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As Shahid Husain makes a trip to America tinged with hope and apprehension, he brings a pleasing grab bag of a jumble of funny encounters, strange sights and what not
A couple of months ago, I mailed one of my political analyses published in The Sunday Indian to my FB friend Amy Lavenson to get her opinion about it. Interestingly, she invited me to deliver a “community lecture” in Olympia, WA. It was unbelievable! Always shy to face the audience, I thought she must be joking. Nevertheless, I asked her to send me a scanned invitation so that I could make it a part of my application for the US visa. The copy she mailed me said that she would bear the internal expenses. Now the question was who would bear the external expenses, that is, the air fare and boarding and lodging cost. That issue was also resolved when a college mate of mine said he would bear the cost. He too mailed me a scanned letter. My editor at The News, Talat Aslam, was kind enough to give me a recommendation letter.
Though unsure about getting the visa, I took an application form from the American Express and tried my level best to fill it in the stipulated time frame but failed. Repeated efforts bore no result. The US visa application is so cumbersome and detailed that I thought I would never be able to fill it properly. It’s loaded with minor details and silly questions such as “Are you a terrorist?” and so on. I sought help from a fellow journalist, named Maqbool, to fill it but he too failed. It took almost a fortnight to ultimately fill it with the help of a very fast typist at The Herald.
Having applied for the US visa online, I waited for an interview at the US Embassy in Islamabad. That meant an expenditure of another Rs 20,000 or so to go the Capital. I was short of money as usual and didn’t want to borrow from friends. Amazingly, I received a call that I would be interviewed at the US Consulate in Karachi. But an employee at the American Express was adamant that it was a computer error and that I would have to go to the US Embassy in Islamabad. However, I stuck to my guns.
I was pretty sure I would not get a US visa despite the fact that I have travelled to the UK and several other countries and always returned on time. I never had an urge to slip away or seek political asylum. Finally, I received a call from the American Express that I would be interviewed in Karachi. I was asked to reach the consulate at 9.30 am.
In the meanwhile, I rang Elizabeth O. Colton, Public Affairs Officer at the Consulate General of the USA, and told her that I had been invited by a couple of US colleges to deliver a lecture. She told me frankly that nobody could influence the visa officer and that all she could do was to write a line that she knew me.
My interview at the US consulate was brief. Finger prints were taken and then the visa officer, a man with stern looks, called me in.
“Why are you going to the US?” he asked me. “I have been invited by Amy Levinson to deliver a lecture,” said I.
“So you are going to Columbia, New York?” he asked. “No I am going to Olympia, Washington,” said I. “Sorry, I have some hearing problem,” he said, adding, “My sister graduated from Columbia, New York.”
“Is your wife accompanying you?” he asked. “No!” said I. “Where were you born?” he asked another question. “I was born in Karachi” was my reply. He paused for a moment and then handed me a coupon and told me I would receive a call from The American Express in a couple of days to collect my passport. “Have a nice trip!” said he.
Excited, I had informed almost all the friends that I was going to America to deliver a lecture. I received an e-mail from Dr. Ehtisham, a retired surgeon in the US, asking me to stay with him. He informed me that his house was merely two miles away from the Niagara Falls. Another friend who lives in New York invited me to stay with him. My old friend Zulekha Yusuf, who lives in Virginia, asked me to visit her home and said that she would organise a meeting of Pakistani Americans so that I could deliver a talk to them. She also wrote a very provocative message on FB saying, “What do you think of yourself?” I replied that I was a journalist with an experience of 36 years and recognised in India as well as Pakistan, and no more an activist of National Students Federation (NSF) whom anybody could use.
Interestingly, while I was chatting with an old friend who had sent me a letter saying he would bear my travelling and boarding cost, I was shocked when he said he knew Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman and Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman while I didn’t. I said I never wished to know big businessmen. He also asked me whether I was a member of the Communist Party of Pakistan. I said I was a group member during my student days and it was written on FB that I was a Marxist. I flatly told him I didn’t need his ticket. “What to do now?” I thought. “How to bear the travelling cost?” I decided to sell a piece of land that I owned at throwaway price.
During all these days, I wrote a hypothesis on relationship between Nature and Man, and showed it to well-known psychiatrist Prof. S. Haroon Ahmed and to my classmate at the University of Karachi, Dr. Kaneez Fatima-Shad who is now an eminent scientist and professor of molecular medicine and drug research at Dr. Punjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research at the University of Karachi. Both approved it.
I will elaborate it in 4-chapters, 100 pages book after I get a break. I am also likely to present the hypothesis at John Hopkins University.
My wife Nasreen Fatima, an ex-computer programmer and now a house wife, said she had heard visitors were passed naked through a machine. I said I didn’t care if the Americans passed visitors through the screening machine naked since it’s too hot these days and I felt angry due to perspiration. She said “Aap to ajeeb batein karte hein (You talk strangely)”. I asked her if she wanted to go to America. “Bhar mein jaye America. Mein to kabhi nahin jaongi (To Hell with America. I would never go there),” was her reply.
My friend Imran Ayub who works for the Dawn newspaper said, “Shahid bhai just leave your clothes near the screening machine and run on the airport naked and we will get a juicy news item in the New York Times reading ‘a naked Muslim terrorist arrested at JFK Airport’, and we will lift the story.”
Shahid Husain
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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