Preferential Passports

My nephew, Boo has an American passport. So does every kid born in the US I guess. Last night we were out for dinner with some of our relatives. Of the 4 of them, 2 had Australian passports one, an American one and one an Indian one. They were describing how there was minimal scrutiny for the 3 'foreign' passports as opposed to the one Indian one. This is not surprising. I must thank my stars for having been pretty fortunate in obtaining whatever visas I've wanted though my 25 years of travelling. However I know of so many people who've not had as much luck, who've had a variety of visas rejected for seemingly no reason at all. First, I find it preposterous that holders of a certain passport require visas for certain countries as opposed to others. Like if you hold an American passport you probably don't need visas for short stays for a hundred countries that I would. The world's immigration rules have got to be the same for people across all countries. Who's to say that the "privileged" ones aren't there to stay for a variety of reasons. (I write this, assuming that most countries fear that they will be immigrated into on a permanent basis by the person entering their country). I could be wrong. There could be a lot more funda behind this than I could possibly know. However, I just don't see how being "born" in a country and thus bestowed that passport exonerates you from possible illegalities/or whatever it is that is of concern. Shouldn't the rules be same for one and all? I am not suggesting that everyone sit and increase the administrative paperwork by ensuring that everyone else gets a visa etc for everything. Like the European union has a pretty cool concept of the Schengen visa which means that with a visa to any one of the countries under the Schengen treaty, you are welcome to enter and leave any other country under the treaty. There has to be some umbrella like this for other countries as well, which makes it easier. But it does irk me that the American junta for instance can override any Schengen requirement and are free to enter anyways. Why preferential treatment? Because these are the so-called "developed nations"? So what if our country is "developing"? In what administrative way does it make us less reliable or less-trustworthy? In fact I suppose their fear is that educated as us lot is from these countries we are likely to "stay" in theirs for the "opportunites" perceived there. I fail to see the whole point, I guess. If there's something that I am entirely missing, someone illuminate me.

Does anyone else have any opinions on this? Let's talk about it.

Visa woes

With the impending wedding to the France-settled groom, the only thing remaining was to get the visa... Sure I have an admission letter.. a grant.. all the funds... the insurance and every conceivable thing on earth. So you would think getting the visa would be a piece of cake, right? Wrong. Its a whole week since I actively started the visa formalities and 20 days since I first did. And finally just yesterday I collected my passport with the visa splashed across its pages. My experience with Alliance Francais forced me to rechristen it as Alachal Francais... I have been there up and down a trillion times.. ok 4 times to be precise and spent no less than 6 hours each visit. Mr S there turned out to be real helpful but even then the stupid online form/system left a lot to be desired. It was forever before I could get the No Objection Certificate - something I believed trivial/unnecessary before I realized that the time I was investing at AF was essentially the time I would be saving at the consulate. And so Pa and I finally set off on Tuesday to Pondicherry where the consulate was situated. Having been told by many sources that the lines start forming at wee hours of the morning, we left the night before and got to a hotel in the hopes of finding ourselves at the start of the line early next morning.

5:00 AM - We were at the locked doors of the consulate, the first ones at the helm of the non-existant line only to be informed by the guard that no person in their right mind was going to come before 7:45AM to the consulate doors that opened at 8:00AM.

7:00 AM- The guard was right.. There wasn't an ee-kaka (housefly/crow) around.. It was the perfect situation to feed the rumbling stomach at Adyar Anand Bhavan.. And off we went.. A sumptuous breakfast later... there were still no people.

8:00 AM- There were 4 of us - the same 4 who made multiple trips to AF.. The consulate doors opened. I was first in and first out - all under 1 minute.. And the result? Visa approved. But pick up the passport the next day.

Nonsense. Multiple Pondy trips and a couple of sleepless nights later, I have my passport with the visa stamped.

A week to go. I am unlikely to blog until afterward.