After a two month slog through the visa application system, we are very happy to report that we have both been granted the visas we need to return to India! It was a long series of administrative mishaps involving BLS, the company to which the Indian consulate has outsourced its visa services.  Since the only job the Indian consulate has outsourced to this company is to make sure that all the necessary documents are present and stacked in the right order before they get submitted, it was confusing to repeatedly have our applications—which the BLS staff had checked over and approved—instantly rejected as incomplete at the consulate.

The lack of organization at the office was so extreme as to have been laughable, if so much of our lives didn’t depend on it. Their website required us to make an appointment beforehand, but on arriving at the office, everyone is given a number and waits for their turn regardless of previous appointment. We should have known it was a bad omen when we walked in the very first day and overheard a woman dressing down the manager for his office’s “sheer incompetence.” We had heard the horror stories about people receiving stranger’s passports in the mail instead of their own, or passports being lost altogether, but we hoped that we would be spare that kind of misfortune (my passport did end up lost at one point, but fortunately only for a few hours; it was found in the truck that ferried passports back and forth between BLS and the consulate).

What was laughable, even in the moment, was the bulletin board in the office which proudly displayed “appreciations”, letters of apparent praise written by those lucky customers who eventually had made it through the gauntlet. One letter, dated from a few months before, declared that the customer could see the company was in a sort of “panic”, but that he was confident that with more time and hard work, “you will become the kind of company you wish to be.” Another letter offered more back-handed praise to the company as a whole while marveling over the wonder of having found a single employee who was helpful: “Dear Mr. A., I would like to thank you first in trying to help me… In fact you came as a ray of hope for me otherwise I was lost between Travisa, BLS and Consulate General.  It is very hard to reach [the office], then getting somebody helpful like you is just a miracle.”

Comradery builds quickly among visa applicants in the office. One day several of us overheard a staff member asking someone to contact them if they had any further questions. “But how can I,” the woman countered, “when none of the numbers work, and you never answer your email?” “Yeah,” I chimed in, “None of those phone numbers are real.” “One of them is a fax machine!” another person shouted from the second row of chairs. Another day, a fellow applicant called me over and told me in conspiratorial tones that the excuse the staff had just made to me about the most recent problem with my visa was a lie; she knew it because she was here the day it happened. We all shared stories and bonded over recounting the absurdities of the application process. Everyone was in the same situation: no information on their visas, after weeks of waiting and multiple visits to the office.

In that environment, it wasn’t hard for my husband to lead a sort of quiet revolt on Christmas Eve, and have security called on him. When he found himself trying yet again to wrangle information out of an unhelpful staff, he insisted on waiting next to the manager’s desk instead of waiting “five more minutes”, again, after two hours of waiting, and his act of calm defiance inspired others to join him. They, too, had waited a long time with no effect.  Fortunately, by that time he had already made enough visits to the building to have befriended the amicable African immigrant who stood guard outside, so the whole matter came to an anticlimactic end after the security guard made his entrance, grinning, and politely invited him to take a seat.

One of the last times we visited the office, the woman at the information desk asked casually, “Did you ever make it to India?” I stared at her blankly, incredulous.  I suppose two months would have been enough time to do that, if we were so inclined to subject ourselves to this twice in as many months.  But did she not recall seeing us continuously during that time? A few minutes later one the staff said brightly, “Wow, you guys have spent so much time here it’s like you’ve become our family!” He said this without irony. I think I managed a weak smile.

Now, visas and tickets in hand, we’re thankful and relieved to be putting this season of waiting behind us and get back to the life we left behind in India. Uncertainty abounds there, too, but it takes on a different shade in the light of concrete hopes and plans.