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Conversation with an immigration officer

Feb 3, Kathmandu

As I handed my passport to immigration officer at Kathmandu’s International Airport, the lights went off. The airport’s rather dark looking immigration control area became further dark.

“Nothing works in this country,” said the immigration officer taking my passport.
“Where are you coming from?,” he asked me.
“Well Delhi on this flight but actually from America,” I said.

“Why would anybody want to return to this country?” looking for stickers to put on my passport. “No wonder everybody wants to leave.”

“Why are you back bhai (brother)?”
“I have all my family here and most people have their families too,” I said. And, “but some people think that they must return for the country,” I added.

“I fall on latter category,” I said with a smile.

He laughed out.

Ha ha ha ha

“Well everybody thinks they need to do something for the country but nobody does,” he responded with further laugh.

“If we meet here after 20 years we will have this conversation again,” I said joking.

“I wonder if we will meet in 20 years,” he continued to laugh but “I know you cannot stand this country for 15 days.”

As I collected my passport, I knew it was a sign of things to come. There is 16 hours of daily blackouts and I am up at 2 AM checking emails as today it was the mid-night when electricity would be in our area.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Luv the Blog, keep up ur hard work.
N I even recommend taking a .com.np domain name from 'mercantile' under your name.

More info register.mos.com.np

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