I am convinced that the unofficial pastime of India is bureaucracy. Or waiting. Either way, the last week has been full of both. As a foreign residents, we have to register with the government within 14 days of arrival. Considering the complicated ordeal necessary to obtain our visas, the process to register is ridiculously involved, requiring three copies of the application to register, four passport photos, three copies each of the passport and visa, a copy of our lease, a utility bill, the grant award letter and the acceptance letter (two different things), a signed letter from our school confirming our placement, and our firstborn child*. I went with my roommates yesterday to the Foreign Residents Registration Office (FRRO-- they also LOVE acronyms here) where we waited outside under a tarp with about 50 other people and a man yelling incomprehensible instructions into a microphone. When they called us up, we got another number, and waited on another line, at the end of which they told us they would not look at our papers until the passport photos had been glued to the application. I ran outside to this little table where there was a pot of glue, elbowed my way through the 15 men from Afghanistan waiting to use the glue, grabbed the pot and brought it inside for my cohorts to use, after which every other person in the line used it as well. When they eventually did look at our papers, they bobbled their heads and announced that we could not register without a work contract and that our visa type (which we were informed to apply for by Fulbright) prohibited us from registering. After some forceful reasoning on our part and several calls to the program office, the bureaucrats would not budge, and insisted we go to the Ministry of Home Affairs to get our visas amended. Cool.
At 9AM the next day, we show up at the program office, where a senior staff person meets us and comes with us to the Ministry of Magic(/Home Affairs). We go through security. We get a number. We wait. We watch as Bharthi, the staff member who came with us, shakes her head and finger many times and argues with someone behind a desk. We continue to sit in the DMV-style waiting area, practicing Hindi script and whining about waiting. We move to the next room where we get another number and more head shaking occurs. Bharthi asks for Patricia's passport. Patricia gets her passport back. Bharthi asks for Sean's passport. Sean gets his passport back. Then she needs Patricia's again, and Porter's. Then they come back. This series of transfers happens about 10 times before "ID numbers" scribbled on the back of an envelope are handed to us and we are told to return to the FRRO the next morning and give them the ID numbers, which they will somehow use to get the message from the Ministry of Magic(/Home Affairs) that they can register us. We'll see how that turns out.
This process, mind you, comes after a week of endless paperwork and copies of every document we have ever received, in order to get a phone and Internet. For both of these basic communication devices, the six of us, with two very kind Indian facilitators, students who volunteer their time to help us out with this setting up stuff, spent over two hours in un-air conditioned offices experiencing power outages, a regular occurrence in the midday heat. Both when getting phones and again when getting Internet, each of us had to submit passport photos, copies of passports, visas, leases and letters. Each time, we only spent about five minutes per person actually interacting with an employee; the rest was just watching them put our papers in a neat pile and do their own thing.
This great book I am reading, called In Spite of the Gods, laments the inefficiency of the infamous Indian bureaucracy, citing the fact that while a third of Indian produce rots on its way to market because of the roads being in such poor condition, the state of Uttar Pradesh employs in its highway department one person for every 1.25 miles of road. At the rate we've gone, I am surprised two-thirds makes it to market at all!
***UPDATE: After four and a half hours at the FRRO and a lot of finger shaking and coercing on Bharthi's part, they finally granted us our registration. Yay!
*maybe
At 9AM the next day, we show up at the program office, where a senior staff person meets us and comes with us to the Ministry of Magic(/Home Affairs). We go through security. We get a number. We wait. We watch as Bharthi, the staff member who came with us, shakes her head and finger many times and argues with someone behind a desk. We continue to sit in the DMV-style waiting area, practicing Hindi script and whining about waiting. We move to the next room where we get another number and more head shaking occurs. Bharthi asks for Patricia's passport. Patricia gets her passport back. Bharthi asks for Sean's passport. Sean gets his passport back. Then she needs Patricia's again, and Porter's. Then they come back. This series of transfers happens about 10 times before "ID numbers" scribbled on the back of an envelope are handed to us and we are told to return to the FRRO the next morning and give them the ID numbers, which they will somehow use to get the message from the Ministry of Magic(/Home Affairs) that they can register us. We'll see how that turns out.
This process, mind you, comes after a week of endless paperwork and copies of every document we have ever received, in order to get a phone and Internet. For both of these basic communication devices, the six of us, with two very kind Indian facilitators, students who volunteer their time to help us out with this setting up stuff, spent over two hours in un-air conditioned offices experiencing power outages, a regular occurrence in the midday heat. Both when getting phones and again when getting Internet, each of us had to submit passport photos, copies of passports, visas, leases and letters. Each time, we only spent about five minutes per person actually interacting with an employee; the rest was just watching them put our papers in a neat pile and do their own thing.
This great book I am reading, called In Spite of the Gods, laments the inefficiency of the infamous Indian bureaucracy, citing the fact that while a third of Indian produce rots on its way to market because of the roads being in such poor condition, the state of Uttar Pradesh employs in its highway department one person for every 1.25 miles of road. At the rate we've gone, I am surprised two-thirds makes it to market at all!
***UPDATE: After four and a half hours at the FRRO and a lot of finger shaking and coercing on Bharthi's part, they finally granted us our registration. Yay!
*maybe
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