George W. Bush and Manmohan Singh walk down the south lawn of White House. (AFP)

Washington, July 18: When a 5,000-year-old civilisation meets a developing civilisation, is there a clash? No. Instead of a clash of civilisations there is a crash of machines. This is what happened at the Andrews Air force Base when the Indian Prime Minister’s delegation landed.

At the customs and immigration post, there was a pile up of passports and a crowd of Indians ? all duly fingerprinted by the US embassy in Delhi and with machine-readable visas waiting eagerly to be photographed for US records through a web camera for posterity. And their fingerprints had to match with those given in Delhi. Every visitor to God’s Favourite Country, after all, could be a potential terrorist.

There were three Americans ? two white and one African American ? manning the post. Of the two whites, one was a supervisor and did nothing while the other, a woman, was immersed in some paperwork. That left only the African American to clear the Indian non-diplomatic contingent.

He seemed a good soul but someone had goofed up ? one immigration officer to clear nearly 50 people with abnormally inflated journalistic egos? How could a poor American deal with them? He tried valiantly though.

But there was one snag. The scanner would not read the machine-readable visas. “I have got to type every detail in, but don’t worry I will get better as I go along,” the immigration official joked.

Then there was another snag. The web camera started acting erratically and would not take a picture. But he was still full of beans. “Hey man, this camera does not want to take your photo but let me try again,” he joked.

In no time, his humour gave way to frustration. “It’s all this junk equipment they give us,” he muttered to no one in particular. “Oh well, I will let you in without taking your photo,” he said.

“Next please,” he said. Again the same problem surfaced.. “Hey (let us say) Walter, look at this message I am getting on the computer. The web camera is not registering,” he shouted out to his supervisor. As supervisors the world over, he seemed to know less about the error-message than the person manning the computer. After peering at the screen as shortsighted middle-aged people do, he walked away shrugging his shoulders.

Some delegates were let in through immigration with only fingerprints and manual typing of their visa details. But how does one handle 50 Indians getting impatient after a long flight. Not that they said anything ? we are a docile people when it comes to dealing with the sole superpower. Powerful editors, columnists and diplomatic correspondents, whose roar can normally be heard tearing through flimsy newsprint, waited quietly.

A first-timer asked: “Are they taking iris prints also? I am told they take a picture of your left eyeball and then your right eyeball. Are they going to do that here?” It is doubtful whether even that iris-print machine would have worked. “Soon, they are going to take pictures at US immigration posts leaving out the eye,” someone quipped.

Then something snapped. The US official started stamping all the passports without bothering to type anything. The fingerprint scanner worked but he had given up on that also. Like a good Indian postman, he went about stamping the immigration forms and passports in a rhythm everyone seemed to enjoy.

The essay in mutual comprehension with the world’s greatest superpower, as the Prime Minister is wont to describe our relationship with the outside world, was far from over. The July heat in Washington can be killing; especially if you are dressed in dark conservative suits and ties. And it was.

So it was a relief to get into an air-conditioned van to the city centre ? except that the air-conditioner seemed to malfunction. It threw out hot air with great gusto. “Hey amigo,” called out a confident NRI reporter who clearly knew how to address Latino drivers in the US, “Can you put the air-conditioner on max?” Not getting a response, he walked up to him, fiddled with the knobs himself and said: “It is on max.”

Finally, the Indian media delegation and its minders trooped into the overpriced hotel, thoughtfully located next to the Washington Zoo. Everything was on a grand scale, much like Stalinist Russia’s monstrosities like the over-5,000-room Hotel Rossiya in Moscow. One could get lost in this hotel.

Is there something fascist about grandness or is beauty really in the eyes of the beholder? Before this question could be mulled over, a senior member of the delegation found that his room was already occupied ? he had been allotted a room that had not yet been vacated. Oh well, put that down to computer error.