Ummm....can you repeat that?

I cant believe I am just approaching this disgusting Red Tapism drama in a big way. Its one of those things which you see someone going through in TV in a very non-funny episode of Office-Office maybe!

After a whole 2 weeks of riff-raff, angst , emotions, and arguments about how I HAVE to be at the client site (Holland) to be working on that project, I get to know by a smug-faced guy that I will need a Birth Certificate from the Municipality if I want a Work Permit.

Of course, I did not have a “Birth certificate from the Municipality”. ( I mulled over this for some time thinking my parents have been VERY careless in my upbringing, how can they NOT have my birth certificate?! And how come my sister has it? I being born after my sister, I think they must have gone like ‘Err…um…municipality, registration, certification…forget it, she anyway doesn’t seem to be a very promising daughter – as I was born a week after the due delivery date!)

I was taking this not so heavily like ‘what now??’ and so I casually asked ‘So, there must be a work around, right?’ And then his smug smile got smug’er and wider and he pushed his chair back, folded his hands behind his head. That was when the panic attack began …
He told me a painstakingly longish, sarkaarish process..by the end of which I was about to faint..!

A period of extreme unrest and nervousness followed. Primarily, because I HATE to have anything to do with sarkaari daftars and my laid-back'edness seems to be seeping in my bones!

Somehow, I needed reassurance and I ask some geek programmer guy (GPG) from my organization who is working in NL on a work permit. Here is the whole deal in his own words
(Which means the typos/spellings are his own…I thought of editing but on second thoughts, his original version lends the desired touch and effect. Please accommodate with grammar issues and such.)

According to GPG, I need to do this –

You need to go to municple office and tell them that you dont have a birth certificate

They will ask you to tell which hospital did you born

You tell them that you born in your home...not in hospital

(I went..’errr’ but he interrupts..)

Then you can get a bit early otherwise they wont allow you to fill the form also..

They will send you the hospital to get verification

Then you need to give some money to clerk...

Me- (unaware that this was just the beginning, start to curse!) err…I don’t know why my folks lost my original cert.??

GPG (continues)

Even if you have that wont be good enough to have visa of NL

They seek a certificate that issued within six months

So anyway you have to get it a new...

They dont accept certificate older than 6 months

After that your certificate will have to be attested from Ministry of Home, Haryana

That means Home Secretary will have to attest it
He wont attest until he does not have recommendation from DM of Faridabad

DM will only sign if he sees ADM's signature

ADM will sign if he finds it forwarded by Health Inspector

So it takes lot of time

For me it took 40 days

The best way is

You give some money to clerk..

He will send it to Health Inspector with his recommendation

Then you deposit it in DM office...and pay some money to the clerk...

(by this time, i am calculating that i would have 'pay some money to the clerk' three times already!)

May be if you know somebody in Chandigarh who has some jack in Home Sect..

Then he will send it to the concerned person..

Local authorities takes lots of time rather than Home Sect.

Once it is approved from state gov

Then Madhu (the travel desk guy) will send to to External Affair ministry Delhi

It wont take much time..just 4 to 5 days

Samjhi.??


Instead of saying 'yes', I Alt+F4 the chat window and reach out for some water...completely hyperventilating on this and getting psyched out by an image of a ‘pandeyji’ type of a person chewing/spewing paan and greedily counting currency notes with his grimy fingers!

I say, it’s too overwhelming to react immediately!

OXYGEN someone!

We are like this only...

As every other nation whose first language is not English, we too in India still use the language with a lot of pride. Then, we smear all the pride in misspelled words, badly used vocabulary, and literal translations on posters, banners, adverts, back of a truck/auto/cars etc…and be absolutely unapologetic about it.

Somehow, I love it! It can make you smile on your worst days!

En route to the office in Delhi was one of my all-time favorites (albeit a common one)-

‘CHILD VEAR’ – for Chilled Beer outside a wine shop.

There were more, but they faded away with time and got replaced with some new ones here in b'lore -

There are two hospitals on the way to the office. One is called “Green View Hospital” and the other is “Lake View Hospital”. (??!!)

?? Arent the '___ View' always hotels/restaurants?

Or maybe they were opened long back when they were trying hard to attract some tourists to the ‘city of lakes’!

I mean, its nice and all to think so deeply for your patients etc, but its like selling rooms to the people in the time of sickness. Imagine this -

Patient – My wife is going through labor. I need a private ward… quick!
Receptionist at Hosp – Sir, would you like one facing the lake?

OR

IN a room facing the lake, is a woman delivering-

Doctor – Ma’am, while we take out the baby through C-section, would you like to look at the lake?

Innovative….but …errr….!?? Naah-aah! Its nice in a sorta ‘commercial’ way, which is not really nice I think.

But today a note/warning/(something), painted very carefully in BIG BOLD beautiful letters on the back of an auto, struck a deep chord. I was thinking what it could possibly mean for all the remaining 25 minutes to the office. It said -

FOR MATERNITY FREE

After, 25 minutes of deliberation, I came up with these possible explanations-

• FOR expectant mothers (MATERNITY), no fare will be charged (FREE)
• FOR woman who are on their way to the MATERNITY home, no fare will be charged (FREE)
• FOR women who are barren and can never bear a child (MATERNITY FREE women, basically).

Any other interpretations will be highly appreciated.

Personal Checklist...

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Point number 2 - Buy new car for self before 30... - Check!
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(Phew..! Just in time!)

'Mild' Life - in every way.!

CAUTION - Its a LONG one...do not begin to read between work and then curse me!

I have been pouting since a lot of days now…!

Work too is biting at me with full vengeance. Reminds me of the NIIT days/evenings/nights spent submerged in work and nothingness. But there were still smoke breaks to look forward to. Although, hardly anything was spoken in the breaks, they were good. Even smoking deceives me now…! I can’t smoke! Brain cells slow down and the legs get wobbly! And I suddenly feel a hundred years old. I should be thankful for this, I know. But have I ever appreciated anything good when I am supposed to? It has always been ‘not learning in spite of the hard-way’.

(See…??, that’s how I am these days…whiny…and full of morbidity! )

So, here is something less morbid but equally depressing (for me)-

A couple of weeks back, went to Tholpetty wild life sanctuary with (so called) family.

Yep, the only thing that could turn out adventurous turned out like this-

Woke up really early (5 am)….it kills me to wake up so early….please forgive me if I have I have ranted about this on many occasions in the past…but waking someone up from sleep is one of the most unkind… brutal things in my scriptures! Also, ‘Sloth’ is one of my favorite sins.

Khair, I woke up rubbing eyes and thinking ‘wild-animals, y’all better be worth this’! Threw on some clothes and reached the sanctuary with oodles of sleep my eyes and a disinterested look on my face.

I have been to some other safaris and sanctuaries before. I think the best way to know what is in store for u is to look at the mode of transport which will take u through the supposedly ‘dangerous territory’. And I have seen various kinds, big buses which have wire mesh on the windows, closed jeeps etc. Here they had open Mahindra jeeps. First sign of the wild animals-but not really- we were about to behold.
The safari rules said- A guide is mandatory. ‘Okay’, I said and thought ‘Guide?? Will he introduce us to the animals or the forest? And where is the place for him?’
Later learnt he spoke only Malyalam.

‘No yiglish and Yindi madam, wonly Malyalam’ we were told very proudly.
“ahem?, so whats the point in taking him along?’ I told the guy selling the tickets/passes.
‘Compulsory madam’
‘Oh! Is he like a body guard?’ I asked to be sure about his role in the already cramped jeep.
‘No guard madam’
‘So, what will he do? We don’t speak malyalam.’ I argued
‘Compulsory madam’
On a normal day, I would have rolled my eyes at this but I was too groggy to do that.

Six people cramped up in the jeep. The driver started the engine and it roared like hell. And I lost all hope of seeing anything remotely WILD. We started on a ‘kuchha road’ amidst a ‘foresty’place. ‘At least, the setting is real’, I thought.

Hoping the driver would know English/Hindi and to keep myself from dozing off, I asked the driver ‘Tumne kaunsa animals dekha hai abhi tak safari mein?’
“Elephant, tiger, bison, deer madam” very promptly he replied.

‘Phew! He knows hindi!’ I thought

‘Tiger kab dekha tha?’ I ask all anxious.

“Elephant, tiger, bison, deer madam” he repeated very confidently.

There u go! He ONLY knows the words ‘Elephant, tiger, bison, deer’. Damn!
I decided to be quiet after that.

For almost 15 minutes, we drove silently, craning our necks and straining our eyes really hard to look for ‘Elephant/tiger/bison/deer’.

The driver just drove on and it felt more like a ride through a park on a slushy road than a safari.
Then, almost after 20 long mins, the driver stopped the jeep and very dramatically pointed on the right.

‘look look saaar’

All our ‘saars’ turned right and we scrambled and shuffled in our seat, I even got the camera ready….

‘what is it?’
‘Kya hai?’
‘kahan?’
Five of us said at the same time.

“Wild chicken saar’ he said very excitedly.

A dark brown rooster passed the jeep nonchalantly. It was funny and disappointing at the same time. I wanted to bang the camera on his head.
There was an almost unsaid ‘oh THAT?’ in the air for sometime.

Then, he drove on and showed some ‘wild squirrels’ and ‘wild birds’ for the next 10 minutes. I had handed over the camera to another member in the jeep in total despair.

Finally, after seeing some monkeys, and other such NOT-wild animals, he once more with all possible drama stopped the jeep and pointed left.
This time he didn’t say anything. Maybe he was not sure if this would be ‘wild enough’ for us.
Most of us could not understand what he was pointing at. Then, I noticed a pair of the stag horns, huge and majestic glinting from behind the leaves of a bush.

'oh! A STAG!’ i said aloud.

Before, anyone else could see it, the stag immediately disappeared behind the bushes.

Immediately, the driver turned around with a finger on his lips gesturing me to be quiet.
‘shhhhhhh….madam’ he whispered.

I wanted to give him a whack again. ‘What are u shushing ME for? What abt all the roaring sounds ur jeep is making, u MORON!’ I wanted to tell him.

4 pairs of complaining eyes looked at me like ‘hmph! All because of u’

The driver voiced it aloud ‘Madam shouting.’

I mentally whacked him real hard!

Then, we went on for some more time. He occasionally stopped to talk to other such jeep drivers who were returning from the so called safari. I searched the faces of the passesngers for any kind of wild excitement that said ‘WO….i cant believe i saw a tiger….’. But instead they all looked back at us in the same quizzical way.

I think I heard ‘ally-phant’ from one of the drivers and then we all started looking for an elephant as the last hope because the safari would soon end. It was already 35 minutes in jeep with nothing whatsoever to remember the safari by.

I gave up all the leftovers of hope when I saw a three unarmed scrawny men passing by as if the safari was in their way to the bazaar.

Just before the last kilometer, the driver beamed and said “ally-fant” and stopped the jeep.
No one was anxious anymore but still we looked around and as usual there wasn’t anything around.

Then, he pointed to the ground and repeated, ‘ally-fant, ally-fant’

‘What now?? Is ‘elephant’ also a name of a worm in Kerala?’ I thought fuming inside.

But it turned out to be even better….

A hot steaming pile of elephant shit was lying on the grass.

**click** I heard some one click a picture.

So, as they say….. SHIT HAPPENS!