"Queue-less"

Oh boy, have I had some adventure doozies this week!  They are too numerous to write, but I'll just highlight one:

The FRRO--This should be written in scary monster script if I had access to it.  This is the Foreigners' Visa Registration Office where every immigrant, employment, student, and extended tourist visa holder must register to do anything in India besides buy milk.

Picture a hole in the wall with an armed guard toting an old-school rifle and sporting a safari hat.  As you enter, you imagine hearing distorted strains of "It's a Small World After All" as burka-clad women, raastas, businessmen, Africans, and worried-looking anglo's funnel in like ants.  My companion, the HR lady, is ordered to leave because only foreigners are allowed inside; after much polite protest, Rifleman tells her to go sit in the furthest corner and wait.  Apparently, the fun is turning a bunch of foreigners loose with everyone speaking different versions of English and seeing what ensues.


Visit One:  I get in the queue and get my mugshot taken.  I look drunk.  I get to the first lady who tells me I have the wrong checklist form, which changes every 6 months.  There are several new documents that I need.  We leave.
Post-visit:  The HR lady drafts more forms while a driver is sent to procure one piece of 100 rupee "special" paper to draft one of them; It's sold by the sheet under protest.

Visit Two:  I get back in queue and get equally bad mugshot #2 taken.  I make it past desk one and am ushered upstairs to The First Floor after a 3rd review of my passport/visa 20 yards from the main entrance where I've already been checked.

The First Floor:  Picture Noah's Ark as a 60 ft. square box containing, not animals, but people.  Every tongue on earth is being spoken at once and queues occupy every square inch while strays languidly slouch in queue-less chairs.  I sit in the middle like a good little doobie and wait my turn.  Nothing happens.  I gather my bearings.  I am sitting in the reject pile when I should be in the queue for the Scrutiny Desk--silly foreigner.

The Scrutiny Desk:  There are about 5 people from all over the world in front of me who have no concept of line progression.  Normally, someone leaves, you inch your butt forward, and gain the illusion of progress.  No dice.  I make hand gestures and motions for the jumpy guy in front of me to move forward, and he finally understands.  We begin to move.  Two men from Ghana sit next to me and one of them hits on me.  Finally, it's my turn to be inspected.

I take deep breaths and try to look nonchalant as the Indian man behind the desk scans through my papers.  Because of the slow progression of most things here (affectionately known as "India Time"), the owner of my new apartment has not provided a rental contract which proves my residency.  The HR lady, waiting dutifully back in her corner downstairs, has instructed me to smilingly plead for a permit anyway with the promise of submitting it later.  This is the grand plan.  The man does not buy my smile, my carefully articulated English, or my pleading.  I am sent back downstairs with a stamp on my mugshot telling me to come back with a contract later that day or, at the latest, by noon the next day, or I start the process all over again.

The Director:  Back in her corner, the HR lady and I talk strategy.   She says the school "knows" the Director, and to go do the smiling/pleading bit with him upstairs and see what happens.  I am a stooge.  Still, anything's worth a try.  I stand in another queue and finally am admitted behind The Director's glass doors.  The man barely glances at me as I again explain my situation, namedrop my school, and ask for a permit with the promise of a rental contract later.  He points his finger and blurts, "Go to that lady over there!"   He has apparently overestimated my powers of telepathy--The room is filled with ladies.  Determined to risk being stupid, I ask him several times to be more specific about which direction his finger is pointing and am rewarded by yet another queue.

The Lady:  There is no real line around this placid woman who is the unspoken matriarch of the FRRO.  Everyone simply swarms her desk as she smiles like the Mona Lisa and keeps on typing.  Jumpy Guy from the Scrutiny queue cuts in front of me in broken English and I let him because he looks scary and I don't really care at this point.  The Lady doesn't even speak--she has two oracles next to her who do all the talking and slip her our papers.  I explain to Oracle #1 my situation again, who explains in her language what I am about.  If I get something in writing between the apartment owner and the school they will issue me a short, three-month residential permit.  I thank him for the crumbs, and leave.

Back downstairs, the HR lady tells me from her corner that this will not do, as three months later I'd only have to go back through purgatory.  We leave.

Day 3:  Next morning, I wait with the HR lady while the facilities manager physically brings in the apartment owner, who's flown in from the country of Bahrain, to the business office back at the school to sign the contract.  He does not even live in India.  I must have the contract at the FRRO with my decrepit mugshot by noon or I am toast.   The two men leisurely discuss the contract over tea while I try to distract myself with  some new tricks on the computer.  It is now 10:30 am. 

The Ride:  I try to remain calm as we walk to the school van set to take me to the FRRO office yet again.  The facilities manager and the apartment owner, who's along for the ride, saunter languidly to the car.  I do a double-take internally:  "Am I missing something?  Don't we have a deadline here?? Chop-chop, people!"

All week, mind you, I've had a good combat driver who fights through Bangalore traffic like a guerrilla, dodging and weaving at every turn.   Previously he'd squeezed our tiny van in between two rickshaws and grazed both their sides unfazed.  This morning, however, he has decided to come clean, be a good citizen, and drive like Grandma.   What a morning to develop a civic conscience.  The next surprise, according to a third man who's joined us, is that we still have to stop and get the dang contract notarized on the way.  Yup.  At this point it's almost noon and I know I'm doomed apart from the grace and mercy of God.

I reach the Scrutiny Desk at 12:10 pm and wait for four very excited African men who apparently cannot each get their permit without the communal conversation and effort of the others, to move.   Thankfully, the man behind the desk is not aware of the time and says I now have all my necessary papers.  But wait--there's more!

Now I must go back to the Mona Lisa Matriarch to get her approval signature. (If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.)  She gracefully makes her swishy signature and I think I'm finally free.  But no, I must stand in one more queue for the person who now actually enters all your papers into the big computer and takes, guess what?--another mugshot.  I reach the desk and smile hopefully at the girl behind the counter.  She stares back with glazed eyes over a shifting pile of paperwork and says, "Come back at 4:00."

3:30pm:  Apparently everyone has to come back at 4:00.  The facilities manager has said to come back early so I have a running start for the final dash.  Once inside, the man who guards the staircase to the 1st Floor will not let me in early.  I sit.  Ten minutes later I see the staircase guard bobbling his head and letting foreigners in early.  After he lets in a skater dude with bedhead and a friend who looks like Rizzo, I stop being good and head for the staircase. 

I reach the final desk, am handed The Permit, and I swear the heavens open and angels sing.  I vow to get it laminated and hang it on my wall.