Our minds; if they get any narrower, they might vanish..
An interesting thing happened today.
A colleague of mine, whom I’ve never met before, dropped into my cube to ask me if I could think of any workaround to a request by the Belgium Consulate for a personal interview, in response to a tourist visa that he and his fiancée had applied for. Given the recession, have I gotten into the business of handing out friendly advices and travel tips you ask? Most definitely not. Though I can’t imagine why it might not in fact be a lucrative venture. I should probably think about it. I know now that there is demand for it.
Take this case for example. The person in question is planning on a honeymoon in Switzerland. Not surprisingly, he wants to do it right after his wedding. That means that he has to have their passports stamped well in advance, unless he wants to spend his wedding day waiting by the door for the courier. Our chap does what seems quite reasonable; gets in touch with an agent who tells him to pick Belgium as his port of entry, plans out his trip, makes all the necessary bookings, puts together photographs from their engagement and invitation cards of the wedding; and applies for the visa.
Now,inspite of the fact that he applied to the Belgium consulate which according to his agent is the most lenient one of all, our man gets a call from the consulate for a personal interview. Enter problems. Traditional Indian values and culture dictate that one must not indulge in any interaction whatsoever with members of one’s opposite sex, leave along an out station trip, until a sacred black beaded string has not been tied around the lady’s neck by the gentleman. This partially has also to do with the fact that there are not too many Indian movies in which unwed characters take off on trips and return without astounding reproductive feats that would put even the best infertility clinic to shame.
I suggested to our friend that he make the trip along with the lady and her mom, or probably his mom, or potentially even the entire family. After all, such a thing as a visit to the Belgium consulate in Mumbai for the approval of a honeymoon visa does need the entire family to be present. My heart went out to him when he said that even that was frowned upon in his culture.
The only feasible option, he felt, was to postpone all his bookings and to reapply for the visa after the sacred string had been tied. I can vouch for the loss he is going to incur in terms of unbelievably heavy cancellation fees, leave alone the headache of re planning the entire thing.
Really.. Was all of this necessary? How much are we really paying for the stringent rules we follow in the name of culture? How many opportunities are we losing out on?
Like I said, if our minds got any narrower, they might vanish.. poof!
Category: Uncategorized 9 comments »
August 24th, 2010 at 9:23 am
Ha! You should have asked him to do the honeymoon in India someplace and ask him to take both their parents along. After holding them back for so many years, I am sure if you leave them alone with all the freedom, they wont know what to do :)
August 24th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Yeah. Belgium Belgaum … what’s the difference? A mere vowel.
August 24th, 2010 at 10:15 am
I don’t think its that bad. But seriously, the amount of time we spend thinking about how to please the society around us, if we could put that time and effort into more useful things, we could really go places.
August 24th, 2010 at 11:46 am
Awesome rule… :) I wonder why Indian movies didnt pick up this dilemma..! I will use it when I make my movie.. :P
August 24th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
I think the guy should have waited till his marriage. Honeymoon VISAa are issued only to married couple. Engagement photos or wedding invitation card is not a guarantee that wedding will go through. So any parent will be worried to acceed to such demands. Ofcourse bith of them could have travelled separately for VISA interview and that would have probably solved the problem.
August 25th, 2010 at 1:51 am
Wow, what kind of backward thinking family does he belong to? I come from a fairly orthodox familial background and this kind of thing doesn’t even happen in my family these days.
August 25th, 2010 at 5:37 am
Technically its called a tourist visa. there is nothing really like a honeymoon visa. so you don’t have to be legally married. any two people can get it. and if there is evidence that they are going to be married, then it builds a stronger case for the consulate to believe that they are indeed going for honeymoon and not to plant a bomb. Thats about all that is required from the engagement photos or marriage certificate, evidence that their reason to go to Belgium is valid. I think for that purpose, engagement photos and invitations serve the purpose just as much as marriage certificates do.
And as far as them traveling separately is concerned, I did suggest that but apparently the consulate expects them to attend the interview together, understandably. How exactly do you convince the Belgium consulate that two people who are getting married shortly are not allowed to travel together? After all, such things do not exactly happen in all countries.
And about parents being worried, the guy was advised to take the parents or one parent along. If even that is not good enough, I’m not really sure what is.
August 25th, 2010 at 5:41 am
Oh by the way, to add to that, living in has been legalized. So, you can infact go for a honeymoon if you are living in. Infact, i came to know recently that when you go for a name change on the passport, you can declare your status as anything from ‘single’, to ‘married’, to ‘living in’ to ‘separated but not divorced’ to ‘divorced but living in’ etc :) Given that, they are clearly decoupling things like ‘honeymoon’ and ‘name change’ which are personal decisions, to more legally holding things like marriage. So even if there was something called a honeymoon visa, it should be perfectly possible legally to get one without being married.
August 25th, 2010 at 5:51 am
Legalized? Yes. Accepted? No. Chances of being accepted? Not very soon I’m afraid :-)
I shudder to think what will happen to the poor guy if he tries to acquire a visa stating single/living-in when in fact he is about to be married :P