My fellow Indians have found a new way to secure visas to the West. Go to Hyderabad, take 11 rounds of the Chiklur Balaji Temple and voila, your visa will not be rejected.
A temple that has been around for about 100 years hardly drew anyone until recently, thanks to the reincarnation of Hindu Lord Vishnu into “Visa God”, it now draws 100,000 visitors a week. People go as early as 6am to avoid the rush.
Commerce graduate and ex-Unilever employee who is now head priest of the temple (his father’s), couldn’t have put his business knowledge to better use as he crafted this idea while Hyderabad worked towards developing into a key technology hub. The temple even has a website!
“Want it bad enough and you will get it”; “just believe in it enough and it will happen”, “Law of Attraction“; praying for what you want; all that I can understand and reason with; but turning a God into a “Visa God” and driving traffic under that excuse, is a bit hard to stomach. The fact that it has worked, leaves me amused and wondering. I suppose the idea sprouts from that of believing and faith, but it’s a bit far-fetched, no? Apparently, nobody who has greeted the Visa God has been disappointed.
From the article: Mr. Babu of Indus Entrepreneurs says the appeal of the Visa God boils down to the following: “Even if you’re not religious, you say, ‘Why not? I can just go and spend a few minutes and get a visa.”
My country, yet again, leaves me very, very confused.