My pledge was put paid to when my sister called recently from Toronto saying that she and the children were coming to Delhi for a couple of weeks and that Shabnam and I should meet her there. So we drove up to Islamabad over the weekend to be in line on Monday morning.

It was cold at 5 a.m., but that was the only way to go for we were told that they handled about a hundred people only. We had brought our folding chairs along and, at least, the two of us did not have to park our bottoms on cold concrete.

At 7 a.m., a man came along to scribble numbers on our palms. We thought these were the much talked about``token numbers.'' But no, this was only your sequence of precedence in the by now long, snaking line. By these numbers, we were to be called to the windows when they opened at nine to be given the actual token number that would eventually afford us entry into the High Commission. By then we, wretched visa seekers, would have braved the cold of Islamabad for over four hours.

At this point the woman standing next to Shabnam said something about a ``lucky draw.'' Lucky draw? Whatever was that? We asked. This veteran of several days of waiting revealed that you came hours before the crack of dawn to stand in line to be given a number (on your palm) which allowed you to stand in the next line to receive a token with a number. Then, some time after nine, they called out random numbers from the allotted tokens. Only the called numbers were allowed entry into the High Commission for the interview.

This, some Indian bureaucrat's grand idea of sadistic fun, was the most ridiculous thing we had ever heard of. Why,we have stood in line at the British High Commission or the American Embassy, but if we came early enough to get in, there was always an interview. Had we been refused, that would be another thing. But nowhere else in the world does one stand in line for four freezing hours (or broiling depending on the time of year) to be then subjected to a most humiliating and brainless ``lucky draw'' as was announced on the public address system.

Totally floored, we discussed if we wished to be exposed to such a gross and utterly disreputable violation of human rights. Standing in line for a visa is something we Third Worldwallahs are well used to; but to be early in order to be well up in line and then to be ridiculed with a stupid ``lucky draw'' is demeaning, to say the least. If it has to be a dim-witted lucky draw, what is the point, I ask, of coming early? We didn't leave because Shabnam's new friend convinced us that we had two chances since if one was called, the spouse automatically got in too. We stayed and ofcourse we weren't called.

The nosy ones wanted to know if we were coming back again the next day. We weren't because we have more important things to attend to. But there were several, mostly from Karachi, who had been camping outside the High Commission for the past three of four weeks. Daily had they stood in line and daily had they been eluded by the gambler's luck. But they remained, for there was in India a relative on the verge of death, or a wedding in two months. And so they waited outside the Indian High Commission because some bureaucrat with a diabolical mind has devised a thoroughly irrelevant lottery system.

The wedding might--in a rare case--be made subject to the arrival of this cherished relative from Pakistan but will an elderly uncle sinking fast to death wait for the Pakistani to win the India Visa Lottery?

Why can't the bureaucrats of the Indian High Commission only give so many tokens as they can handle in a single workday? Why the rigmarole of two different numbers and then thehumiliation of a brainless draw? What is this game if it isn't the grossest breach of human rights, I ask. Will Indian diplomats have the courage to subject British or American nationals (or most other Westerners) to such demeaning treatment? Of course they wouldn't dare. Only Pakistanis are to be dealt with this way.

Having said that, I might as well add that the others in line had stories to tell of Pakistani diplomats in Delhi. The tales were just as disgraceful. What I cannot understand is why the Pakistan High Commission punishes the Muslims coming across the border. Perhaps for the crime of not having migrated to the Land of the Pure at the time of Partition.

The attitude of the Indian bureaucrats is understandable. Presuming most of them are Hindus they are fighting the good fight against the unclean, untouchable, loathsome Muslim who is responsible for the sad demise of Maha Bharat that stretched from Sonargaon to Kabul and from Kashmir to the shores of Sindh. And so they must devise newer andever more devastating methods of punishing this mean vermin. But what justification do the Pakistani diplomats in Delhi have? I have said it once, and I will say it again: we are two ridiculously immature nations that are simply refusing to grow up. It is ironic that we spring from one of the oldest and most glorious civilisations of the ancient world.

-- Courtesy The Friday Times