Expanding horizons

Sounds farfetched? Well, think about it. Think back on the morning alarm at 4 a.m. The serpentine queue in the sweltering heat outside the consulates.

Being chivvied around by hectoring security guards. The interminable wait the US Consulate, of course, taking the cake as the most ignominious of the lot. By the time you reach the High Priestess of Esoterica in her air-conditioned chamber you8217;re a perspiring unprepossessing sight, your self-esteem at its lowest ebb. You8217;re almost tempted to gasp, quot;Skip the visa, can I have a chilled Heineken instead?quot; My own track record has always seemed to me to be particularly fraught. Last year I was so cheesed off by the time I reached the counter for a British visa, that a request to 8216;come again tomorrow with your income-tax returns8217; sounded to me like a naked display of imperialism.

I must add that I enjoyed seeing the man8217;s confounded face when I replied that we could forget the visa altogether, because I had no intention of coming back. And when he frostily informed me that he couldn8217;t return the visa money, I loved the air of reverse noblesse oblige in my dismissive murmur, quot;Oh, keep it if you need itacirc;euro;brvbar;quot; Childish? Well, perhaps. But I can tell you my sense of gleeful triumph outweighed any regret I might have nursed at abandoning my travel plans. Never again, I decided. No more trips to the West, unless I8217;m beseeched by the overlords themselves. Well, this year, it so happened that I was invited to the Festival of Poetry in Rome, sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It promised to be an uncomplicated procedure at the Consulate. After all, I was going as a bona fide official visitor. But sure enough a week before my departure, the fine print started emerging. Something about my passport not being valid for six months, as required. Something about an invitation letter to be faxed directly to the Consulate. And of course, the humiliating queue outside, clutching one8217;s documents with clammy hands 8211; and to top it all, an ochre-robed Italian 8216;sadhu8217; being permitted to sit on a chair while the rest of us hopped from one foot to the other! Third World karma, I thought bitterly, as I was turfed out of a chair by a security guard.

I mean, all consulates are probably partisan to their own citizens, but must the discrimination be so glaringly unsubtle? Here8217;s this Italian pilgrim wearing the apparel of another spiritual universe, and reaping the simultaneous benefits of Italian citizenship. And we can8217;t enter his country 8211; even when invited by his own government without being made to feel like desperate alms-gatherers, our faces pressed in supplication against unyielding glass windows. However, I was taken aback later when the sadhu came and apologised to me for what I had been through. quot;But don8217;t think it8217;s easy for me either,quot; he added. quot;I8217;ve been coming here for weeks to sort out my passport problems, and there8217;s no end in sight.quot; Well, maybe he8217;s right.

Maybe we8217;re all united against a common transcontinental enemy. Bureaucracy. The great leveller. After a particularly rewarding Italian sojourn, I8217;m in a more forgiving mood. I8217;m willing to forget about cultural politics. Forgive arrogant security guards. Even ochre-robed Italians. But I8217;m not sure I can forgive those official jagirdars who sit snugly ensconced in their seats of petty power. Not until my questions are answered, at any rate. What is it about people behind counters? How do they get that way? Are counters peculiar cultural artefacts that do strange things to people who sit behind them? Until I figure those out, Machu Pichu will have to wait!