New Delhi, April 19 -- The visa rejection made him hungry. Before the door banged shut on him, he hadn't looked at the world outside. But now his mind, body and soul ached for 'Dream America'. His wait ended soon because that world knocked again. The Y2K bug had heightened the demand for IT professionals in the US. Body shops, promising visas to desperate techies, conducted interviews in Hyderabad's hotels.

Sreenivas wore a white shirt, blue trousers, a patterned tie, and headed for interviews, holding resumes, certificates and a passport. He sat in a lobby or a conference hall and waited for his turn. The recruiters flipped the pages of his passport, noticed the AFU (Anti-Fraud Unit) entry and rejected him for being rejected-or for bein...