“I AM the son-in-law of America,” he declared and grinned. I was sitting on a rickety wobbly wooden bench underneath a tree which was providing me a sunny shade — sunny because the tree was devoid of any foliage so it was a psychological shade which I was enjoying right in front of the American Embassy in the hot Islamabad afternoon, waiting for three hours for my nervous wife who had gone in to the embassy for a visa interview.
I was not alone. There were an assortment of people littered all over the place waiting for their near and dear ones who had entered the holy premises for the procurement of the elusive American visa; worried fathers, praying mothers, fidgety relatives and bored husbands, including myself.
I noticed that there was this middle-aged gentleman with a leathery face dressed in shalwar qameez but wearing a cowboy hat on his baldhead. He was a gentleman because he abhorred any kind of shade and was standing in the midday sun gazing at the embassy lovingly. He recognized me and smiled, some of his teeth were missing, I smiled back. This encouraged him and he approached me.
“Tarar sahib, nice to meet you. Why are you sitting here?”
“Well I love open spaces and especially picnics in the midday sun, so I am enjoying myself,” I was irritated by his stupid question.
“Ha ha you joke.”
“Yes I joke.” I wanted this conversation to be over.
“You know I am the son-in-law of America and even then they are not granting me a visa.” This declaration bowled me over and I immediately got interested; you don’t meet a son-in-law of America every day. “No I did not know, it must be a very daunting task to become the son-in-law of America, how did you manage it?”
“I was in America for two years you know.”
“You went there on a tourist visa and stayed on, is that it?” Now it was his turn to be irritated. “What does it matter how I got there, I was in America and I married a young beautiful American girl and we lived happily, then my mother died and I had to come back to Pakistan, now they wont let me go back to my legally wedded wife, look I have all the proof.”
I had noticed that he was clutching a huge photo album which he was kind enough to open and show me the proof. “Look, this is my American wife in our drawing room and these are her parents.”
I was really amazed, his wife was indeed pretty although a few hundred pounds off her would have helped and her parents were rather decent considering their son-in-law. He showed me all the relevant documents pertaining to his marriage which looked convincing enough.
“Have you shown these documents and photographs to the embassy people?”
“No, the guards won’t let me in, I keep telling them that I am America’s son-in-law but they laugh, can you help me?”
“Have you applied for the visa?”
“Why should I? I am their son-in-law, they should come out and receive me if they have any dignity, this is no way to treat a son-in-law.”
“Indeed it is not.”
The case was complicated; he closed his album, grinned again and went back to his sunny location. Pakistani guards of the embassy came towards the waiting crowd and handed over a few bottles of cold water, which was welcome in that heat. However, they requested that the plastic bottles are to be returned as some people casually carry them away.
If I was having a wonderful picnic feeling hungry and thirsty at the same time and my wife was inside the embassy for the last four hours, it was entirely due to my one and only daughter Dr Anni who presently resides in Orlando, USA. She was going to have her first baby and had sent an SOS to her ‘mama’ to be with her during the delivery and afterwards to look after the baby as only desi mamas can do.
Twice a day, she would call and all she said was “Mama, Mama, Mama”, like a lost duckling. My wife applied for the visa through proper channels. When the interview call came I accompanied her and was allowed to chaperon her inside the visa section, a small comfortable room with four windows behind which sat the lords who decided the fate of the applicant. The third window lord, however, was more benevolent than the others as the rest of them were refusing profusely. So the remaining applicants immediately became pious and started praying that on their turn they should be lucky enough to present themselves at that particular benevolent window.
In the meantime an ex-chief minister of Punjab entered the visa room. Dressed in his sherwani and past glory, he stood their as there were no seats available and waited patiently. He heaved a sigh of relief when his turn came to present himself in front of the visa officer. His name, like that of all others, was called on the address system and I remembered the way an under trial prisoner is called by the bailiff of the court: “Such and such, son of such, hazir ho.” It was heartening to see that the Americans treated the beggars and princes alike.
Outside, an old lady, standing in the queue like everyone else, had requested for a chair as she could not stand any more. The request was refused, despite the fact that she declared that she was the wife of an ex-commander-in-chief of Pakistan Army, now deceased. The applicants whose visa requests were accepted came back beaming as if they had hit the million dollar jackpot and they were few in numbers; the unlucky ones came with long drawn faces clutching their passports in a state of shock.
I saw a woman, demure and pretty with streaked golden hair who had come for a visa extension from the USA. Her request was turned down. She was almost begging the visa officer and crying. I am sure her circumstances were such that this refusal was going to destroy her entire life, otherwise she was too dignified to stoop so low.
Another old lady, very rustic and very simple was asking the Pakistani interpreter to tell the sahib that she had not seen her son for many a year and all she wanted was to look at his face and hug him. To the sahib this argument was ridiculous because in his culture it was unthinkable that a mother should travel through half of the world just to look at the face of her son or to hug him. They lady was turned back in tears.
Finally my wife’s name was announced, she went to the appointed window and came back. All she said was “Anni is waiting and I can’t go.” The reason for refusing her a visa was that it was feared that she won’t come back from America, settling there permanently abandoning her home, kids and a good for nothing husband and will perhaps at this age work on some gas station and who knows might join the firefighters of New York! She was inconsolable. Upon hearing the news of refusal Anni cried on the phone for hours, very expensive crying.
Fortunately there was a provision that she could re-apply provided the visa fee is paid all over again which she did. And that is the reason, why I had been sitting here for the last four hours, waiting for her to emerge from the embassy, either smiling or with a morose face because she does not cry easily.
In the meanwhile I observed the spectacle of sorrows, ambitions, disillusionments and boundless joys writ large on the faces of those who waited and those who came out of the embassy one by one. I saw an elderly woman dressed in a sari weeping loudly, her husband staggered to receive her but she refused his hand, totally shaken she sat there right on the pavement in the burning sun. No matter how hard he pleaded she refused to come in the shade. Finally the husband left her alone to mourn her loss. Then there was this very pretty young woman unfortunately stricken with polio carrying with great difficulty her documents and files, she was the happiest person on earth; she contacted her mother on the cell and told her the good news. Everybody congratulated her profusely. But where was my wife?
I had given up and thought that the Americans had abducted her and taken her to Guantanamo Bay, when finally she emerged, composed, but smiling: “I am going to Anni, they say I will get the visa within the next three days. You must be bored to death by now.”
“No, the son-in-law of America was keeping me company,” and as I waved towards him he was still wearing his cowboy hat and was sitting in the sun.
The visa did not take three days but almost three months to come; it was issued on the 9th of September and I know why. The Americans made sure that she won’ reach New York on 11th of September and I don’t blame them. I have always considered my wife a terrorist, terrorizing me for the last thirty-four years. Clever Americans, they found out within a few minutes.
But in Orlando my grandson Noffel was too impatient to see this world and did not wait for his grandmother and decided to appear almost three weeks before the expected date. His grandmother arrived rather late but fully equipped with all sorts of desi araks, lungots and punjeeris to groom this newborn American. I do sincerely hope that she will not get a job as gas station attendant and come back to me in due time.
“I AM the son-in-law of America,” he declared and grinned. I was sitting on a rickety wobbly wooden bench underneath a tree which was providing me a sunny shade — sunny because the tree was devoid of any foliage so it was a psychological shade which I was enjoying right in front of the American Embassy in the hot Islamabad afternoon, waiting for three hours for my nervous wife who had gone in to the embassy for a visa interview.
