Diplomatology: We’re not ready

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Last Friday, Malay Mishra, India’s High Commissioner to T&T, arrived from Grenada on Liat flight 727. No immigration forms were issued on the flight, and everyone, flight crew included, had to fill out the required forms on entry at the Piarco Terminal. What happened after Mr Mishra entered the building remains almost perfectly inexplicable. The diplomat went to the appropriate queue reserved for such officials, the first indicator that he was not a casual passenger on the flight.
As the Indian High Commissioner stepped aside to prepare the form, he was rudely engaged by an immigration officer, who began shouting at him to fill it out. What followed was a cascading horror story of rudeness and misplaced bureaucratic aggression that left Mr Mishra with, as he described it, “a sour taste in my mouth.” Malay Mishra is a particularly low-key professional diplomat who, in the four years he has worked in this country, has spent a lot of time working to understand the nuances of T&T.