I AM A REFUGEE

You read it right- As of now, I don't have any proof of status in this country. I have sent my passport for renewal, and along with that I have sent all other immigration documents (like study permit, etc.). Now, the funny thing is my NEW Indian passport should have been received by me in 5 days' time. And so I waited. Waited for a week. A fortnight. Three weeks. A month(ooh..), month and a half now.. and still no sign of my old/new passport and my other documents! A very precarious scenario, if you know what I mean.

Right now, my status here in Canada is... NOTHING. A refugee. Asylum seeker. Tom Hanks' travails in THE TERMINAL is vivid in my mind, and I am reading stories of how in the good old days Punjabis and Gujaratis from India used to flush down the passport in the flight's toilets to seek refugee/asylum status in UK and Canada when they land. Seriously, I cannot go out of the country now. 5 days is the normal time, and it has taken me almost 50 days now. Of course, I have been trying to call the Indian consulate in Toronto(where I sent my application), but without much success- Success I define, by talking to a human... let alone inquiring the status. The IVR there is wonderful- I mean it serves no definite purpose. It welcomes you, then gives you office timings and road directions to get there. Then, you hear a voice? No, the line gets cut. If you are lucky, you hear an operator speaking sometimes, only to find that the person in the passport section is unavailable at the moment. I have called so many times, that I became friends with her. I just have to say, "Hi, my name is Shailendra...", or "Hi, I am inquiring about my passport..." and she would recognize! After many phone calls, I came to know of the timing of the passport section there(duh..), and finally one fine afternoon I was able to ask them!

Initially I wondered if Canada Post has anything to do with the mess up. I know cases(read: cases, plural) where express post (with tracking numbers) got mysteriously lost, or got delivered abysmally late. But now after finally talking to the proper person in the consulate after breaking through bureacratic and administrative hurdles, today I learnt that my application reached them promptly(Good job, Canada post!) but I have to get some clearance from the authorities in India(!)

I sighed a heavy relief to know that my passport and other documents are not lost, but in safe hands. But clearance from the Indian government? Hmmm, seems that Indian sleuths are very alert. Maybe the stones I hurled at stray dogs while in India got recorded in my "file" and there is a black mark. Anyway, it is great news that my passport is in safe hands and though I am still without any proper documents now, I can be rest assured that it would reach me soon. Unless, my "file" has other suspicious activity...