Debarred from MXDU 2005

I never thought that something that would come up against my going to the ‘MXDU 2005’ would be a VISA issue. I have been debarred from entering Australia questioning the authenticity of my purpose of visit. The Australian Consulate believes that my pupose of visit Australia to speak at the conference is not genuine. All this inspite submitting the VISA application twice, submitting all paperworks, and the MXDU organizers faxing, calling up the Australian Consulate in New Delhi, India.

The refusal letter states,

You have not provided acceptable evidence of invitation from Australia. You seem to have very little family commitments or other obvious incentive to return to your country of usual residence.

If you let me re-phrase that in our own words that the Agent explained and everybody here in India accepts is that, People from Third-world countries like India go to these countries and stay there and do not return to their country. And the scary version for them is A Bachelor with IT (Information Technology) proficiency are the ones to be screened out as much as possible.

I had asked for a simple tourist VISA; but because of the above Bachelor with IT status thingy, the travel Agent warned me, that my VISA will be flatly rejected without a second look. So, I went in for a Business VISA (short stay) and I have fulfilled all their paper needs. It was first rejected on the ground that the invitation letter was submitted along with the application. So, MXDU helped me by faxing the paper straight to the Australian Consulate, New Delhi but still it got rejected for the second and final time. They warned – no further assessment of this application can be taken at this office.

So, no MXDU 2005 for me! The sad part is not that I will miss speaking there but the fact that I was so close to meeting all my role models, gurus that I have always looked up and copied, developers whom I would have loved to meet, dine with. I was even close to sharing the big apartments with some of the kick-ass developers in the world.