Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Next Stop, Visaville

I was aware I needed a Visa to travel to India, in the way I was aware that India is hot and Antarctica is cold and it never rains in California, and I had heard many stories about the gauntlet one must run to get said Visa.

Most recently an Indian-born US citizen friend was moving to India for work and faced a never before disclosed decathlon of events to prove her worthiness -- including multiple embassy trips, pole vault, fees to an assortment of expeditors, high jump, roll over, play dead, and pat head while rubbing stomach. Her departure was actually delayed for months due to the rigor exercised on her Visa application. And so when she urged me to get the Visa application submitted ASAP I had no doubt that hurry-up-and-wait was the name of the game.

When you Google 'Indian Visa', you can scroll down past a dozen or so links to the official Government of India Online Visa site, where you can complete your online application. But if you're the curious sort like me, you would probably wonder what's up with these other links being higher in the response than the official Government site. These are the expeditors.

The business of an expeditor is to make your Visa application faster and easier than if you go it alone. Usually they have an office in the city of the Indian Mission that will be responsible for shepherding your particular application through the process (depending upon where you live). I would also believe they have experience with all types of Visas, and relationships within the Mission. And so I chose to go with an expeditor.

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