No one ever promised this would be easy. So, I have at this point been to the Indian Consulate so many times that I think I may have personally funded a small village somewhere if I could have given them the funds it cost me for parking! So, I decided to bike it instead. I biked with Kim from East Van to the Consulate on Cordova and Howe to hit the changover from intake to pickup after the lunch break at !pm, to find out that only the phone line is closed for 1 hour, pickup isn't until 3pm! Rule number 1, check things over in greater detail. So a quick bike to English Bay along the newly primed seawall for a schwarma, and then back by 3pm. As I patiently await my turn I am refreshed by the fact that things are actually moving quite quickly given the number of people in the room with twisted little pieces of paper in their sweaty hands with their numbers on them.
Finally my number is up and I quickly assume my rightful position at window number 6 with paper chit in hand. Suddenly, a middle aged caucasian business man appears to be busting in line ahead of me - he wants to ask a question about his "business visa" he has just picked up! I stay calm by telling myself he must have waited months to get this, thats what they told me it would take. He asks the clerk about renewal protocol and then off he goes. After a couple of minutes I am handed my passport with its newly added Indian Tourist Visa. When I leave we meet each other on the elevator and I pose the question as to how long he had to wait to get his visa. My mind does a mental flip flop when he replies - "oh, only a day". Why, oh why could I not get mine??? What kind of strange conspiracy is this? Business Man offers to look at my documents and in about 5 seconds flat finds the problem. One letter from India is asking for a 6yr Visa, and the other is asking for a 6 month visa. I knew that was there but "assumed" (note the brazen italics) this would not make a difference.
"Anything over 5 years requires AIDs testing, and many other hoops to jump through, always best to have it all matching!" retorts Business Man, "I get these all the time, it only takes a day!"..... can you feel the seething glare from my eyes?
Now that I am over the relief of actually having some kind of paper work to enter into India, I wear the kind of grimace on my face that reeks of half baked rotten fish when I think of this. Why did they not tell me at the consulate the exact problem, they only kept saying "it is something in what you have written", and "we cannot approve these " types of visas" All along when they said "types" what they really meant was 6 yr business visa, opposed to 6 month business visa, not just business visa. It was a simply rectified issue that I could have changed, re-submitted and had the "business visa". Rule number 1, check things over in greater detail, and, remember that things are always "different" when you least expect it. I have a feeling I may run into more of this somewhere along the way in the next 2 months.
No comments:
Post a Comment