Frustrating British Babus

Our former President Dr Abdul Kalam had it right when he said 'Only Power respects Power'. I wish we had a string of such men, in the higher echelons of government, so that WE could hold the tufts of British. We will get nowhere with an arbitrary person like the current one we have down there. But as they say, 'better late than never', this most recent frustration with the British Babus has reinforced my desire to 'eventually' start working for to rebuild the great society that once existed in the subcontinent.

This week, I made the mistake of falsely evaluating my convenience while planning my first trip back home, after some 17 months. After much procrastination and dilly-dallying with various travel agents, I made an online booking with British Airways. The British are among the few who still require a transit visa even to walk around and catch the next flight entirely within the international area of their airports. With an eye on some extra bucks, however, they had waived that requirements, among others, for Indians who had a EU format Residence Permit.

The Belgians, as it turned out, were yet to implement it after 6 years of new, common format. Meaning that I had to go back to our old colonial masters and beg for a Transit Visa.

It is amazing how they are indifferent while framing the questionnaire for the Visa application. There need such arbitrary and 'unimaginable' details as the date and place of birth of my parents. I didn't know even mine until a couple of years ago! And I don't know if there are some tricks attached, but they don't mind asking the same question once from the front and again from the back. 'Have you traveled to the UK in the past TEN YEARS?'... 'Have you ever applied for a Visa to UK in the last TEN YEARS?',.... We know that you are filling an application for Transit visa, but still, 'Why are you travelling through the UK?'. Hell, my convenience calculations went awry!

And then there are a series of questions crimes I have committed - why should they bother if I have committed any TRAFFIC offence for a TRANSIT VISA application. And of course, about the most recent hypocrisy: Terrorism. I'm so frustrated I don't remember the exact wordings, but they were roughly like this:
'Have you ever been associated with a terrorist organisation?'...'Do you have any views that support the cause of Terrorism and encourage others to indulge in such activities?'...
What do they expect???

It was exactly the people who previously occupied those(babu) chairs who did all the spoilsport in the past few centuries (don't get me wrong, people become very different once they are in babu chairs. I'm not talking about the ordinary English here). These guys entered with one purpose on the face and achieved an altogether different one as time went by. They roamed around the world, putting each society (although I must admit people of my own section of the Indian society had got more breathing space under them, than under the previous rulers) on the back-foot while building a strong foundation back home. I am dismayed at this kind of fighting and fighting-back.

But in a different sense, we Indians do need to fight-back, or rather, come-back. For long, there has been a view in the west that Indians lived miserable lives and have miserable brains. And most still have such views, which is why, they can't fathom the mark that Indian Industry has made (in IT and steel, particularly) on the world level. Having said that, I do realise our society was indeed miserable, because of many self-inflicted and outsider-inflicted acts. We can't wait for another few centuries before we can start correcting ourselves big-time. This century is the last chance.

I wish our ancestors had denied any BUSINESS VISA to the European merchant-sailors in the ages gone-by.