If someone wants to lay a bet that the Indian consulates and embassies aren't the worst in the world, I'll join you! Many of them have been outsourced to cox & kings, especially for visa services and this is about the one in new york

A year ago on a cold wintry day, I arrived at the destination only to see a queue of about 50 people standing outside. They started giving out hand-written numbers on post-it's to all in line. Finally folks started getting in the door but my guess is most folks were waiting outdoors for over an hour. Upstairs, it looked like a refugee camp and it turned out the guy giving out post-its only knew his numbers till 100 so when a 57 was called, there were like 3 folks standing up. Finally after waiting 4 hours, I decided the time for honesty was over, claim an emergency of requiring to fly out that night or I would have never been out of there and gotten my visa-stamped passport back. When I left, i could see a swarm of agitated people who had gathered around the officer's demanding to themselves go to the backroom to fetch their passports