Uncertainty

A tale of two cities.

I have twice got Swiss visas stamped on my passport. And they were made in different cities – New Delhi & New York.

Whilst the visa at the New York embassy takes anything between 30 minutes to one hour, the same at the New Delhi embassy takes exactly two working days (yeah, an additional inconvenience of two trips to the embassy).

The New York embassy is on the 33^rd floor right in the heart of Manhattan with a pleasant view of the hustle and bustle of the city.

And there were different kinds of tourist brochures on Switzerland to keep the visitors busy.

In contrast, the New Delhi embassy offers a static view of a high security wall blocking not just intruders, but both sunlight and vision of the exterior world.

And the only reading materials are the much abhorred visa forms.

And yet, surprisingly, the Indian experience was much more pleasant for me. And the one phenomenon which explains this is – certainty of events.

Americans (and by Americans, I mean a particular breed of them – those from the US of A) do not require any visa to travel to Switzerland. It is an entirely different thing that the absence of visas does not help increase the flow of people into the European continent – for Americans, the entire world outside their boundaries constitute a huge third world and definitely does not deserve their time, effort and attention.

As the Americans do not require visas to travel to Switzerland, the New York embassy is frequented by few people, and staffed by even fewer people.

Most of the time, the embassy would be empty. And once a visitor submits his/her application, the only available staff manning multiple counters at the same time, would suddenly vanish inside (without a word) to process the application. And the surprised visitor would keep waiting, hoping to see someone soon, only to be left waiting for around half an hour. *

In contrast, a deluge of people throng the embassy in New Delhi every day. Everyone is given a token and knows the approximate time when he/she will be called to submit the application. He/she can roam around and get to the embassy in time for the submission.

And then visit the embassy after 2pm the next day to collect the already stamped passport.

This contrast between the embassies in the two cities, very much explains why we hate uncertainty, even though they might lead to better outcomes than certain events. History is replete with such examples. We don’t need to turn to history - every one of us has had dilemmas in life which are caused by uncertainties which on an average promise a much better result. And in most cases, people prefer the definite paths which might not be as profitable. We tend to worry excessively about the worst case scenarios in the uncertainties – probably this is God’s way of keeping an optimum number of entrepreneurs.

In short - everyone wants to be in control of the situation - irrespective of how pleasant the outcome.

The theory about uncertainty however does not explain why it is still more pleasant to stand outside and wait for an indefinite period of time for a bus to arrive, than to wait 10 seconds for an elevator to arrive.