Recently my son’s passport expired and I had to apply for a new passport. Went to the passport renewal site and followed seven steps and couple of days. It arrived as promised and the process didn’t feel like a burden. Then reviewed the Indian embassy to see the process for his visa. According to Indian Embassy Memo in San Francisco, we had to renew his OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) visa also since he is younger than twenty years. No big deal and thought it would take couple of days to complete the application and submit the documents for his visa. But it took me three weeks and multiple trips to notary, then it would take 60 days for the processing :-).
The process is so complicated and I had difficulty understanding what to do. First the embassy will direct you to Cox & Kings (Third party processor). Here you will see multiple pages of instructions. First step is that you need to fill out an application in the site maintained by Indian Government. The site will remind you of the 2000s look and feel. You cannot use a Mac or phone to complete the application. The application has to be completed using Firefox or Chrome in a windows machine. You need to enter the information from your old passport, new passport, old visa, previous Indian passport if you had indian citizenship. Luckily they will find you. The instructions are not clear but you have to understand to follow it.
First step is to upload the passport size photo and signature card. The scan has to be perfect 2in x 2in and uploaded so that your shoulders should be in the middle. This is important and I learnt the hard when I didn’t upload it correctly (image was skewed by 2 degrees) and application was rejected. I had to re-upload picture after the correction and resend the whole application again. After your successful completion, you will be given a fileid which will be very important. The second step is falling-out the questionnaire. Here questions like whether your parents/grand parents belonged to Bangladesh or Pakistan will be asked and if there is a pending inquiry. Once you completed these, the next step according to Cox & Kings would be to fill out another application in their site.
Here you have to repeat what you have done in the Indian Government site. Then will be given a six page instruction sheet where you have to pick and choose the documents that need to be attached to your application. Notary has to certify your passport copy and certify an affidavit stating that parents confirm the name and age of their children. Then get a Money order (not money gram or personal check or any other such instrument). Once these are completed, attach two copies of the photo in addition to your old visa before sending it to the third party (Cox&Kings).
With patience and little whining, I completed the application and sent it. Once they received it, I got the acknowledgment and tracking info. I pulled up the tracking and saw thirteen steps and more than 60 business days before you get the visa. Within few days, I got the notice that the application is on hold due to incomplete documentation. Then I check and see the discrepancy with regards to the picture. In re-upload, reprint and send the application again. They received it and it appears that the third party provider has shipped over my application to consulate for processing. So I am eagerly waiting for the outcome of that process unless they find some other discrepancy and I had to resend the documents.
I get it that India is developing country and they have to follow colonial processes and bureaucracy. But I wonder who came up with this complicated process to renew the visas. Do they not want their non-resident Indians come back? what is the motivation or reasoning behind making such a complicated process? why do they need so much documentation and notary? I keep asking the questions and find no answers.
Category: NRI
College Decision
I clearly remember the day when my dad enrolled me in college and left. Education in India and for that matter specifically in Tamil Nadu is very straightforward. You work hard to get good grades and take the entrance exam. Your selection to the top colleges is based on the rankings which is a combination of the two. If you are on top, there are no doubts about getting into the top ranking colleges. Very simple and efficient.
Whereas, the higher education in the US is very complex and the choices are limitless. For a senior, especially one with 3.96 GPA, 12 APs above 4, working a part-time job, participating in National honor society by volunteering hours at the community, doing a senior project in robotics, achieved brown belt in Karate, likes mainstream rappers as well as obscure ones and of course crazy about the NFL, NBA team stats of the players, the choices are even more complicated.
His dream was to become a Mechanical Engineer and complete the MBA program to become an entrepreneur. I am glad he was so specific about his objectives considering the fact that, I wanted to become a Civil Engineer but within few weeks I changed to Electrical and Electronics, now I work in IT.
He was admitted to University of California, Berkeley and Barrett Honors College in Arizona State University. Both very different colleges with very different offerings. A quick comparison will tell you that Berkeley far surpasses Arizona State University and there should not even be a decision involved here to pick the right choice. This is what meets everybody’s eyes but my son chose Barrett in ASU for the reasons below. I am writing this blog post for anyone who are debating on the choices.
The comparison cited above compares the bigger Arizona State University with 70,000 students with UC Berkeley and does not take into consideration the Barrett College within ASU. Barrett is the honors college with around 2000 freshman and was started to capture and retain the extraordinary student talent within Arizona. Berkeley does not have a comparable college and their take is that everybody here is an exceptional achiever. This is good and bad. Good because it is a level playing field for all the resources available and bad because the students have to work very very hard to the point of burning out to compete with each other.
With Barrett honors, the students are given priority student advisement and are provided with world class housing and dining options which are otherwise not available to the regular students. The Barrett program is isolated from the University and has its own boundaries. The housing is spectacular when compared to the old dilapidated structures in Berkeley (they really are and we were surprised). These Honors students are given opportunities to participate in Research during their undergraduate year wheres in Berkeley it would be next to impossible to get access to these opportunities. Another distinguishing factor was that the entire faculty in Barrett are dedicated to supporting the limited number of freshman when compared to the large number in Berkeley.
With regards to the machine shop, we were made aware in Berkeley that only Junior students are provided access and can tinker things. With Barrett the students will have the opportunities in Freshman when they can sign up for EPICS program that will make them tinker to solve a community problem.
Being the resident of the state and for his academic excellence he got a full tuition ride in Barrett with a Presidential scholarship. It may be a different situation if the college costs were comparable to Barrett when the decision would have been equalized. However, our situation was unique and will be different for different individuals.
Though part of me was siding with Berkeley, my son made the decision easier when he signed up for the orientation and enrolled himself in Barrett. According to him, he would like to complete the undergraduate in Barrett and pursue his graduate studies in out-of-state university although Barrett has a 4+1 program in which he can earn his graduation in 5 years. He said, “Dad I would rather be a big fish in small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond” and I was speechless.
Fast forward four years, he is out of ASU and came out with flying colors. We don’t doubt his decision and he is pursuing his dreams.
New Book published
For many years, it has been nagging me to write a book to help new comers from India to orient themselves in USA. There are many books available that are acting as travel guides but none of them get into the nitty, gritty details about day to day life in US. This is my attempt to help folks coming from India or for that matter any other country to review and be prepared for the ordeal. Having lived and worked here for the past 17 years, it wasn’t easy. However with friends and co-workers I was able to navigate and come out what I call to be a reasonably successful adjustment in the country. It should be out in Amazon within the next few days.