Low-Level Sniping

ARG INDIA!!!!

As Suketu Mehta writes in Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, India won't actually keep foreigners out.  But the country will engage in a sort of daily guerilla warfare -- a low-level sniping, if you will -- designed to drive down your defenses.  The key is persistence and standing your ground.

And so I continue to learn.

This month's goal has been to successfully navigate the visa extension process and get my employment visa extended for one more year.  Score as of August 26th?  India 10, Tricia 0.

The battlefield has been skewed since the beginning.  Despite my best attempts at having all my paperwork just-so and absolutely perfect, my application wasn't even ACCEPTED until my third trip to the Foreigner's Registration Office (our beloved FRO).

That was weeks ago.

Mind you, submission of the application is clearly just the first step.  Next comes submission to the Andhra Pradesh government, back to the Hyderabad FRO, over to the Ministry of Homeland Affairs in Delhi, and only then back to the Hyderabad FRO... with hopefully the final stamp of approval that I can stay (and leave) the country at will for the next year.

I do have to hand it to the FRO, they are certainly trying.  There is now an ONLINE registration process (my roommate was the first online registrant and asked to be part of an elaborate opening ceremony with local press, ha!)... and they have fired the evil old guard who kept asking for bribes, in favor of a young, over-eager, and wanting-to-please newly minted bureaucrat.

After submitting my application, I return at the appointed date, only to be told: "It will be ready tomorrow."

I reply, "Really?  Tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow.  Absolutely, definitely.  Tomorrow... Or day after tomorrow."

And so it begins.

I'm back this week and now know the drill cold.  After waiting a few hours with other downtrodden souls, I am once again told: "Not ready yet.  Come back tomorrow or day after tomorrow."

Uh-uh.  This time I won't back down.  After adapting quite a few different personas at the FRO (anywhere from full-out anger to being sickly sweet and docile), I find that well-meaning confusion produces the greatest results.  And always a question about PROCESS (this is India, after all!)

"Huh?  I don't quite understand!  It was supposed to be ready two weeks ago.  Isn't that the process?"

Apparently that's all it takes, for I'm taken to the back room, where there are about 10 bureaucrats surrounded by piles of paper LITERALLY six feet tall!!  My hand instinctively reaches for my camera, but I realize that's probably not the wisest way to secure my visa.

I'm taken to a senior person, who again tells me it will be ready "tomorrow."  I'm learning that focus on process is key.

"So where in the process are we?"  I ask.

Ah, this gets him.  Now he reluctantly reveals: "Papers are here only.  Clerk is not there."  Huh?  He then tells me there has not been a clerk in FORTY DAYS!!!  He points to the six foot high pile of papers -- implying that my papers are somewhere in that crazy pile.  As if on cue, another bureaucrat remarks: "All of your friends' papers are there only."

This is where daily yoga comes in handy... breathe, breathe...

They expect me to leave, but instead I just stand there.  Apparently my patience (or stubbornness) pays off, for they find my stack of papers.  Hovering seems to help, for right then and there, everyone signs my papers who needs to.  I am assured that it will go to the AP government "today only."

And so the game continues... Stay tuned for the final score.