Your country is a pain

These were the words uttered by one of my closest cousins. The reason was that she had to stand an hour in the cold in line outside the Indian embassy for a stamping on her passport. It really infuriated me to hear those words because its my country and I don't like anyone insulting it in front of me. Time and again I have had the argument with her and some of my other cousins that they are really not Indian, they are just of Indian origin but they choose to believe otherwise. Now when the Indian embassy made a mistake, she called it my country and laid no claims on it.

Well since I am an Indian and I know how competent the embassy can be I would have done whatever I had to do with my passport a couple of months in advance so that I would have not have had to stand in line the day before I was leaving for a trip. I understand she was mad because it was freezing outside and the general attitude at some embassies is lackadaisical but not all. I remember I had to wait 2 hours at the Indian embassy in Chicago to just submit my passport for renewal but it was not the embassies fault, some guy before me had 10 passports with almost all the documents out of order, they worked like clockwork after he left.So why blame the country for one embassy.


And when we are talking about embassies, lets talk about the American one in Mumbai or any Indian city. I remember the number of times I have heard stories and personally stood in line in rain and extreme heat even after taking an appointment months in advance just to get a passport stamped or to submit a document. Really whose country is a pain then. Every place is different, you just have to learn to tolerate it especially when you want something from them but don't call my country a pain because I can't tolerate that.