I Look I See

A week ago I went to an agency in Dhaka for my Australian Student visa purpose. There, after talking with the consultant (Neil Russell), I saw a well-dressed, good-looking boy staring at me curiously with a smiling face. I went to him after I had finished my conversation with Mr. Russell.

I: Are you also applying for Australia?

Boy: My case is different from yours. I got refused recently. But I will apply again.

I: Can you tell me why you were refused?

Boy: There weren’t any good reason. I showed a bank deposit of 14 lakh (1,400,000)taka and 6 lakh taka as liquid money in the American Express bank. All of these bank documents were genuine. I was a little stupid actually. I should have come to this agency at the first place.

I: Russell told me about 99% students are getting refused by the Australian High Commission(AHC) for the last 2 months without any reason at all.

Boy: After the fight at the British High Commission in February all the students are now applying for Australia. That’s why they are refusing everybody.

I: Hmm….

Boy: But when I applied for Australia in 99, things were totally different. I just went to the AHC submitted my papers and they gave me the pre visa, and then I sent the first 2 semesters’ money to the university and got the visa. The AHC didn’t even justify my documents. I was in Australia for 4 years. And this January I came to Bangladesh.

I: Why didn’t they give you citizenship?

Boy: They only give citizenship to those who study. But I didn’t study there. I made mistakes….
I went there to study. But I didn’t study much. I just studied a little and then started to have fun there.

I: What kind of fun?

Boy: All kind of. I took loans there from every possible way. Then I came back to Bangladesh (BD) and changed my passport and all the documents.

I: I don’t get it.

Boy: I had a huge bank loan. So to avoid repaying those loans I came back to BD and changed everything.

I: So… why do you want to go to Aus again?

Boy: Aus in the best country to live now. It is the future USA. Everyday you will find new opportunities there. Just think about those people who went to US 20 years ago and in what position there are now.
I have been to New Zealand, Singapore, Australia and I’m sure that there can’t be any country better than Australia.

I: So why didn’t you study there?

Boy: Like I told you, I made a mistake.
I will now go to Singapore like you and then I will go to Australia. If I can’t go to Australia then I will go to New Zealand.

I: But how did you manage to change the documents?

Boy: I never used authentic academic transcripts (Now my interest grew to know his method. You know forbidden things draw extra interest to everybody). 4 years ago when I applied for Australia I used the name “Abdul Karim”. I took SSC and HSC certificates from a boy and submitted them to the AHC. I stayed at the Dhaka education board for 18 days and whatever letter came from the AHC concerning me, I took them from the postman, replied them myself. And for every letter I had to pay him 1000taka. I left no chance for the AHC to question about the authenticity of those documents. Australians are really stupid. If they had just attached my photograph with the photocopies of those certificates I would have easily got caught.

I: Hmm… what’s your name?

Boy: Let me see… (He took the passport out of his pocket) well, it says my present name is Ashraf Ullah.
I was a stupid. I should have changed my documents just after coming to BD in January and applied for the visa then. We, 9 friends came to BD at the same time and 7 of them got the visa again. But my one friend and I got rejected. He was over smart. He showed bank balance of 1 crore taka(10 million taka) from the “A One Bank”. What a stupid. Why would the Aussies trust that bank?
My friends are really missing me…

I: Oh, my Allah. Are you saying that all the 9 of your friends did the same thing as you?

Ashraf: yap…

I: What did you study in Australia?

Ashraf: I actually went there to study Computer Engineering. I studied couple of semesters but didn’t complete.

I: Hey, when you go to Singapore with you new name I guess you won’t be able to use your past documents, will you?

Ashraf: No. not at all.

I: Why did you do it? You got nothing.

Ashraf: I told you before. It was a mistake. My brother… you are going to Australia too in future, don’t make the same mistake as me. You will ruin your life.

I: Yeah.

Ashraf: Ok… this is my mobile number and my name is Rubel. Don’t worry this is the real name.

I: Hahaha….

Rubel: As you are also going to Singapore probably we can meet there too.

I: Yeah, sure, why not?

In the mean time Mr. Russell came and told me to talk to him again after 5 min.

Rubel: He kept me waiting from 11 o’clock. (It was 3pm then).

I: Does he know about your past?

Rubel: Yeah.

I: Why did you tell him?

Rubel: Listen, with three people you should never tell a lie. One is lawyer, another is doctor and the other one is consultant. It is for your own good.

I: What will you do if you go to Australia again?

He looked seriously at me for a while and then suddenly burst out laughing and said, “ I will do the same things I used to do.” Then I said, “I will have to go to meet Mr. Russell. He is waiting…”

Rubel: See you later in Singapore then…

But in my mind I said, “NEVER”.
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