Haresh Shah
Corazon de Melon, de Melon, de Melon….
Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles had more of a feeling of a traveling agency then that of a diplomatic mission. Of the posters on display there with enticing graphics of the country’s top tourist destinations, the one that I remember the most, said in the large type face: Mexico. So Close And Yet So Different. On my second visit, I said to myself, they might as well add: And So Outrageously Difficult To Get Into. So close in fact, that you can get in your car, have a nice lunch in Tijuana and come back on the same day. Or if you lived in the border town of San Ysidro, south of San Diego, you can simply walk across the border, pick up some cheap Mexican grocery and medication, come back and go as often as you want. And from the places farther away, like Chicago, you can hop the plane and on impulse take off for Puerto Vallarta for a weekend.
Not so simple if you were a holder of passport from one of the “third world” countries. Up until 1980, I traveled with my Indian passport. This meant, I needed a visa to go anywhere beyond the defined borders and the time frame. Several years earlier, when I took my first ever trip from Chicago to Buffalo, New York, George, the young account executive at the printing plant fixed me up with a friend of his girlfriend and we three went out on the town on a double date. During the course of the evening, I got to see yet another wonder of the world – the Niagara Falls. So breath-taking. ‘Its even better from the other side,’ they told me. But I wasn’t allowed to cross the border into Canada without a visa, so we remained where we were. While living in Chicago, I used to often joke about how some day I might even need a visa to go see Wisconsin Dells! You wouldn’t think getting one for Mexico would be all that difficult. Especially considering that I was a legal resident of the United States and the possessor of the mighty green card. No importa. It was my Indian passport that had the consuls in Los Angeles and Chicago humiliate me before carrying out their bureaucratic function of issuing me a visa.
But I will forgive them their nasty petty-powered bureaucracy, because say what you will about the Mexican bureaucracy, and them being universally defined as los hombres de mañana and the people difficult to do business with. But when it comes to their hospitality, warmth and the most humane welcoming attitude of mi casa es su casa, they are the tops. Especially when it comes to the matters of the heart, they melt like marshmallow on a twig over camp fire.
After my assignment ended in Munich, I returned to the States and at the time was living in Santa Barbara, California. When Playboy called me back, it was first to work for them as a freelancer, which would still allow me to continue living in Santa Barbara and travel to Mexico City as needed. Perhaps once or twice a month. Hop, skip and jump from the little shed of the SB airport. But I knew that before booking my flight, I had to first take a trip to Los Angeles and visit the Mexican Consulate and acquire a visa. Actually it was fun driving south on the most picturesque highway 101 and spending a pleasant day there, accompanied by my French Canadian friend Claude and her Swedish boyfriend, Gunnar. We checked in with the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles promptly as it opened. Put in my application through, paid the fee of 200 Mexican pesos (about US$ 9.-) and ventured out to stroll the neighborhood of Olvera Street and the plaza. Had late breakfast and later an authentic Mexican lunch that went beyond tacos and enchiladas and flautas. Picked up the visa and drove back with the Pacific roaring on our left and the San Ynez Mountain Range on our right.
What was supposed to be just a short introductory trip, ended up being a stay that stretched to three full weeks. Wasn’t too hard to take, basking in the lap of luxury at Camino Real, which was to become my home away from home and because of its bright yellow façade with the magenta trimming, came to be known among my Mexican associates as tu casa amarilla.
There was enough work to keep me occupied. And our partners Ricardo Ampudia and Carlos Civita took care of me through the days with sumptuous meals. Lunches that started at two in the afternoon and lasted until six. Back to office for two to three hours, and then it would be dinner time around ten. During those three weeks I was introduced to some of Mexico City’s most alluring places. Playing tourist over the weekends, I had absolutely fallen in love with the smells and the sounds of Mexico City. Must have been the pollution, the waves of black heads bopping, the noise and the perpetual chaos on the streets that reminded me of home, filling me with the nostalgia of the similar landscape of the street life of Bombay.
Unlike my residence permit problems in Germany when Playboy had shipped me off to Munich, this time around they were aware of the fact that for me to take frequent trips to Mexico, I would require a long-term multiple entry visa. So in-between my first trip in January 1977 and the second in February, they had gone ahead and hired a young attorney in Mexico City to immediately start the visa proceedings. Attorney or not, these things take time. In Los Angeles, they had completely ignored my request for the multiple entry visa. This meant, I would need one for every trip I took to south of the border.
My first stay lasted from January 11 through January 30th. I was required to be back in Mexico in about ten days. A week later, Playboy asked me to first come to the head offices in Chicago. From there I would continue on to Mexico City. I needed to get another visa.
I’ll spare you the humiliation of the grilling I was subjected to when I presented myself to the Mexican Consulate in Chicago. In nutshell they were suspicious of the motive of me going back to their country so soon. When asked, I answered:
‘Because I have fallen in love with your beautiful country and would like to explore it more.’
The consul Jose Antonio Arias gives me a skeptical look, yeah right! He is probably looking for a justification to be able to deny me the visa. That would mean, I would be temporarily out of the job. The prospect would have absolutely devastated me. But before the dismay takes over and shows on my face, something outrageous crosses my mind. Something that happens only once in a blue moon and only on impulse. I couldn’t possibly have thought it up. I meet the counsel’s gaze.
‘Yes, you’re right.’ I agree with him, even though he hasn’t said anything to my having fallen in love with his country. ‘Of course I have fallen in love with your beautiful country. But the truth is: during my three weeks stay there, I met this most gorgeous woman in my life. And I think we are in love.’
Still looking skeptical, his face softens.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Maria Elena…Maria Elena Luna.’ The woman that comes instantly to my mind is the typesetter at the Mexican edition. A petite blonde – very pretty. I don’t know how much that convinces him, but what can be more compelling than un hombre enamorado? He lowers his pointed gaze. Picks up my passport and flips through to the blank page facing my earlier visa.
‘Entonces, bueno.’
The passport with the visa stamped inside, I rush to the airport. The American Airlines’ waiting area is mobbed. Still feeling drained and humiliated of the experience, I am walking around in bit of a haze, completely oblivious to a young man approaching me.
‘Aren’t you Haresh Shah?’
He looks familiar, but I can’t place him right away.
‘Lalo. Lalo Guerro. From Time?’ Of course. The Mexican young man. He is now working for American Airlines as their on-site PR agent. I tell him about my job with Playboy and about just having started a Mexican edition of the magazine.
‘Give me your boarding card!’ he practically snatches it away from my hand. Walks over to the check-in counter, walks back and hands me another boarding card. ‘I’ve got to run to the Dallas flight. Have a nice trip.’ And he disappears in the crowd, as suddenly as he had appeared. He has upgraded me to First Class.
I don’t even like champagne, but don’t turn it down when the flight attendant hands me a flute with the bubbles hurriedly rushing up. As I sip on the dry and crisp, chilled-to-perfection glass of Moët et Chandon, I feel my humiliation and frustrations dissolving like an Alka Seltzer in a glass of water.
© Haresh Shah 2013
Illustration: Jordan Rutherford
SISTER SITE
Next Friday, February 8, 2013
MY LATIN VALENTINE
Premonition? I certainly don’t believe in such nonsense! But then there are times when you can’t help but give such a notion the benefit of the doubt. Because on my trip after the Chicago visa debacle, I meet an exotic morena at a party and we promptly fall in love.
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