i may please be issued the appropriate visa..?

part of the reason i started this whole blog project is because i am spending a month in india, leaving jan. 1st (20 days!), and i wanted to keep everyone updated on my adventures while i was there. as it happens, just getting everything in order to go there at all has been an adventure in and of itself, mostly thanks to my frienemies at the visa outsourcing agency. (i hope they don't read my blog.)

in an attempt to be organized and on-the-ball (rare, but known to happen), i applied for a six-month visa about a month ago. six months would more than cover the time i would be in india and, since the application asks what day you will arrive in india, i assumed whoever was in charge would time the beginning and end of my visa appropriately. (you know what my dad says about the word "assume"? it makes an ass out of u and me. amen to that.) my visa (and passport) came back safely and speedily, but the visa unexplicably expired one day before i was scheduled to leave india. a problem. i called the agency and was told that the visa starts the day it is stamped at the consulate, and the only way to extend it was to reapply. or risk chilling in india with an expired visa. which seemed like a less-than-advisable idea.

then, upon more careful examination (and with the help of my mom), i realized that the visa i had been issued was not, in fact, the six-month visa for which i had applied at all, but was a visa that only lasted for three months, which is why it didn't cover the length of my stay. back on the phone i learned that if you are a journalist (which i am), and say on your application that you are a journalist (which i did, because i have ethics like that) even if you are not going to india for journalistic purposes (which i am not), the government will only issue you a three-month visa. end of story. and what a ridiculous story it is. so, back to reapplying it was. but a very nice man at the agency told me that if i sent my application to his attention, he would turn it around for me in a day and i would have it by the end of the week.

one week later? nothing. so, i hop onto the nifty "tracking" feature on the agency web site and discover that my application is on hold and can't be processed, which no one has bothered to tell me and which could have, i imagine, gone on indefinitely before i got clued in. by this point i am thinking there must be an easier way to get to india. by this point i am also thinking that i need reinforcements as my messages to my little friend are going unreturned. (i really think he was screening me.) so i called my friend (and former roommate) reed who, in addition to being a seasoned india traveler, can also lay the smack-down. he called for me (and yelled, or in his words, "got a little heated") and finally determined that i needed to fill out an "underwriting letter," claiming i had no intentions of doing any sort of journalistic work while i am in india. (another good source told me, after all this, that the easiest thing to do is just lie about your profession. for the record, next time i go to india, i will be a homemaker.) why i didn't have to fill out this letter the first time around is still a mystery. but, the letter is hilarious, and is really the reason for this post. here it is, in all its english-as-a-second-language glory.

"sir, i hereby solemnly declare that my visit to india the period of the visa is solely for tourist purpose. during this period, i shall not engage in any journalistic activities in india including any commercial/journalistic/photography/filming work. i may please be issued the appropriate visa. yours faithfully."

genius. i had to list my profession as "journalist" and then circle yes or no to indicate whether or not i was a journalist. just for good measure. if it wasn't so funny, i would be crying right now.

and the best part is, the letter is a totally ghetto mimeograph that looks like it was originally typed on an old smith-corona word processor. do you remember those? anyway, here is the proof. as soon as i faxed this bad boy in, i got an e-mail that my application was being processed. like it or not, india, here i come!