officials would take a break, other times 20 people would go up all at once and have a tussle over who got served. Never was I so glad that I'm well over 6 feet and 250lbs, that I have a killer 1000 yard stare, and that I used to play highschool football.
After body-checking my way to the head of the line, I then got a crash course in culture shock. You see, it seems that the Indian Consulate doesn't think that being a writer is a job. It is more in the nature of being a birthday clown. When the woman looked at my form she asked what I did, when "writer" was clear as day on the sheet. I explained that I wrote books. She then asked me if I worked with children, or did shows. I said no, I write books. She then went into the back room and got her supervisor, who came out and asked me what I did. I told him I was a writer. So he gave me a blank sheet of paper and told me to write down the names of some things I had written. Luckily I've written books enough that I could fill out most of the sheet with things that were obviously books. At this point the boss accepted that I wrote things, though he still asked me twice if I had another job, and if I worked with parties.
While this was going on Mo was being given her own run-around. The forms she had submitted, which had been given to her by work from the Indian government directly, were not good enough for them. So they had her get new forms and fill them all out from scratch. These forms, for those interested, were exactly the same as the forms that she'd brought in. Then she filled them out wrong, and by "wrong" I mean filled them in exactly by the numbers. You are not, as it turns out, supposed to actually put all the information the forms ask for in the places where it asks for it. So Mo had to fill out the forms a third time, and this time do it right, and by right I mean wrong in the correct way.
Just as my forms were being accepted the lady next to me, whom had gotten to the front of the line in one of the moments when only her number had been called, realized she didn't have change. Of course the Consulate had no change either. So I gave her the four dollars she needed and promptly made a friend for life. She was from Rajastan originally and was taking her daughter home to meet the extended family. She told me that I should get used to "all of this" with a sweep of her hand across the sweltering room and the current tussel to get to the front of the line because "it will only be more crowded and hotter when you get there."
While our new friend went to get change, despite me telling her a dozen times she didn't need to pay me back, we waited for another 3 hours for Mo's Visa. As she's going on business, she gets same day service. As I'm a rodeo clown, I have to wait a week. My friend brought me change, and a bottle of water, for which I was ready to do puja. I played peek-a-boo with a cute little Sikh girl until her mother decided I was evil and dragged her to hide behind two Hell's Angels (they were going to Agra, wanting to see the Taj Mahal) who were apparently less frightening than I.
When we finally get up to the front to get Mo's Visa, they do not have it. In three hours they had managed to lose her passport. It took them 30 minutes to find it. Then they lost her pictures, and took another 30 minutes to find them. I went looking for a bathroom and on the way back was given 3 new numbers to wait in line with. At this point I must confess I lost a bit of patience, and proceded to stand at the counter and ask the lady there every 2 minutes and 30 seconds if they had my wife's visa done yet. I do not know if it is a national specialty, but the look of pure vexed hatred she gave me by the fifth time I asked was enough to kill all of my sperm in a single second. But finally my annoying persistence paid off, and visa in hand Mo and I headed for home.
But on the way she broke her two temporary crowns, both fell out of her mouth and onto the street. A stray dog paused to sniff them while Mo cursed and went running for a phone. So she is now having emergency dental surgery done, and I am at home in my lovely air conditioning.
Now I have to go, I have a party to write for.
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