FIFTH COLUMN

Visa

By C K lal

I have been told by one of my ‘usually every reliable sources’ that the anecdote being narrated here is quite likely to be true.

After the Second World War, institutions of the Old World had completely collapsed. To lift them out of the morass, the New World rose to the occasion. Many innovative ways of post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation were devised, the Marshal Plan being better known among them. A to very famous scheme was one where scholarships were offered to British students to study in the business schools of United States. Many mid-career executives too took advantage of such an opportunity.

One British gentleman was telling the story of four such scholars to a visiting official from one of the developing countries. “The one who went to Harvard was a responsible person. He came back after completing his course, and is the Chief Executive of a Japan trans-national corporation here,” said John Bull.

“The second guy who had gone to Yale was an innovator. He realized the true value of an Ivy League degree in a new continent and migrated to Australia. I hear that he is an important fixture in the office of a media mogul there, and is doing quite well for himself,” narrated the raconteur.

“The third recipient of American generosity had graduated from MIT. He went fortune hunting to Nigeria and retired to a Pacific Island post-card nation after making a neat bundle.   A true-blue technocrat, the smart fellow, possessing more of commonsense and fewer of scruples,” justified Bull with a twinkle in his eyes.

“However, the most intelligent of them all was a jolly good fellow who went to Ohio. One hears that he made millions and went bust many times in that land of opportunity. Last heard, he was exporting the replica of Birmingham Castle made in Peoples Republic of China back to the United Kingdom,’ gushed the gentleman with admiration in his voice.

One of the morals of this story: if a Britisher sees an opportunity in the middle of Charkoshe Jhadi, he will seize it with both his hands, and use his legs too, if need be. In fact, someone has done just that. That’s how they made their empire.

But they ultimately lost the empire. The main reason being, while they see nothing wrong in settling wherever they wish, they seem to have a strong aversion to other people opting to do the same in their little isle. Their fear of the foreigners, it appears, borders on paranoia.

Sometime ago, no less a person than Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka himself had to miss a flight due to intransigence of the visa section in the British Embassy here. One is doubtful if his family would have chosen to stay back in Britain illegally had they been granted visitors’ visas liberally.

Planning to go abroad for further studies? Go man go, go to America!