Somehow he doesn't sound too happy... ;) ________________________________ From: [email protected] Reply-to: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: 10/25/2010 2:04:15 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time Subj: [CCM-L] Looks pretty good for me coming to Chennai (OT)
Not that the Indian Embassy didn't try their hardest to blow it. Here's the complete story in a nutshell in case any of you ever have to deal with them again. Their visa application isn't just strict, it's calculated to insure as few visitors as possible actually go to India. It is complex enough that many would by visitors would abandon it quickly. They want birth certificates which few Americans actually have. Most have hospital certificates of live birth which isn't the same thing and is unacceptable. And as Darwin found out, they are very difficult to find. Then the actual application is something like five pages long, designed like an application to be a nuclear engineer and requiring simply useless information that's time and labor intensive to figure out. Then the cost is ridiculous. Almost a hundred dollars, plus another $50 to air bill overnight coming and going. It took hours to get this work done. Then when the application arrived to them on 10/10/10, I got an e-mail back that I couldn't go to a two day medical meeting on a tourist visa. Had to be a one year "Business Visa", which cost US$100 more and had to be accompanied by letters from the meeting organizers and my Department stating that I was a real doctor, never had any history of terrorist activities, had never been anywhere near Pakistan, didn't know anyone in Pakistan and I had money to get out of India so I wouldn't land on their welfare. The formats of the original letters were not exactly right and they had to be resubmitted in the exact language the Indians wanted. That took two days. Now I should add that one of the persons at the Visa office told me when I complained, that I was lucky I honestly told them I was going to a meeting. Most meeting-goers don't mention that fact on applications for reasons which should now be obvious. So whatever passes for the Immigration service in India is on the lookout for a bunch of foreigners congregating in a city all of a sudden, then looks to see what's going on. If they start sniffing around and find out these people are going to a meeting and only have tourist visas, they cancel the visas and these guys cannot get out of the country until they pony up for a business visa, which could take days and lots of new service/penalty fees. Then they wrote back and said they thought the Indian Government might be involved in this meeting, and if so, I would need yet another kind of visa having to do with government business (more money and more support letters). I told them this meeting was private and not associated with the government. They diplomatically said they didn't believe me and would check. That took two days before they couldn't find any government influence. Then they noticed that my passport didn't have the required two contiguous empty pages (mentioned in the fine print). The visa is on half of one page. So they overnighted it back to me. Every office that officially adds new pages has a 3 to 6 week wait. But the NYC office will do it in one day if hand delivered. So their "sister service" had someone walk over to the passport office in New York City (a few blocks) for placement of extra pages and pick it up the next day (US$250.00). Then the "Sister service" refused to overnight or hand deliver the passport back to the Indian Passport Office because "they lose things", so they overnighted it back to me and I overnighted it back to the Indians next day. (US$27.00 per overnight for each of these mailings). They got it and finally sent if to the Indian Consulate for placement of the visa. The same Consulate that doesn't answer their phone and if they do puts you on endless hold then hangs up. The Embassy dicked around with it for a few days then sent it back. So Last Friday, 10/22/10, I got a message from Federal Express that it was to be shipped overnight and delivered here today Monday. OK. Then at 3 pm last Friday I happen to check the tracking number to find that the shipment of the airbill had been cancelled by them. So I called and was told that the visa had not been actually signed by the Embassy person and was not valid. So it had to go back to the Consulate Friday. But it didn't go back Friday, it went back this morning Monday. My plane leaves Wednesday morning early so if it doesn't arrive tomorrow Tuesday, that's the end of this story. So I called this morning to plead with them to please consider this an emergency. An expensive non-refundable, non-transferrable business class seat was on the line and I needed to be at this meeting to speak. They said they were "pretty sure" the embassy could get the visa back in time to Fed Ex it here by tomorrow. Maybe someone call the Embassy to get a human on the line, explain the situation and make sure someone deals with it? "Well, it's hard to get them by phone". So at 2:30 pm today, Monday. I called again to inquire if they had received the passport/visa. Every time you call you speak to a different person who knows nothing about anything. I got a guy that listened to this incredible story with amazement. Looked up my number and all it said on their computer was "waiting for visa from Consulate". Said he would promise to look into it and call me back which he did to let me know it might be in their mail bag arriving at 4 pm today. If so, it would Fed Ex to me by the deadline of 6 pm to arrive here in time tomorrow. We'll see if it happens. I want to complain to someone in authority about this nightmare that is costing me now somewhere in the range of US$700.00 so far, much of in expensive overnight mail, just to get the visa on my passport. I have been told by someone here (his exact words)......"Don't waste your time. There are so many complaints about the Indian Consulate that they fill up every wastebasket in the facility". -- David Crippen, MD, FCCM Professor Co-Director: Neurovascular Intensive Care Unit University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Department of Critical Care Medicine Administrative assistant: Barb Shields (412) 647 3587. International Internet Critical Care group: http://www.ccm-l.org The CODES: http://www.codesrockers.net "If you touch the Internet you are a damned soul, for while the Indians were wrong about photography stealing your soul, they would have been right on point if they were taking about the Internet. How sweet their lives are and will remain so long as they do not partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil". Michael G. Darwin _______________________________________________ CCM-L mailing list [email protected] https://list.pitt.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccm-l ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
