The Visa God

[Guest guest]

Divine Intervention?

Indians Seek Help

From the 'Visa God'

 

By VAUHINI VARA

December 31, 2007

The Wall Street Journal

 

HYDERABAD, India

 

[Off topic, but interesting]

 

Lord Balaji is one of the most-worshiped local

incarnations of the Hindu Lord Vishnu. His adherents

flock to his many temples to pray for things like

happiness, prosperity and fertility.

 

Lately, the deity has grown particularly popular at the

once-quiet Chilkur Balaji temple here, where he goes by

a new nickname: the Visa God. The temple draws

100,000 visitors a week, many of whom come to pray to

Lord Balaji for visas to travel or move to the U.S. and

other Western countries.

 

Mohanty Dolagobinda is one of the Visa God's

believers. Three years ago, a U.S. consulting company

applied for a visa on his behalf. It was rejected. When

the company tried again the following year, Mr.

Dolagobinda's friends told him to visit the Chilkur Balaji

temple ahead of his interview at the U.S. consulate.

Weeks later, he sailed through the interview. " I've never

heard of anyone who's gone to the temple whose visa

got rejected, " says Mr. Dolagobinda.

 

 

Visitors to the Chilkur Balaji temple wait in line to pray

to Lord Balaji, the 'Visa God.'

In the late 1990s, this small temple on the outskirts of

Hyderabad -- the capital of the southern state of Andhra

Pradesh -- drew just two or three visitors a week.

 

C.S. Gopala Krishna, the 63-year-old head priest of the

Chilkur Balaji Temple, wanted more people to come. So

he gave Lord Balaji a new identity. " I named him the

Visa God, " he says. Now, Mr. Gopala Krishna's temple

is a hot spot. Billboards on the dirt road to the temple

advertise English-language schools and visa advisers.

Next to the parking lot, vendors hawk souvenirs and

fruit.

 

The Visa God's growing celebrity reflects the rising

frustration of educated Indians hoping to move West. In

recent years, it's become harder to win the employer-

sponsored " H-1B " visas that let skilled professionals like

engineers work in the U.S. While the U.S. limits the

number of H-1Bs granted each year to 65,000, the

demand for visas keeps rising.

 

For the fiscal year ended September 2004, it took 11

months for the U.S. government to receive 65,000

applications for H-1B visas; last fiscal year, it took two

months. This fiscal year, the U.S. government received

more than 65,000 applications in one day. Applications

are now assigned a random number, and the first 90,000

to 110,000 are processed and accepted or rejected until

the quota is reached.

 

Technology Hub

 

Hyderabad, a city of seven million once known for its

pearl trade, has become a fast-growing technology hub.

Indian citizens have been the biggest group of H-1B

holders in recent years and Hyderabad has forged ties to

U.S. companies such as Microsoft Corp., which employ

large numbers of H-1Bs. Companies such as Accenture

Ltd. and Dell Inc. have also set up huge development

and service centers in the city. That's brought a cultural

shift, as young middle-class locals replace traditional

Indian clothing with jeans and T-shirts and hang out at

newly opened malls and coffee shops.

 

On a recent Saturday evening, as a statue of the flower-

draped Visa God sat at the back of the modest temple, a

cross-legged Mr. Gopala Krishna took responsibility for

the visa fervor. Around him, visitors were speed-

walking, heads down, as they made the necessary 11

circles around the temple to gain the favor of the Visa

God. The temple was about to close, and some visitors

broke into a jog.

 

" At other temples, elders bring their children, " says Mr.

Gopala Krishna. " In this temple, children bring their

elders. "

 

He was born at the temple, where his father was once

head priest, and later left to live with relatives in

Hyderabad. Mr. Gopala Krishna studied commerce in

college and in 1968 started working at Hindustan Lever,

a consumer-products giant. In 1999, he came back to the

temple to take care of his father, and then became the

head priest himself.

 

At the time, the temple attracted few visitors. " The

temple has been there for at least 100 years with nobody

visiting, " says Ravi Babu, a longtime Hyderabad

resident who runs the local chapter of the Indus

Entrepreneurs, a club for entrepreneurs.

 

Wooing Microsoft

 

By then, Hyderabad was changing. Local officials were

on a tear to turn Hyderabad into the next Bangalore, the

high-tech capital of the neighboring state of Karnataka.

They started referring to Hyderabad as " Cyberabad. "

They fixed roads and wooed Microsoft and General

Electric Co. to set up offices there.

 

Hoping to capitalize on all the activity, technical

colleges sprouted up in the city's outskirts near Mr.

Gopala Krishna's temple. Students started trickling by

on their way home from school; many complained about

their failed attempts to secure U.S. visas. That gave the

priest an idea to sell the students on the deity by giving

him a new persona, " Visa God. " Mr. Gopala Krishna

counseled the students in English, then told them to

walk around the temple 11 times to get their wish. " I

used to say, 'Go, this time you'll get it,' " he recalls.

 

Soon, Mr. Gopala Krishna started seeing dozens -- then

hundreds -- of new visitors a day. In 2005, some local

newspapers wrote about the Visa God, just as new U.S.

visa restrictions were taking a toll. Mr. Gopala Krishna

and his relatives also launched a Web site and a

newsletter called Voice of Temples, with features like a

primer of sample prayers for help in visa interviews.

 

The temple's popularity surged. Last year, a public battle

between Mr. Gopala Krishna's family and the local

government, which briefly wanted to take the temple

over, only boosted its appeal among the young and

subversive. Now devotees of the Visa God say they have

to reach the temple by 6 a.m. to avoid the daytime rush.

 

Rajendra Vippagunta, a 28-year-old now working for

Amazon.com Inc. in Seattle, visited the temple in 2001

and saw few others. On a more recent visit, he says, " it

was really, really jam-packed. " Mr. Vippagunta didn't

know about the Visa God the first time he visited the

temple, but it may have had an effect anyway: The

following year, he got a visa to move to the U.S.

 

Mr. Babu of the 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,' " he says.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119906283337358633.html