The other day an old college friend from Pilani with a huge vocabulary used the word "pertinacious" in her Facebook post.
Due to a recent communication from the Government of India, Jo and I decided it was time to apply for OCI cards for the family (Overseas Citizen of India - it's like dual citizenship lite. We already have something similar - PIO cards (Person of Indian Origin). So we applied under the "New OCI - In Lieu of PIO" category for which the government is waiving consular fees, but still costs about $100 a pop. We took a deep breath and started back in November. We didn't expect it to be easy. Jo almost filed for divorce during our PIO application process.
After a few fits and starts Jo got portions of hers and Evan's applications filled out at CKGS's website. CKGS is a contractor to whom the government of India has outsourced all of the customer facing portions of the application process. I followed her lead and got my application done, requiring just one call to a very helpful fellow in support. Then we had to go over to the Government of India website and fill two separate applications and load four documents per person. Each person was issued three different identification strings of digits and numbers for tracking purposes. Any time you switched between doing anything you had to re-enter your date of birth, passport number, and one of those identifying strings of numbers. And a captcha - those things that tell a website that you are not a robot.
Interestingly the captchas at the Government of India website were simple arithmetic, string, or informational questions. Like - what is 5 plus 9? Reverse the letters in "ubscotr". What is the natural color of a tomato? Not just not a robot, you almost need to be a stable genius to get past the captchas.
After getting through all that we set up interview dates and times at a CKGS office in Houston, printed out all the stuff we had loaded online, got several of them notarized (getting documents notarized is a well respected passtime in India), got our photos, organized things in separate folders, and drove to Houston.
At the CKGS office, after waiting, a process which made us realize that our appointment time and date were meaningless, we met a very polite and courteous young Indian lady at a counter. Things mostly worked but when they didn't, they didn't.
"Your photo will not work - the back ground is not white."
"The government website said light background, and specifically said no white backgrounds."
"Yes sir" (head nod). "We can try to send this photo but it won't work."
So we walked to a CVS four blocks away and got fresh photos with white backgrounds. And got back in line.
"I can't take the original of your marriage certificate"
"It's a copy, you can keep it." (I had picked up a couple of copies from the county office the previous day)
"I'll make a copy but I'll have to charge you"
"Sure"
And then the part where she asked us if the documents we had uploaded into the Government of India website were readable.
"Yes"
"They are not too dark or too small?"
"No"
"Then please sign this."
"What is it?"
"You are agreeing that you won't get a refund if the embassy can't read the documents you uploaded."
"How can I tell if they can't read the documents?"
"If the embassy can't read the documents, you will have to start again and you won't get a refund."
"I can only tell that I can read the documents."
"If the embassy can't read the documents they won't give you a refund and you will have to reapply from the beginning."
<forever>
So we signed and smiled and paid and left.
Back in Austin we went to the county office to renew Vivian's passport. It had expired - which was why so far it had been just Jo, Evan and me doing the OCI thing. It took one form, three documents and two minutes at the passport office and Vivian got a new passport in the mail.
Meanwhile, pretty efficiently and quickly, things started percolating at CKGS. Then one day we got emails and text messages that we needed to Fedex them our current PIO cards to them. Each in it's own Fedex envelope with a tracking bar code for CKGS that you had to print and glue to the outside of the Fedex envelope. And several more documents, including a printed list of all the the documents in the Fedex envelope. Why didn't they take the PIO cards from us when we visited them last week?
We complied. Then more text and email updates and finally three Fedex envelopes with three brand spanking new OCI cards! I'm glad they arrived. If there was a glitch, I don't think we had another try left in us. We'd just have to skip traveling to India for the rest of our lives.
I found a way for Trump and the Republicans to win the immigrant vote. Tell illegal immigrants that they can apply for US citizenship. Then outsource the process to CKGS. About half way through the application, most people will hike across the desert, clamber over a half-built wall and get out of the country. But if you are pertinacious, you may succeed.
