passports, visas and the limits of achievements

A friend from a Western country writes asking if I can help find a job for an Indian friend, who we may call Vinod for the moment.

Unfortunately, Vinod is one of the many tens of thousands, in Western countries, who have an Indian passport and no appropriate visa for working in these countries.

My friend pleads with me to try to find some solution as Vinod is both extraordinarily gifted and extraordinarily hard-working.

As someone who is very familiar with this problem over many years, I had to say that
it does not matter how gifted or hard-working you are, your passport and visa-status define your minimum and maximum possible achievements in this world.

Though it does not seem that way to many of us, specially when we are young, there is after all Someone outside ourselves who determines where we are born, and to whom we are born. That Someone therefore defnies the entire framework with which, and within which, we have to work out our lives. Sphere: Related Content