Westward Ho!
Jan. 17th, 2008 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringOff to the Indies today. Or at least the Indian High Commission, a Hindu temple in the middle of the diplomatic district. The sprawling US Embassy on one side, the new Turkish to the other, Parliament House rising angular beyond.
Hot today. I leave my car in a tiny carpark, the windows cranked down a centimetre in the hope that the hot air will leave at the top and cold air from the Antarctic will swirl in from below. Across the stub of a street and through a pedestrian gate left open beside the formal one, only opened for limousines and ceremonial elephants.
Here is a harried woman, beggng me for money. She is plainly Indian, but she has the same visa form in her hand that I have in mine, and she has not read the instructions on exact money. I swap her twenty for two fives and a ten. I'm a taxidriver, and people treat me as a source of convenient change. Chuck fifties at me and see how many I can take before I start to grumble.
She smiles, a half hour to buy a stick of chewing gum avoided, and I follow her happy form into the cool of the embassy. A vast room for cocktails and saris, a few bored folk sitting sparsely in great white leather sofas, and a young clerk behind a counter in a corner.
My new friend for life hands over the visa application fee, receives a slip of paper in return and exits, her smile as warm as summer in Simla. The clerk looks at me, bored after a morning of the same transactions, and I hand over two forms, two unsmiling passport photos, a stack of itinerary copies, and a cheerful grin.
She's unmoved. "One hundred and fifty dollars," she says, and I pass over three fifties, fresh from last night's shift.
A receipt for the passports, come back next week, and the delights of India are mine for March!
Our cruise liner visits Kochi and Mumbai on the way to Southampton, and India is the only stop requiring a visa. Egypt, of course, but we can get one on landing. India is in love with paperwork and we must go through due process. I'm glad that I live where the embassies are a short drive away, and am not required to go through the express post and registered mail transactions that folk in Woop Woop must bother the post office over.
I spot a box or two of yellow envelopes behind the clerk's desk as she picks up her paperback. Her afternoon's work, I dare say, and likely the contents will keep the high commission afloat of champagne for a week or so.
Outside, the sun beats down on the dry Indian plains before I climb into my car, the glaciers of the high Himalayas retreated back into the dashboard vents.
Hot today. I leave my car in a tiny carpark, the windows cranked down a centimetre in the hope that the hot air will leave at the top and cold air from the Antarctic will swirl in from below. Across the stub of a street and through a pedestrian gate left open beside the formal one, only opened for limousines and ceremonial elephants.
Here is a harried woman, beggng me for money. She is plainly Indian, but she has the same visa form in her hand that I have in mine, and she has not read the instructions on exact money. I swap her twenty for two fives and a ten. I'm a taxidriver, and people treat me as a source of convenient change. Chuck fifties at me and see how many I can take before I start to grumble.
She smiles, a half hour to buy a stick of chewing gum avoided, and I follow her happy form into the cool of the embassy. A vast room for cocktails and saris, a few bored folk sitting sparsely in great white leather sofas, and a young clerk behind a counter in a corner.
My new friend for life hands over the visa application fee, receives a slip of paper in return and exits, her smile as warm as summer in Simla. The clerk looks at me, bored after a morning of the same transactions, and I hand over two forms, two unsmiling passport photos, a stack of itinerary copies, and a cheerful grin.
She's unmoved. "One hundred and fifty dollars," she says, and I pass over three fifties, fresh from last night's shift.
A receipt for the passports, come back next week, and the delights of India are mine for March!
Our cruise liner visits Kochi and Mumbai on the way to Southampton, and India is the only stop requiring a visa. Egypt, of course, but we can get one on landing. India is in love with paperwork and we must go through due process. I'm glad that I live where the embassies are a short drive away, and am not required to go through the express post and registered mail transactions that folk in Woop Woop must bother the post office over.
I spot a box or two of yellow envelopes behind the clerk's desk as she picks up her paperback. Her afternoon's work, I dare say, and likely the contents will keep the high commission afloat of champagne for a week or so.
Outside, the sun beats down on the dry Indian plains before I climb into my car, the glaciers of the high Himalayas retreated back into the dashboard vents.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-17 09:27 am (UTC)