Wednesday, July 15, 2009

VISA cannot be changed ! ?

For those of you who have heard that China and India are going to pass us up soon and be ruling the world... you do not have to worry. This is not possible within the next 50 years at least, more likely to be 100. We had a day planned to get Julies tourist visa changed to a student visa. We have all the necessary paperwork and a letter from the university saying she will be admitted as soon as she is issued a student visa.

So we plan to first go to the Home Ministry Affairs office, where they will give you the application, and then provide you with a sealed envelope with their decision, which you will take to another office miles away, the FRRO Foreign Registry whatever, then we should be getting the visa application processed. Here's what happens... we hire a driver for the day, and get to the Home Ministry office promptly at 10:00, as applications are only accepted between 10:00 and 12:00 each day. The driver drops us at the guarded gate, and we walk in, the guard shak guard waves us over to a table where 3 other guards wave us into the reception office. Once in here, we wait in the line for the reception desk, where the "reception officer" asks us what are we there for, who are you? to me, and to see Julies paperwork and passport... all looks good, so he pecks into his keyboard for a minute, and then scrinch, scrinch, scrinch, scrinch, he tears a fresh green form off the dot matrix printer, with her name, and other information from her passport. He then rubber stamps the form with great applomb, and puts his initial on it. This form, from the Department of Reception, allows us to go back out to the guard that waved us into reception, and after searching our bags, waves us to the main building to the visa processing office, which we find on the 2nd floor (they call it first).

So far so good, we get upstairs to the office, where we wait in line to talk to the 2 women at the reception desk. One of them asks to see the green form, then hands us two photocopied applications which Julie needs to fill out in duplicate. The forms ask the same information as is already printed on the reception form, name, passport number, etc, with the additional question, VISA APPLIED FOR. She fills them out and checks Student, then gets back in the line to turn them in. By now it's 10:30 and already about 30 people are waiting for "the interview". The interviewers, however, don't start until 11:30... they are in the building, maybe, doing who knows what, but they won't start giving interviews until then. Once you complete your interview, then you must come back after 5:00pm, when they dispense the stamped and sealed envelopes that give the disposition of your case, and also the place you are supposed to take it to. So you cannot go to the other place today in any case, that will take at least another day. The fellow sitting next to us has been here 5 times before and he hopes today is his lucky day.

One interviewer starts doing interviews about 11:20, and Julie is the 2nd one called! Wahooo! It is a short interview, and I see her shaking her head and saying, you mean there's no other way? The interviewer shakes his head... she comes walking out... I have to get the visa processed in person, in my home country! So we have a valid passport and valid tourist visa to visit India, but must leave India, travel to the US, to apply in person to get the student visa, with the letter from the university showing their intention to offer her admittance if she has a student visa.

This is so crazy we are stunned... beyond belief. We ask the driver to take us to the market. Meanwhile, we're invited to the Rotary Club meeting tonight, and we don't have the address yet... so Julie calls Ashok her Delhi sponsor to find out about that and let him know what's just happened. It's at the Habitat Center, the big International arts and meeting place in the center of Delhi.. kind of like the Kennedy Center is to Washington DC, and it's formal attire, black suite, maroon tie preferred! And by the way, your dad is also invited..... I have khaki's, a "washed" (what they call used here) white shirt, and my scruffy brown suede shoes I've been wearing out here in Delhi they are filthy! Julie planned to wear a white shirt and khaki's as well.

So we are back to Lajpat Nagar market and do some decent shopping in 2 hrs we have clothes, my new black pants have been altered to fit, and I have a fresh haircut from the street barber who gave me the most thorough haircut, shave, head rub, face massage, neck and shoulder massage, back alignment, and neck crack I have ever had.

We get back to the room and try on our clothes and Julie' pants are a size too small... she told that guy 32 and he have her 30... oh is she steamed... and it's naptime we have a late night coming we must be there for the reception at 7:30 and dinner is 9:30... then the program?

While Julie naps I flag down a tuk-tuk in the pouring rain (did I mention the monsoons have started?) it's nice and cooler now... go back to the store slipping like crazy on the marble sidewalks now soaked in my slick new camel leather bottomed sandals. A thousand apologies from the guy at JCD department store that committed the screw-up... I said you are lucky Julie didn't come back here... she was too mad! They made good and there was a 1 rupee adjustment in the price for the larger ones... then I pick up a black belt and grab my favorite dish coconut rice at Sai Sarovar, with a veg chow mein to go and back on a tuk-tuk to East of Kailash. We pass the scene of the metro distaster where the column colapsed and the cranes got all messed up and the 200 tonnes of concrete and metal are all there they are cutting everything apart and removing it piece by piece... no shortage of bystanders either. So now we have 45 minutes to get ready before the driver shows up to take us to the habitat center for the big district meeting of Rotary International... more tomorrow... we don't know if Julie will have to come home to get a new visa or not... hard to imagine the government of India does not have the ability in it's capital city to issue a student visa, but we'll find out and report soon!

I am due to fly back next Thursday, Julie the following Friday, we set it up that way because we expected she would need more time to find out when she will finish school next year and change her return flight... anyway... things are very fluid here and my tour of India is not looking like it will happen we will likely be trying to get this thing straightened out here in one line or another begging for official receptionists and the like to stamp our forms and please help us find some sanity here!

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