Flying to US via Heathrow? Welcome to the latest 3D- full body scanners! Talk about virtually being stripped at the price of air travel. The scanner apparently see through the clothes but has no effect if anything is hidden inside the body. What happened to the good ole X-ray machines?? Won’t it be hilarious, looking at a smiling skeleton air–kissing or waving at the camera? Could definitely spread some much- needed laugh. But I guess the security won’t be complaining much either with the new body scanners.
Yeah, I know I am ranting like a village rustic about downside of technology (upside for anyone?). Anyways, if I get much-delayed visa (I know, they did it again!), I will be flying the British Airways back to Philly. And that’s why the horror of the scanner! Its not like I am hiding something, but I am very uncomfortable climbing a conveyor belt and lying like luggage. It’slike living my own perpetual nightmare. If only that Nigerian shit head didn’t carry out the orders of that equally dumb organization. Which brings forth another uncomfortable procedure. Passengers with Muslim names such as Khan can be detained and questioned. Not only this will be humiliating for them, but also create an ill feeling between communities. This gets me to think why I was double-checked before boarding my flight back to India? Was it because I am brown or because I don’t have a Christian name? Funny, because the newspapers are currently buzzing with headlines having an American-Pakistani name, David Coleman Hadley. Now I am thinking hard, but laughing even harder.
I totally understand that people in the West are currently paranoid with the terrorist threats. But do you think it is justified that someone in the American embassy decides that I shouldn’t attend school on time? Of course, you can’t question the authority about this recurring nightmare. Just because they may have some “doubts” about my profile, not only will I miss an entire term of coursework, but also four months of research. I mean you go for your visa interview with all the required documents (Mind you, everything is legitimate), you won’t be asked any question, but simply given a green paper saying the visa is delayed due to “administrative processing”. You then answer a series of questions online and wait for 4-5 weeks, depending on the workload of the embassy.This is not a one-time thing, it happened twice! So my friends have come up with some of the stupidest and funniest theories behind my “delayed-visa” mystery.
Anyways, my biggest and only console is that I get to spend some with my family, but how long? The happiness changes to boredom after few weeks. No work and all play makes T-F-L a lousy writer(as you can see it!).
