Well, I am in Paris for the last six months now. And last month I got an intern in Madrid finally after much effort (pun intended). So far everything had been smooth. But, things were going to change very soon. I was going to face the Visa monster. Yeah that's how fed up and scared of Visa I am now. Apparently in spite of having a valid Schengen Visa I was required to get the Spanish student's Visa I don't know why! Anyways, I started realizing I needed some typical documents to be able to apply for this Visa. And hence started the vicious cycle. There was one particular doc which asked me to get a police clearance certificate for the last 5 years. I said Gosh, hypocrites!! But then I had to visit the Indian embassy like 10 times in about 10 days to finally get that doc, which included getting to know things like Fax machine out of order, phone not working, passport office Bhopal is lying, their Email is bouncing. Bureaucracy at its best!
Anyways I gave up after wasting 10 days to no use and was going to get a plane ticket for India, when I got the call from the Amb-Inde that my doc was ready. Finally some relief I thought, and then I got the doc after 2 more days, taking which I happily reached the Spanish Consulate, only to know that now there was some problem with my sponsorship documents. Apparently they couldn't convert the money which was obviously shown in Indian Rupees in my accounts and affidavits to Euros. I felt like pulling the hair off my head. On the other hand, I was under pressure from my university as well my employer, and I was losing all hope slowly if I would ever be able to get this Visa in time.
Amidst all this fuss, I started thinking why are there so many boundaries? Why is there a separative force inside humans? What is the need that comes out in various forms like, having own identity, a cultural group, a smaller and smaller community which one can call one's own, and this tendency never seems to be satisfied, however pieces people do themselves, however lines people draw between each other, they want more and more. Everyone wants to be different, first they divide lines on countries, then color, religion, then race, caste, sub caste, language, economy, work, cities, on practically anything and everything conceivable we want to differentiate from others and be someone or something specific. Although I totally fail to understand what is the root of this desire, since the effects of this desire are definitely disastrous, it makes sense to question the cause.
Probably people want to take pride in belonging to a particular group. Feel dedicated and loyal to some community or cause or region. Probably they want to be part of a smaller group where people are closer to each other than the rest of the world. This probably has to do with a feeling of security and belongingness, like in case of a family, where one can trust each other and stand up for each other without a second thought. Another reason might be devotion or belief in a certain common cause, probably political parties or terrorist groups can be cited as examples (no hidden meanings in keeping the two together).
All of the above sound like good reasons to come together and be for each other, or reasons where being a group is better than being alone. But doesn't justify the tendency to keep breaking groups into smaller and smaller ones, does it?
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