The little black book

Republic of Visas

My wife has a knack for pertinent observations while I occupy myself with observations that are either pointless or slightly poignant. Besides, she has a natural advantage over me since she is new here. I am just old here in the United States. One of her pertinent observations included how Indians here were obsessed over visa statuses. After being introduced, one of them would approach the visa status question right after the name and location were discussed. Based on the answer, it would either ensure a further discussion on the repercussions of such a visa status or an unwanted remark on how they stood with regards to their place in the United States immigration hold.

I am excited with the prospect of visiting Stuttgart and Budapest again. The workshop contents were fascinating and access to all that sparkling water had me genuinely kicked. My preparation for a visitor visa began in earnest after finding out that my recently expired German residence card would buy me no favors. I was now just an Indian Passport that needed a Schengen Visa to visit.

To be honest, not long ago, before I left for Germany, I also spoke endlessly of letters and numbers that denoted Visa statuses. I transitioned from a F1 student to a H1-B resident alien. That was, in essence, my identity within this country and her borders. This also had plenty implications in my mobility as a person, my purchasing ability and to some extent my ability to take career related risks. I know now that it is easy to hide behind the crippling nature of a work permit to explain one’s inability to excel. But, at the very best, it is only a plausible excuse.

With seven weeks to spare I felt confident that getting a visa wouldn’t be an ordeal. Until of course the German consulate didn’t have a free appointment until 6 weeks out after which they suggested leaving a week for processing times. This meant that I could no longer go that route. Instead I decided to change my travel plan to visit Hungary first and apply at that consulate.

The black Indian passport is the ultimate truth. It is what defines you at critical junctions. It could result in a last minute cancelled ticket for a Job interview. It ensures you can’t just visit home even if you wish it. It puts you in the same pile of immigrants that come in thousands that render any queues infinite in length. The passport booklet contains that power of constraints that are plainly visible to see for those who decide to wander away from home.

At the Hungarian embassy, I encountered another wrinkle in the saga. The way my trip was planned out I was spending equal number of days in Hungary and Germany. So I was asked to go to the German embassy knowing fully well that they would refuse it since Germany wasn’t my port of entry in Europe. I sat in the Hungarian embassy, evaluated my options, called my admin, and changed my ticket so that I would end up spending one more night in Hungary to tip the balance and satisfy a rhetoric.

You can’t choose your family or the place of birth. Your family is malleable to an extent. The passport isn’t. I know of many who changed their citizenship’s primarily to unshackle the constraints of an Indian passport. While I used to judge them handily I am beginning to see a certain amount of reasoning in the whole matter. In fact, I wish I could decouple who I am as a citizen and what travel document I possess. I am an Indian but that has so little to do with the black passport booklet.

The visa was applied. They would post it back after ten days still giving me a buffer of a few days before my flight actually took off. That should have been it but USPS wanted to make matters trickier. The passport made its way from Chicago to within 50 miles of my house but got sent to a central distribution facility even further away indicating a logistic failure.

And that brings me to my sense of entitlement or rather the lack of it. Being Indian does not allow me to travel internationally spontaneously. I can’t just flip burgers with an engineering background in the United States. I need a lead time for everything and more thought into my travel logistics than any American or a European. Despite my education, my vocation and my experience, I am limited by a place of birth, what I proudly call home. By a factor over which I had no control over.

I spend half of Friday chasing my passport by making way into a distribution facility, speaking with the plant manager, escalating the matter so that the package could be rerouted to Ann Arbor. On Saturday, after a machine error, I drove back to canton to find a package on the delivery truck if I had to. The passport arrived on Saturday evening and I flew out Monday.

In essence, this world is not fair. The entitlement that comes with a passport is not the same. It is an obvious that I should be allowed to state because I frequently get to experience it first hand and others do not.