Children of a lesser Country

I am a voracious reader, of whatever is available on internet, which for the most part is trash. But it serves a very good purpose - it stops my mind from endlessly thinking about stupid questions like the purpose of life, about the universe's boundary and beyound etc etc. The sheer availability of so many articles on the net, on incredibly diverse topics sometimes make me think that writing, creative or factual, must be easy. Not surprisingly, I have been proven wrong yet again with no motivation or energy to write a post for the last 2 months or so.

One of the reason why this post is coming almost 2 months after my last post is the fact that I was born in a country which is still considered by most of the developed world as a third world. It is very simple to explain the seemingly innocuous connection. It starts with my marriage. Married to a beautiful girl of my choice, I was eagerly looking forward to those post-marital skirmishes which take one's relationship to the next higher level. I was all prepared, having read all the sane and insane advices online on how to tackle post-marriage blues and convert them into green. There was only one slight glitch - I am in Germany and my wife needed a visa to join me. No problem, we went to the visa office, with all necessary and unnecessary papers and were happily greeted by a helpful staff who informed us that it would take around 2 to 3 months for my wife to get the visa.

Hmmm! 3 months! OK, no problem. It just gives me 3 more months to prepare for the post-marital pillow fights. May be I missed on some rules and tricks. A revision always helps. So why not take this time in my stride and be 100% prepared. Looking at the positive side of things, we consoled ourselves and went back to our browsers to read even more about how to make our married lives successful. The problem was that all the tips and tricks started with the advice - "Spend more time together". And here we were separated by more than 8000 KMs, waiting for the 3 months to pass by.

That was Decemeber 07. And this is May 08. 5 months have passed. In between, there have been countless calls and runs to the consulates (both in India and Germany) from our side, with one standard answer - Your visa is under process and we will inform you once it is done. Can you please give any possible timeframe by which it would be processed? - No, sorry we cannot. You will be informed once it is processed. Hopeless and helpless, I went to the foreigner's office in Germany again with one of my colleagues who speaks fluent German (Yeah, people in the foreigner's office speak only German). I was cheekily informed that 5 months is not a large time and that I must be more patient. Sometimes, it takes 1 year to get visa for your spouse.

Dejected, I contacted my other Indian friends, living in Germany who had got married recently. I found 4 such cases. Of them, one waited for as long as 5 months before his wife could get visa. One was lucky to get after 3 months. 2 more were waiting like me, with one enduring more than 6 months of wait by now and still waiting. With nothing much to do but wait, I put my energy into the legalities and procedures of Germany to get your spouse here. It turns out that the basic problem why I must wait for so long is not because I have a criminal history (which I dont) but because long back in time, I was born in country whose legal documents are not even considered worth the paper they are written on by Germany and most mainland European nations. Thus, it turns out that even though I submitted a marriage certificate duly signed by the marriage registrar (an IAS or higher rank officer), such proof of marriage is considered of no use here because apparently India is still the land of dirty snake charmers and mystic sadhus with no idea of the suave and subtle Western democratic and ethical values. Being the illiterate cavemen (& women) that we still are, how can any certificate produced by us be taken at its face value. No, every document must be verified by independent agencies (which ironically are again Indian only) at our expense.

Hence, we were asked to submit a hefty amount of money, which was to go for hiring an Indian agency to do our marriage verification. Apparently, the word of this private agency carries more weight in the eyes of the German consulate than the word of a marriage registrar and the related Indian Judicial & Executive establishment supporting him/her. Having done that, we are waiting for the esteemed agency to submit its report and we do hope that they recognise our marriage held in front of hundreds of people, duly registered in an Indian court of law.

Its not that people of all nationalities have to go through this rigmarole. No, only the people of the so-called third world countries. Apparently all this hype and hoopla about India being the IT backoffice of the world, about being in the world's next superpower league is yet to reach the foreigner's offices in the mainlan European countries. They still think we are poor refugees, knocking at their doors to leave our wretched lives in India for the promise of a better life. In such conditions, I have no doubt about the veracity of articles talking about reverse brain-drain to India. And I mutter to myself - 'all in good time my dear'.

This article is written specifically for the knowledge of married Indians contemplating to come to Germany or any mainland European country for a brief career stint. Be warned that getting a work permit may not be a problem but getting a dependent visa for your spouse may become a huge problem. Most of the counsellates would tell you that it would take around 3 months for your wife to get visa and join you. Truth, in most cases, is otherwise. 5 months and still waiting is my experience and of a lot of other people. In any case, think hard if its worth to be separate from your spouse for 3 to 5 months. Best is if you are already married, get your work permit and your spouse visa processed simultaneously and NEVER COME TILL BOTH OF YOU HAVE VISA. For others who are already here and are planning to get married in India, explain this waiting-clause situation very clearly to your wife and in-laws. Oh, and one more thing, bringing your wife on a short term visa (for 3 months) is not possible if you have already applied for a long term dependent visa in Germany. So if you are going to stay here for a while, long term dependent visa is the only option with a waiting period of 5 months. And it sucks!!!