It’s Saturday, I’m sitting out on my roof terrace with my laptop. I have “borrowed” bits of some of the compound’s old lamp-post stands – they make interesting flower pot holders. I’ve just called Dad for a nice, catch-up chat. He was in quite a bubbly mood, very much looking forward to his eldest granddaughter visiting tomorrow. He’s been out and bought some fresh strawberries and is planning an outing to one of his favourite country pub haunts for lunch. I will try to call him afterwards to find out what L has been doing for the past few weeks!! We hear she is now super busy … “and important” at her workplace. Well Missy! La-di-da! I’m on Skype, though my home internet connection is parp … about as slow as getting a visa around here.
But wait, I DO now have a year-long, multi-entry visa! Now, therein lies a tale.After returning home at around 1.30 after work on Tuesday night, I was up and about at 6.30 for an appointment at the FRRO (foreign residents’ registration place) downtown at 9. Quick breakfast, shower, 10 minute walk to the nearby bus stop, 12 rupee bus ride into the centre of Bangalore (Mayohall), then hop on an auto rickshaw for the last couple of kms (50 rupees) to the Police Commandant’s rather bleak and unwelcoming offices (odd smells, paint peeling, gaps in ceiling where damp has won a years-long battle vs concrete and timber). My outsourced agent, bless him, was first in the long queue of local agents, agent-less Westerners, African students, Korean families etc, so I was well placed. At 9.30, I get bundled inside (no locals allowed) with a sheaf of papers, get past the first three hurdles – old men who flick desultorily, almost scornfully, through the wads of documents, letters of recommendation, photos etc – and I’m sent through to a Fairly Senior Lady, who proceeds, rather too quickly, to inform me that I should have to go to New Delhi (about a week away by train). My heart sinks, my eyes well up, my lip quivers – so she smiles and sends me to a Very Important Looking Man with his very own office. He’s smiley and we chat about my internationally renowned employers. I tell him my father was in Bangalore many moons ago, and he okays my paperwork – as long as I go to a nearby bank and deposit some fee. I pop outside and ask my agent to look after this. Hah! Then I get to a Counter and actually hand over the aforementioned documents, with a receipt from the bank for this ‘special’ fee and several scribbled messages and signatures from the Fairly Senior Lady and Very Important Looking Man. Success, of sorts. I am handed a slip of paper and told to come back at 4.30 to pick up my passport with signed, stamped, extended visa. It’s now around 11.30 and I’ve not yet had coffee, and I’m getting low on rupees. Then, the Bajaj Motorbike Dealer Man calls to say my new Avenger has arrived. Would I like to come and see it, touch it … and pay for it? Pah, would I? With a few hours at my disposal (I’m not due at work until 3pm) I hastily reply in the affirmative, hop on a rickshaw back to Mayohall and jump on the 333E red bus to work, which is just around the corner from the Bajaj Motorbike Dealer Man’s showroom. It’s kinda sunny and I’m getting sweaty by now. I’ve also done nothing to replenish my dwindling supply of rupees.
So, I’m at the Bajaj Palace, and my new black Avenger is there in all its pristine newness and showroom glory, and I sign lots of paperwork about insurance and road tax, and I even agree to have the bike Teflon-coated. Not sure why … maybe I’ll be able to fry an egg on the bike on a hot, dusty weekend trip to Goa, or something … but it was only about 6 quid. Then I finally get to the Paying Counter and hand over my Citibank credit card to pay the balance owed of around 75,000 rupees (just over 1,000 pounds). The card doesn’t swipe, the man looks at me as if it’s my problem, not his, I see in my mind the bike fading away and days more of the company “taxi” drive to work, bouncing around endless muddy, rutted Bangalore backstreets picking up local colleagues, ditto on the way home at half past midnight … and my eyes well up, my lips quiver, and I hand over my DBS credit card. “No, can’t use that,” says the unsmiling Man in Charge of the Money, whose teeth are worse than mine and who now has a glint of malice in his beady, bankroll-counting eyes. Crap, fuck, bugger and more crap. I have to agree to pay cash. Instead of riding off into the dust and haze on my Teflon-coated Avenger beast, I face the prospect of ATM hunting, knowing I can only withdraw 10,000 rupees per card per day. This is going to take all week to build up my Avenger slush fund. Dammit, why didn’t I start doing that days ago!!!? Dejected, I walk out, promising to return within days with a barrowload of stinky rupees. I head up Airport Road to the Leela Palace Hotel, which is opposite the glistening blue tower that is my workplace. Previously, I had been to the ATM here and withdrawn 10,000 rupees on both my Citi and DBS cards. So ... 20,000 today, 20,000 on Thursday, 20,000 on Friday and a quick visit on Saturday … and I should be there. The bloody ATM’s been jemmied!! No rupees (I have about 75 rupees in my pocket and need that to get back to theFRRO (bus and rickshaw). I go further up the road to another ATM in an underground car park beneath another of my employer’s offices. I’ve not been to this office before and, of course, my office pass doesn’t open doors here, so I loiter, frazzled, until some unsuspecting colleague descends in the lift. I’m in … not knowing if I can get out again. In goes the Citi card … today, the limit is 4,000 rupees. Crap, fuck, bugger and more crap. Then I try the DBS card and it tells me I can’t have ANY frickin rupees at all. Bloody hell, my bike fades faster than an England World Cup soccer team. This could take weeeeks to get enough cash. I hop on a green bus into town, jump on a rickshaw, throw him my last few rupees and arrive late and sweaty back at the FRRO. Good old agent, he’s first in the queue again. What a job, man! I dash to Counter 5, flash a winning smile, only to be told my passport/visa hasn’t been processed yet, could I wait 10 minutes? I sit down and watch my first-mover advantage evaporate as other new arrivals and visa extenders file past me and walk away with their new visas. Eventually, I return to the counter and … yes … there’s my passport and Registration Document. Feeling like I’ve weathered the Harrods Sale, I get outside and show my agent. With years of experience of this sort of thing, he says I should just check my name’s spelt right, etc. I look at my Registration Document and see, with horror, that the whole thing has been completed using my Old Passport (which was valid through 2015, but which had to be renewed as there were no more empty pages). Crap, fuck, bugger and more, much more crap. This is serious. I have to go back in and see Not Particularly Pleasant Lady at Counter 5 and explain this monstrous cock-up. Naturally, it’s all my fault (actually, this time, it isn’t, but I acquiesce, feeling it will look good to let her have her petty victory). It’s now well past 6pm and these good people are all packing up to go home. My eyes well up, my lips, cheeks, eyebrows are all-a-quiver and I stand there like a boy in detention pleading to have a new document … today. She smiles, I think viciously, but agrees. I don’t think she wants to see me coming back the next day. By 7pm, I have it … but I am sans rupees to get to work, and I have little faith in Bangalore ATMs. I trudge off, trying to blank out the cacophony of honking buses, trucks, cars, bikes, and the choking rush-hour dust. It’s now overcast, with a very real threat of rain. I am nowhere near an ATM (as far as I know).
As I was leaving Singapore, an old India hand told me that I would experience the highest highs and lowest lows during my time here … and probably on the same day. He wasn’t kidding.
Up ahead, I suddenly spy a shopping mall … ATM … get some cash … feel like a Gin & Tonic, but then realise I have to go to work until after midnight. My eyes well up ….
But that was Wednesday. Today is Saturday and I have a visa … and I’ve just come back from Bajaj Motorbike Dealer Man having paid him his cash. Full Disclosure: On Friday, I returned to the underground car park ATM for my daily fix, only to find that the 10,000 rupee limit was per withdrawal, not per day. Now, I’m in Las Vegas. In goes the card, out comes 10,000 rupees, in goes the card, out come rupees, in goes the card, out come rupees. A crowd builds outside the ATM kiosk. I’m like a whirling dervish. In goes the card … yes, 70,000 lovely rupees. I’m done. I go off back to work, grinning and whistling. I can feel the bike throbbing between my legs, I’m bobbing and weaving through the Bangalore traffic. I know now I can get back to Mr Bajaj and give him his money … and I can now pick up my bike on Monday!! Yay, double yay and thrice yay. I call R, and she’s booked my flight to Singapore late on Wednesday, so I get to formally turf F out of the family nest. Many more yays. Life is good again (though we’ll be sad to set F off into the big, wide, greedy world on her own, especially to Newcastle where Geordie girls wear spaghetti straps and hot pants at 3 am in December!
An email from S! From Bangalore to Jobs Galore! Go girl! Hope you’re settled now in the flat, which sounds lovely except for the Very Small Fridge.
After the excitement of handing over my stash to the Bajaj Motorbike Dealer this morning, I have come back down to earth – food shopping (OK; bread, milk and beer …), a load of washing, 45 minutes ironing and now to clean the floors. Hmm, wet mop or dry broom? Decisions, decisions. My eyes well up ………..
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