Sajha.com

One summer morning it occurred to me that my passport needed to be renewed. A few days later, I called the Nepali Embassy in Washington, D.C. to inquire about the process. The person on the phone, who by the tone of his voice sounded like a top-ranking official, pointed me to the Embassy's website for the application requirements and said that since I was traveling all the way from Chicago, my new passport would be made on the same day. I asked if I could make an appointment for a Friday morning but he said it wasn't at all necessary and that I could simply walk-in. He did, however, warn that I should be at the Embassy with all the documents by noon. "I will", I said.

So about two weeks before the appointed Friday, I started preparing for my trip to Washington DC. I downloaded and filled out the application form, had the right size photos taken with a wannabe-American smile, made the money order and photocopied the required documents. There was a subtle feeling of excitement deep inside my stomach about getting a new passport. This was partly because I had never really liked my first passport. The clerk who had filled it out had a handwriting that could be compared with what my mother would call chicken scratch when I was beginning to write. There were a number of errors, spelling and other, which he had overstriken and corrected upon my complaint. A bulky violet government seal was stamped over each of these corrections to certify their authenticity, which had, in fact, made the actual letters hard to read.

But the more obvious was my thrill about visiting the Embassy. This was going to be my first ever visit to any Nepali government agency outside Nepal. I had heard accounts from my foreign friends about how dearly cared they felt at their countries' embassies. So I imagined my trip to the Royal Nepali Embassy:

It would be a clear summer morning. I have just arrived in DC. I would tell the cabbie Nepali Embassy. "The building with the flag like two triangles?", he would ask. Amused by his street savvy, "Yes, right there", I would confirm. Well, DC isn't that big a city, plus, the embassy has been there for ages.

It would be a square-shaped building of modern architecture with big glass windows. A large Nepali flag in bright red and blue colors would be waving in the mild DC breeze from the top of the building. There would be a thick green grass carpet around the building and a small colorful garden on both sides of the driveway at the front, where to my surprise, a bunch of marigolds would be at their fullest bloom. The main door would have two thick glass panes with the stickers by the handles that said 'Pull' in both English and Nepali.

A lady in sari would welcome me inside and ask me my name, where I was from and the purpose of my visit. Then she would ask how my flight was and whether the security folks at the airport were too paranoid. I would then follow her to a large air-conditioned waiting room where I would sink into a deep luxury couch. The room would have large portraits of the king and the queen on the wall directly across the door and many more posters of the snow-capped Nepali mountain summits, temples and terraces. Some Nepali newspapers and magazines would be lying on an oval glass coffee table at the center of the room, surrounded by the couches. Next to the table would be a revolving display rack with folded maps and travel brochures on Nepal. I would unfold one of the maps and locate Kathmandu, Pokhara, Biratnagar, Nepalgunj and Chitwan. "Would you like some Ilam tea or instant Nescafe?" the lady would ask. I would go for the tea and wait for my turn to be helped.

Upon my turn, I would tell the clerk the purpose of my visit and that I had called the Embassy about it two weeks ago. He would take all the paperwork from me and check for their completeness. Then he would tell me that the new passport would be ready at 3:00PM so I could either just hang around or check out some of the major DC attractions. I would pick one of the DC Metro system maps from the revolving rack and head out to explore the city. At 3:00, I would be back at the embassy where my new passport would be waiting for me. I would read and re-read the passport several times to make sure there were no errors this time.

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So the big day finally came. The two alarms I had set (one by my bed; other in my living room) got me up at 4:30 in the morning. I wanted to make sure I arrived at O'Hare early enough not to miss the flight even in the case of extended airport security procedures. Missing the 8:00AM flight could result in me reaching the embassy after noon, something I had been strongly advised against by the official on the phone.

It was about 10:30AM local time when I landed at Regan National. As planned, I got inside a taxi. The cab was unmetered (all taxis in DC are unmetered and the fares are predetermined) and the driver was a polite middle-age man who, from his accent, sounded like a recent African immigrant (studies have confirmed that most of the cabbies in many US cities are of foreign origin). As we rolled away from the airport into the city, "Nepali Embassy, please", I said, responding to his query.

"Hmm. Do you know the street address?", he asked.
"2131 Leroy Place, NW", I said, reading from a page I had printed from the Embassy's website.
"Hmm... Leroy Place..."
Not too positive about my own pronunciation of the word Leroy, I offered variations: "LAroE place", "LIroE Place", "LEroE Place".
Nothing seemed to ring a bell. "What are the major streets nearby?", he asked.

It disappointed me that the embassy wasn't going to be on a major street. I pulled a printout of the mapquest.com driving directions I had kept in my bag just in case and described him the intersections near the embassy. We briefly got lost. Finally, "Leroy!" he exclaimed pointing me to a tiny street name sign ahead and made a left turn onto a narrow and quiet one-way street.

A series of old houses stood tightly against each other on each side of the street; some with more lavishly decorated exteriors than others. The street was a slight incline and a few cars were parked along the right half of the road, leaving an even narrower space for the commuter traffic. A couple of Mexican-looking men were giving a fresh paint to an aged building. Roughly across the street from it was an old brick house that looked like somebody's modest residence, though with a faded flag in the front yard that just clung to its staff. It didn't take me long to conclude that, that was where I was going.

The entrance was one level higher than the ground level (ground level had a garage) so you had to walk up the concrete steps to get to the door. A tarnished brass sheet fixed on the wall next to the door had the hours of operations in detail (The embassy is open 9:00AM - 5:00PM, Monday-Friday). The black wooden door panels were shut tight although it was already a little after 11:00AM. There was an almost completely discolored "Visit Nepal '98" (the current year was 2004) sticker on one of the windows. A round Nepali Royal Court of Arms in the shape of a shield was hung from the top frame of the door. This shield had a glass surface that looked pale inside and read "Royal Nepalese Embassy" in an arc along its edge. A long dark metal staff projected at an angle from the wall directly above the front door was missing a flag.

I pushed the doors open in diffidence and entered inside. It smelled like a library of antique books. The hallway was dark (there was only one light on) and its floor had a red carpet extending all the way to the stairs (seemed that senior officials had their offices on the upper floors). On the left were the doors to a couple of rooms. "Visa Office" was written above one of these doors. A small notice board covered with the US State Department advisories and a few announcements from the Nepali Ministry of Foreign Affairs was hanging on the wall next to this door.

I stood quietly in the hallway waiting for someone to ask me my business and to direct me to an appropriate office. Nothing happened. The "Visa Office" had its doors partly open, and I could hear a conversation in Nepali inside. A young Nepali man was begging a clerk that one of his kin's date of birth was quoted wrong in her passport, so if he could please have it corrected. His plea was very reminiscent of how the government clerks are generally approached back in Nepal: Addressed in the most respectful way, well beyond the professional standards, each sentence ending with a 'sir'. It is as if the clerk isn't really obliged to act on your case; and that if he so decides, then that's only because he is too kind. So if you want your work done, the rule of thumb is that you always please the clerk.

The Visa Office was apparently the Passport Office, as well. It was a small room with two desks in a row with barely enough space between them for the clerks to get to their chairs in the back. Each desk contained stacks of documents. One even had a computer monitor. There were rubber stamps lying on violet ink pads. Behind the clerks was a shelf that had more documents and files. A small grayscale image of the King on a loose sheet of paper which looked as though it was printed on a printer that needed an ink refill was stuck on one of the separators of the shelf.

"Can I help you?" asked one of the clerks turning his head away from the monitor towards me. I explained to him why I was there. He glanced through all the paperwork I had brought with me. "Ok, come back after 3 and you can pick up your new passport", he said. He was nice and looked professional.

At 3:05PM I checked back in at the embassy. The front doors were still shut, and this time even the "Visa Office" inside was closed. For 10 minutes, I stood in the dark hallway in front of this office waiting for its door to open. A clerk inside was humming a Nepali tune and I could hear his hands moving on the desk. Maybe it took a little longer today to make the passports, I thought to myself. Then I went outside, sat on the floor against the wall next to the entrance and took out the New Yorker from my messenger bag. I finished the essay that I had started in the morning. It was about the "lawless"[ness] in a remote Pakistani tribal village.

The doors behind me squeaked open. A short middle-age man in a tie with a mustache and a protruded belly stepped outside. He looked like an officer at the embassy. "Hi!", I said nodding with a smile. He looked at me indifferently and walked down the steps and down the street. Perhaps it offended him that I didn't stand up to greet him. Or maybe I should have bid a traditional Namaste, instead. It�s sad that my spontaneous form of greeting has become a 'Hi' after several years of almost absolute isolation from my native culture.

It started raining. I went back inside. It was getting close to 4:00PM. The "Visa Office" doors were still closed. The clerks inside were chatting with each other in Nepali. "There's no appreciation of one's hard work here", one said. "If they paid us only by the minimum wage, we could be making as much as $1,800." Although I didn't quite understand the clerk's math, it shocked me that they were paid less than the minimum wage (DC minimum wage is $6.15/hour).

I stood against the wall in the hallway near the staircase (because that's where the only light in the hallway was) reading my New Yorker. A lady in trousers, who I was later told was the secretary at the Embassy appeared from the room next to the Visa Office. I greeted her �Hi". She said "Hi" swiftly in return, entered the Visa Office and pushed its doors back shut. Now she joined the clerks inside in the chitchat, which I couldn't help but overhear from the hallway no matter how much I tried to immerse myself into the magazine.

By now, all the fantasy I had about the embassy had been ripped into shreds. I realized that things worked differently at the Embassy than I had thought. Maybe I had much higher expectations than what my nation could deliver. Maybe we are too poor to add a couple more lights in the hallway, to have the flags cleaned, or to setup a waiting area for visitors. Maybe the Embassy staff is too underpaid to proactively assist its clients. Maybe its officers are too preoccupied in the international diplomacy to smile back at every Nepali that camps out at the Embassy door. Or maybe not.

But it didn't bother me anymore. I realized what was most important was to get the work done. So as long as the Embassy accomplished that, I figured I had nothing to complain. I was going to get my passport today whether or not the secretary asked me for a cup of tea. It's OK that there was no place to sit at the embassy. I was there on a business and move on, so everything else now seemed secondary to me. I was already thinking about my trip back to Chicago with my new and better-looking passport.

The Visa Office doors still didn't open. It was just past 4:00PM. I decided to venture inside interrupting the chatter between the clerks.

"Oh!", the clerk paused. He looked shocked as if he had forgotten that he had asked me to come back at 3:00PM. "Please sit", he offered. Exhausted after a long standup wait, I happily sat in the only spare armchair in the room. For the next few minutes, he dialed several numbers on his phone but none resulted in a conversation.

He looked at me with a dim face.

"Raja, I have your passport prepared but none of the Shahibs is in today to sign it", he said. "So come back on Monday".

I didn't get my passport.


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Echoes

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