Immigration

It is with much trepidation that I slowly approach the immigration counter. There are about ten officers at their counters looking pretty bored as they so often do. Not a nice job methinks. I fear this is going to be a bit of a hit and miss affair. I opt for an elderly gentleman with a large amount of henna in his hair. He picks up my boarding pass and peruses it for a while. I am sure he must have seen one of these before. He then turns to my passport page and begins examining each page. He seems pretty triumphant in finding my current visa and i´m thinking maybe that is all he needs to see and he´ll stamp me through. I wish. He then starts again of the back of the passport and begins reading aloud all the stamps in my passport. There is an obscene amount considering it is only three years old.

The immigration officer begins looking more perplexed and asks me when my arrival into India was. I inform him and he begins the arduous journey through all the stamps again. I try and stand there acting all innocent; I think he should find out that there is no Indian immigration stamp in the entire passport, no matter how many times he goes through my passport.

He asks where I entered India and I tell him Sunali. He looks up at me quizzically and I try various pronunciations of the word. No recognition whatsoever. He keeps on saying Manali, and I keep on repeating Sunali. To help him on his way, I find the exit stamp from Nepal for him. “But where is India?” I inform him it is next to Nepal, but he is now clearly concerned. He stands up to find a higher power. He locates a young guy with a trendy goatee and glasses as thick as the Hubble telescope. They babble in Hindi to each other ferociously and the word Manali is mentioned several times.

“This is not good,” say Goat Boy. I try to enquire as politely as possible what can be done, but he just ignores me, scratching his head. After a couple of moments I repeat again. He stonewalls me, mutters something under his breath and disappears forever. I am no nearer to getting my passport or boarding pass stamped.

Mr Henna next calls over the officer at the next counter. I explain my woeful story again; fortunately I see a glimmer of recognition in his eyes at the word Sunauli.
“I am sorry Sir, they really don´t know what they are doing down there”. He instruct Henna to stamp process immediately, which he duly does. "I´m so sorry for wasting your time" says Henna. How charming. Take off in an hour!