VISA FREE TRAVEL

There are only two things that Indians do not take permission for :- one, to be born and two, to die. For the rest we need permission. From “higher authorities”. It is a DNA thing for us Indians.

The Indian government’s propensity to issue visas to each and every individual who comes to India from abroad is a reflection of this mentality. Visas, being bilateral fly-swatters, are therefore issued to any Indian going to any country, by all the countries of the world.

Nepal, which prides on eating buffaloes, is an exception – but then Nepal does not give one the “feel” of being in a “foreign country”. Their roads and infrastructure are just as bad as ours and perhaps, that is why we do not need visas – they do eat buffaloes, but that does not count, I guess.

The passport of the average Indian traveler therefore gets filled up with visas; then booklets have to be added, till the passport roughly resembles the British encyclopedia. Frequent travelers from India have been known to look for a cart for their passports. Visa-free travel is a novel experience for Indians. All Indians. Including me.

Now, as luck would have it, I had to go to Philippines. Checked out all places on the internet for the visa requirements. Some travel agency sites said we could get visa on arrival (VOA), some said we need to get the visa stamped from the Philippine Embassy at N. Delhi. The Embassy’s web-site said that if the Indian passport had any valid visa from US, Canada, Singapore, Schengen, and some other countries, then no visa would be needed to enter Philippines. Pretty odd, I thought for a country to ride piggy-back on others in this fashion, but in absence of any other information and the presence of the confusing items of information all over the place, I downloaded and printed the PDF document. It had nothing on it to say that it was from the Embassy.

Armed with that document and the fact that my friend & I did have valid visas from those listed countries, we set sail – or rather set afloat in the skies. Our trip plan was to go to Manila from Jakarta.

The thought at the back of the mind, like swishing tail of the cow, kept hovering around the thought that we might not be able to make it to those P-islands. But travel plans being what they are, we landed at Jakarta airport at about ten-thirty on the planned night to take the night-long flight out to Manila. There was a young kid at the airline counter, possibly his first job and most likely in the first month itself.  We told him we did not have a Philippine visa. He checked our passports and said, “No problem, Sir.” He then checked us in, gave our boarding passes while our baggage lumbered on into the black hole behind him. We heaved a sigh of relief. Went to a shop to buy water. Our throats were parched.

Within a few minutes, he called us. “Excuse me Sir, can I have your passports, please ?” We did as he asked. Drank some more water. He went over to the flight supervisor sitting at another counter. We slowly walked over.

“Any problem ?”

“No Sir… but you do not have Filipino visa.”

I fished out the downloaded document and gave it to him. He read it with interest and then asked, “But where does this prove that it is from the Filipino Embassy ?” I agreed with him that it did not.

I said,” Why don’t you go to the website ? You can see it.”

He was not interested. Asked the young counter fellow to photocopy our passports and the relevant visas. While he was gone, the supervisor explained, “You see Sir, I am not sure. Two weeks ago we had four Indians deported from Manila Immigration back to Jakarta. I had to stay back at the airport all night to send them back to India.”

“So ? Can we go or not ?”

“Please go Sir, but try your luck”, came the reply. Small comfort, that. The young fellow came back with an armful of photocopies. He had apparently made copies of all the pages of each of the passports. Gave it back to us and said, “You may proceed to the immigration counter.”

“Step 1 completed”, we thought as we cleared Indonesian immigration. We boarded the plane and the thought of what awaited us at the Philippine Immigration at Manila kept nagging us. The swishing tail got furious. Dozed off to sleep after two large glasses of wine.

We landed in Manila at day break. Had to walk almost a kilometer from the aircraft to immigration counters. “This is it”, we thought as we queued up. My friend asked me to go first.

A pretty stern-looking lady officer was at the counter. She looked at my passport of five volumes, flipped thought the pages, and asked ,”Where is your Filipino visa ?”

“I do not have one. But I have a Canadian visa. Please check the second booklet.”

She asked me to dig it out. I did, and handed the passport to her. She studied it for an agonizing while, then held it under the different lights she had around her, then scanned it.

I was sweating. Deportation was not an activity I was familiar with. It did not fall into the group of activities I normally seek permission for.

The officer quietly put a little red stamp on the passport and said, “OK, go.” I looked at the stamp carefully. It was a stay permit for thirty days. “Phew !!”

My friend had a smile on his face. After he cleared immigration he said that the moment he saw my passport being stamped, a weight lifted off his mind.

Before we picked up the baggage from the belt, we went to pee. Had to. Visa-free travel makes you do that. No permission from “higher authorities” is the cause.

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