This is what America is for me. Till this day I believe that the only thing that America is giving to rest of the world is the Great American Dream and in return the whole world lands into this nation and paves the roads there.
Recently, I visited the US consulate in Mumbai. I saw a long never ending queue of Indians standing in front of the gate in the pursuit of the American Dream. But I was shocked to see the way these people were treated. And mind you, these are the people who surely will be helping US both in the short and long term, which is in sorry and a desperate economic condition.
I’ll first explain my previous statement before I go further. The major categories of the people are as follows:
Work Visas: These people work for US companies (directly as an employee or through some domestic company which works for US corporate) thus they are directly helping the bottom lines of the industries and corporate there.
Tourist Visa: Tourism is the industry which most countries look at for revenue as well as employment as the tourists are the cash rich people who are willing to spend large sums on products and services provided by the host country. Also in the times of economic holocausts like these, all the tourists are valued in gold for the hosts.
Dependent Visas: This is group of people who might not be helping in revenue generation for the country but in the times of liquidity crunch and declined demands, they are the people who tend to push the demand in the positive direction.
Now, as I hope you will agree with me that any applicant who is willing to go to US is indeed helping the US economy, I will proceed further to tell you how these people treat Indian Nationals (Residents of the world’s second fastest economy, and the country whose nationals have been creating huge chunk of wealth in US year after year) in front of their consulate.
The friends and relatives were asked to stand on the other end of the road. They were not even allowed to stand across the road (it is a 50 feet road) from the consulate building due to security reasons. Imagine the kind of national risk an empty handed and sun baked Indian will be for the US citizens, even when he is standing good 50 feet from the 20 feet high walls. It actually is quite a serious matter as he can create a detailed layout of the building just by looking through a small door which is packed with a whole battalion of security personals.
If you are the one used to AC lounges or even a working fan over your head, US consulate is not the place you would ever want to be at. All the Visa hopefuls were asked to stand along the wall of the consulate under the sun god who was coming down with full force (which happens for some 10-11 months a year). They do not provide even a tin-shade for the waiting people. Another thing which is a serious “No-No” is carrying any kind of liquid with you including water. So the US people do test you on your strength by making you stand in heat without water for hours and see if you are worth being a part of the American Dream.
Still the biggest surprise was not who these US guys were treating us but the way we Indians were behaving like door mats to them. In my nearly 2 hour’s long stay at that place, I didn’t see even one person complaining about the hardships or atrocities they were facing. On the contrary everyone was happy either for themselves or for the relatives who got their visas.
This is how we Indians are, this is what long years of colonization has done to us. We tend to respect people who treat us unequally and look down upon us. Our sense of respect and devotion towards the people increases manifolds if the person standing in front of us is white skinned. There are millions of stories of hate crimes against Indians in most of the White dominated countries but still we are more than willing to go there and work for them. We leave our country, family, friends and home to enter the white world. To go to the people who kick-punch or assault us. But still we are happy. Indeed we are way more loyal to our father land (Uncle Sam) than we can ever be to our motherland.
Hail the Father Land... Hail Uncle Sam... Long Live USA...