Step 2: Learning...

Step wise guide to going to a new country:

Step 1 was Apply for the Visa

Step 2 is a rather broad one: Learn. 

To be able to truly enjoy yourself and your experiences, become a part of the experience itself. And what better to know a country and its culture than to actually learn one of the languages spoken in the country. Remember this will not just help you communicate with the locals and exchange pleasantries, ask for directions, except their invitations for food and drinks but this will also help you actually understand their culture, their movies, their music, their views political and personal. And later in life if you ever happen to make a few friends from that country outside that country, say you meet some French kids in New York, it will be a wonderful surprise for them to hear their language from a stranger's mouth and even though they will tease you ample about your prononciation in the public but in the heart you will be able to share a strong bond of language.

I did try to do this unsuccessfully in China but apart from learning the names of my favorite foods i am afraid i couldn't learn much. But hey i tried, and most of my friends usually get happy when they see me enjoying a hot chinese meal at their table with chopsticks. There is an interesting story behinds chopsticks too but thats for some other time if havent already mentioned it in my previous post. (And i am proud to say, i am not too bad at Mahjong either). 

So, back to learning language. Well so since i have always wanted to learn a third language, i thought, hey, what better than French, will even look good on my resume. 

So i ordered a learn french in 10 days fast track course and guess what i can speak a little french, unfortunately i cant write, as it was a listening course focusing more on prononciation than on the actual grammar or spellings and thats how you learn the best, babies learn that way (which you will know if you read my Master's thesis ;)) There's a little cheap advertisement.

Well, the road has been paved but it is still to be seen how far i will go on it. I can ask for directions, follow directions (thats a joke for people who know me and how gloriously dumb i am at 'following directions')... I have been watching a lot of French movies, BBC's french class videos, i have even started listening to french music of late. Stella Artois is my favorite beer of all times so i am already accepted in Belgium i hope. 

I do try to look up for pronunciation of names of places that i will be visiting and food i would like to eat. We dont have much time left, 20 more days to go so my friend and i have divided the learning part, he is learning the currency conversion and driving on the right side of the road. I will be lucky enough to just learn to drive by then, i am working very hard on it, just today i started driving on the main roads of Canfield, but boy, it is an unnerving experience. But as they say, 'Anything for the countries we love...' right?

So thats step 2. 

Step 3 is booking tickets and i have a long story about that too... as i did not have a pleasant experience with a website called M@#$my@#$#... so stay tuned for a ranting session.

Visa woes...

Visa Woes, Visa Woes...

I wish I could write a poetry on the topic, but since I am only good with prose, 

I think I will merely pen down a post on my foreign consulate lows...

Ok, that was horrible but i am a romantic poet i write of love and this is serious ranting that i am about to do here.

Who ever created the visa system probably hated us travelers, the world citizens who love to spread communal harmony, exchange culture and intellect, the free spirits who like to travel beyond borders to another land and discover the hospitality of the other countries beside theirs.
Why this sudden outburst... Nah my friends this is anything but sudden.
So in my last port i mentioned my plans to go touring Europe, which got made late October last year. But then why am i going in April. Well, that 4 lettered word V.I.S.A... those of you who know me, might know that i was a student till year before last and got a job in January 2011. Now for an international citizen that means- 'Change of visa status'. And it is a long and confusing transition. Well i wont get into all that,  but to give you a glimpse of how painful the visa process is i will tell you guys of what ensued after i decided to go to France. And only 1 visa could grant us entry to all the Schengen countries, my friend and i decided to make it a France, Belgium, Switzerland, Netherlands trip (plus minus whatever we could cover in 10 days).
Well first, i knew i will need a visa but then i found that since i dont have a valid US stamp on my passport i cant just go to Europe and come back to the States, i will have to stop by India and get my stamping done to return back to my job. That said, i had to combine my Euro trip with my India trip.
But things were not to end there. i later found out that Schengen visa required the first time travelers to be personally present for the interview. So no agents, no middle men. Since i live in the great state of Ohio, there is no consulate general's office here. Apparently everybody is scared that the midwest might rub on them (i dont blame them). So it had to be a trip to Chicago on a weekday. And not only did i have to take a day off but i also had to endure a 10 hr journey to and from Chicago and through a place called Cleveland (only 2nd to Detroit in crime rate).
Ok, anything for Europe... But then i was told that i could not have a Schengen visa from the French consulate as i dint have a valid US visa stamp (where did that come from). Germans told me, i should get a US visa interview date before i get theirs (but that was not possible as you can only book a US visa interview date 10 days before the interview). And since you can only acquire the Schengen visa 15 days prior to your travel date and not later... it became mathematically impossible for me to  make the 2 appointments...
I was loosing my patience, and time was running out, i dint want to postpone the trip any further. So in my desperation i reached out one last country on my to-visit list. Belgium.
And it was then when all hope was lost, this nice lady from the Belgian consulate replied to my desperate plea for help with 'Send us your documents and we will let you know if you should travel all the way to Chicago and bother us for an interview'.
And there... i did take that hazardous trip to Chicago, through Cleveland, got lost :-/ (i can get lost anywhere, ironic isn't it) ran across the downtown in the morning rush hour in my high heeled shoes (and made my sweet friend Lydia run along in her high heeled shoes) to get to Wrigley's building for my Schengen visa interview. Panting and dizzy i reached the counter. The lady was friendly, she even got my papers sorted out. And after a few questions and sifting of papers finally i got a green signal... and that my friends is How I got my Schengen visa. (Did you see that - How I met your mother reference... Ah never mind...)
For 10 whole days :-/
Visa woes did I say??

I am not making a political statement here, nor am i talking about the work visa, student visa, the H1s, J1s, F1s and Lord knows how many other alpha-numeric stamps of paper on our blue, maroon and green little identification booklets. All i wanted was a plain and simple 'Travelers Visa'. That something for which i apply when i want to visit a friend in a far off land, or i want to bungee jump off a tower 1000 ft high and come back to my normal dragging life, or when i am fascinated by the multitude of colorful HD videos of a spring fest or beer fest happening in some wonderland and i just want to be a part of it.

I am not going to any of these countries with malice, nor am i going there to disgrace them or make enemies. Instead i am going there because i am curious about their culture, because i want to experience them, make a few friends for life, be one of them for a few moments and capture them for life. 

This new place will be a part of my being for life!!! (Wow, i just got a head rush)

So here is a question to all those foreign consulates, including my own country's, albeit all the above why do i have to go through so much scrutiny, why do i have to pay such a hefty fee, take a days leave, travel to a different city (most of the times, because the consulates aren't located in every town corner) and then stand in a long queue and wait for my turn? And why am i asked for 10 different 10 page long documents for being a lover of your country?

I understand the times we live in are not very happy ones and that all this scrutiny is sometimes necessary and the worst bit is i cant even claim to have a solution for the problem. But should we increase this animosity and shadows of darkness the world is living under by restricting the travelers? By making the visa process so tedious that it becomes a deterrent? Till when will we keep mending walls crying good fences make good neighbors? And asking for visas to cross those self same fences? Till when???

Upcoming....

Ok , so this happened 2 days after my birthday last year, i was talking to an old friend, Shivaprashanth and suddenly for some reason unknown i told him what i really wanted to do for my birthday. Travel... "I would love to go to Paris", i said. And when you say this to a friend sitting miles away on a different continent the expected reply is... "Hmmm..." but he went "Ok, so lets go..." :)

We talked about it for 20 more minutes, how great it will be and how exciting and how much fun and that was it,... i was excited and he was serious. 

Four days in La Ville-Lumière - La Paris...
In next few hours i experienced 10000 feelings, a part me was so excited that it coud hardly breath and the other 10 parts of me went crazy at the thought of such a sudden turn of events. "It is not real, it will pass.","How do i think i will manage to squeeze out 4 days out of my schedule to go to France?", "What about the budget?", "Am i crazy?", "May be he was kidding and few days later this will pass"... But it did not... 

After almost half a year, and after battling my way through embassies to get a Schengen visa (which was not easy by the way) here i am writing my first blog entry for my 10 day travel to Europe. The plan is to go to a few beautiful places in Belgium, France and may be Amsterdam, some well travelled, some less known, meet some locals, try local vegetarian cuisine and drinks and have a experience of a life time.

The plan is to update this blog with every significant happening enroute. Our preparations, our views, our moments of glory and so on... so that you guys may enjoy and/or learn from our good/not so awesome experiences.
I will hope to be a more frequent updater this time and i sincerely hope your good wishes will be there with us on our little expedition and that you will enjoy it as much as i do.
Stay tuned for much more... :)

A Not so "Arranged" Note

This was provoked by one of the discussions I had recently with a close friend of mine combined with a late night movie that I decided to watch tonight. 

The name of the movie - 'Tere ghar ke samane', starring the late Dev Anand and Nutan. The story of an architect who is caught between 2 neighbors who are rivals, both want our man to build a superior house for them than their neighbors. The catch is one of these guys is our heros dad and the other his lady love's. The two old men cant stand each other and our brave young protagonists, the architect and his love are supposed to brave their parents rivalry and make them agree to their marriage. 

But i did not attract your attention towards the movie to discuss the plot. The reason i mention this movie is because around the climax when our lovers are trying to talk sense to their fathers and asking them to forgive and forget their meaningless feud for the sake of their children and their future. The hero argues with his dad saying, it is the 20th century and the new India is moving in a new direction and that such so called "jhoothi shaan" should not be put before the children's life and future. They should be allowed to live their life and marry whomever they are in love with. 

This is a 1963 movie. I presume it was a hit if not a super hit. I am sure the cinema goers must have clapped and the front seaters must have whistled when in the end the 2 oldies do agree to the love match. A movie made 50 years ago. 50 years ago we celebrated a love marriage on the celluloid... amazing... 

And this made me wonder, if those people loved this movie what happened outside the dark cinema halls?

Today we are in the 21st century, but believe me i havent seen India move into any direction when it comes to love matches. People still kill in the name of love, people still threaten their sons and daughters of dire emotional or physical consequences if they even propose a love marriage. 

The main arguments being, what will the extended family say or we will be shamed in our locality. Shamed? For what? For giving your child the freedom to choose their life partner? Ashamed for believing in their ability to choose a suitable spouse of themselves? Ashamed for letting him/her take a major step forward in their lives?

I have seen some of my friends stand up to the decisions of their parents, some took some dire steps that they shouldn't have been forced to take, while most gave up and gave in. But not to completely incriminate our parents some of them did have pretty good legitimate reasons to refuse the match, which is fine by the way if the spouse is of dubious and questionable intensions. And thats why even if it is a love match we should always perhaps ask of their opinions, chances are they might be a better judge of character after all they have that thing called experience. So in this article i am merely talking of irrational fears of our parents regarding our better halves not the well-meaning good ones.

Believe me, i have nothing against arranged marriages, i have seen wonderfully happy and beautiful arranged marriages, but if your child is in love then why should you, being his parent, not support it? Why do things as primitive as honor killing exist? Why is falling in love considered the ultimate treason against family? And what is surprising is sometimes it is not even done because the boy or the girl is of a different caste or religion, but just because he/she was not chosen by the elders. 

But i am not here to judge our older generation. I am not here to question them, they were a different blood, their world was much different from ours and they are not the ones reading this blog.

My question is to the ones who would be reading this blog, who belong to this generation, my 21st century generation, the so-called SMS generation, most of whom are fighting for their freedom to choose their spouse, and even if not that then at least have come across the feeling of love and elation that comes along with it. Would we become judgmental and angry like our older generations. Will in 2035 my daughter/son propose a love match of herself/himself and i will refuse because the person in question is not of the proper social standing, or is of a different caste/race/religion/country? Will we as a generation judge our children based on the fact if they married according to their parent's wishes or not, or are we going to try an change this criteria a bit? 

Will we, who currently feel burdened by the values of our elders try to avenge it on our next generation or will we give them one less thing to fight about? After all i feel their are much more pressing issues than love vs. arranged marriage that our society and specially the young mid-20s society should be fighting for right now. But they cant simply because they are fighting that loosing battle of love, respect and the so called honor, for and against their own parents. Will we do this to our children too? Will we let someone else repeat a similar blog entry in 50 years? (I sure will have a deja vu :-/)

Its time India starts thinking and since we are the new avant garde its time we start thinking... about love, about respect, and about honor...