Immigration blues

Life can be full of surprises and some of these can even turn out to be very pleasant ones. Last month at Geneva airport when I handed over my passport to the immigration officer, he started speaking in fluent Hindi. When I asked him how come, he said he had spent many years in ­Hindustan. From his accent I could say he was from Afghanistan. But I didn’t ask because that would have been rude. His friendliness was in stark contrast to the usually grim ways of immigration officials. It reflects the unfriendly immigration policies of all governments.

For instance, when I landed back in Delhi the man at the immigration counter asked me for my boarding card. I said I had forgotten it on the plane. Then I asked him why he needed it. He said he had to check the flight number. I told him the name of the airline that had just touched down. We could check from that, I said. He looked very taken back and said he needed to see the card. I then told him the flight number and that he had to let me in — into my own country. I had one of those airline chocolate bars in my pocket and I nearly gave it to him. After all, he was only a little older than my elder son and probably been on duty for 12 hours. I found out later that he was required to take down the flight number. No other country I have visited had this requirement. But they have other ways of intimidating you.

All in all I have never come across an immigration officer who is not grim. Even the man mentioned earlier who spoke Hindi might have been so friendly only because he was checking my passport on the way out. What’s there to check if you are leaving? But most countries do it anyway.

Then there are the British. Oh, the ­British! They are in a completely different class altogether. They want you to take a transit visa even if you are connecting to another flight. This has been a requirement for 20 years or so. In 2006, my wife, son and I were not allowed to board a British ­Airways flight from Delhi because we didn’t have this transit visa. No one had told us we needed one. We were merely passing through Heathrow to another flight to Paris where my brother was posted. And you know what? I was told this transit visa was required only from some people, but not from them too if they had a valid US visa. Basically, you have to pay the British government for the privilege of using a toilet at Heathrow. And it’s a lot of money it collects. So we decided never to visit Britain again.

But this year, a niece who has taken British citizenship persuaded us to visit. Since we love her dearly we said ok, and paid an arm and leg to get the two visas, inlcuding Schengen. That, I thought, should be enough. But I was wrong. At check-in at Geneva, our documents had to be “­verified”. Without that verification we wouldn’t get a boarding card. It’s a tedious process mainly because those doing the verification don’t use any modern technology. They are also pretty incompetent. They take down everything by hand very slowly. It’s completely unnecessary and designed to harass people from some countries. It is racism but the British will never admit it. Naturally.

I once asked an Indian foreign service officer why we didn’t retaliate via the excuse of reciprocity. Guess what the guy said. Atithi devo bhava.