Paula has done a lot of legwork to acquire visas to India, Bhutan and Saudi Arabia for our upcoming adventure. To get my visa, we had a tougher time than becoming president of the condo association. We had to actually cough up a real, live birth certificate for me - something which I did not have and Paula had some difficulty in getting for me. So you can imagine our celebration when the documents finally arrived.
I always thought the U.S.A. must be a hard place to enter - but India seems just as difficult or perhaps even more difficult. As many people that come from India to eventually take money home, you would think that the Indian government would be happy to have Americans come to India and actually spend money.
There can be only a few explanations all of which are seriously flawed in one way or another. For example, India is surrounded by hostile countries - and this is especially evident after last year's attacks in Mumbai. Since India is predominantly Hindu - and therefore quite peaceful - they are a natural target of aggression. So they most have to be quite cautious. then again, India may be doing the politically correct thing by making it hard for everybody to get a visa - even pacifists like myself.
A second possibility - and the one I think is most likely - is that they are so inbred with British bureaucracy that they can't help but perpetuate the red-tape mindlessly. This seems a consistent explanation with many stories I've heard from Indian citizens with whom I've worked over the years. Now I'm not criticizing by any means but Prabhakar Pendse - who is travelling with us and is a native born Indian and a world renowned surgeon - still has not been able to get his visa. So I can only surmise that they are either treating him unequally or are quite inept.
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