The Not-So-Great Times in India

  Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Well, I haven't written in awhile, mostly because a ton has been happening.  And lots of frustrations that I felt like I needed to get farther away from before I complained too much.

It all started Wednesday night when I went to a tailor to get my salwar kameezes fitted/made.  We got dropped off on the street with all of the clothes stores, and as we were walking around a man grabbed my shoulder really hard.  I had to use a lot of force to get out of his grip, and my arm was hurting for quite a bit after that.  I was getting the paranoid feeling that he injected me with something too, because he grabbed me hard!  Not only that, but he also slapped Myra, another girl out with me.  I think he was not exactly mentally stable, but that just makes it scarier.

When we finally made it to a salwar shop, the tailor wasn't around.  We waited about half hour for him to show up, and he took our measurements.  Next thing I know, the shop owner and tailor are yelling at each other about the price to charge.  The tailor storms out, and the shop owner told us it would be done on Saturday and he'd find someone else to do it.  Hopefully the new person understands the measurements!  But, it was nice to find a shop owner that was willing to fight for "rich" American girls.

After this fiasco, we were going to meet some of the other Infoscions for dinner and drinks.  We took a rickshaw and told him the place we wanted to go to, and he acted as though he knew where it was.  Told us it would be 30Rs for the ride, but he had no idea where he was going.  He let us out and charged us 50Rs, and might I say that we weren't even at the restaurant yet.  We gave him 40Rs and he just sat there looking at us.  I think I also need to mention the way things work in India, so I hear:  the mob sticks up for the people they think are right.  In car crashes I guess some people end up dying because the mob thinks the accident was their fault and they beat them to death.  I don't know if this is 100% true, but it has been mentioned before.  So when three men walked towards us after we didn't pay the rickshaw driver the full amount he was asking for, I thought we were going to get hurt.  Turns out they were just going into the building behind us, but it was the first time my stomach just dropped since I have been here.

Since we weren't at the restaurant yet, we had to walk around and find it.  This also wasn't a very pleasant situation.  We were walking in the residential areas, where there were plenty of stray dogs.  When I am in cars driving by these dogs I feel really bad for them, and really hope for their safety.  When I was walking around, lost with 2 of them following me, I really wasn't thinking about their safety.  I just wanted them gone!  When one of them started growling and showing its teeth, I noticed foam around its mouth.  It scared me sooo much, I was just jumping around trying to get as far away from it as possible.  This ends up being a harder task than it sounds when you can't walk on side walks or in grass because of pot holes and other obstacles and the street is not safe at all.  It was terrifying.  I didn't want to admit it to anyone when I was there, but it was the first time it hit me: I'm not in America anymore!!  Luckily we had cell phones and could call the people we were meeting, so we found our way, all in one piece.  So despite my fear, nothing too bad happened, but the paranoia in me was definitely kicking in.

On Thursday I found out that I had to go to Bangalore (2.5hrs away) to meet with the Police Commissioner, all because the consulate in Chicago decided to say I was working in Bangalore instead of Mysore.  There were about 20 of us that had to go, and it put a damper on my day, knowing I had to go while the rest of our group stayed in Mysore and had class (putting the 20 lucky Bangalore kids a day behind).  We left for Bangalore at 7:45AM on Friday and got into the city by 11.

Infosys Bangalore

We then proceeded to the Infosys Bangalore campus which took, quite literally 2 hours.  So we are on the campus and they tell us to go eat, and that we have 10 or 15 minutes, so hurry up.  We all got our food, ate quickly as possible, and then waited for at least 45 more minutes for Roopa (the woman in charge of us) to come back.  The reason we stopped there was so that she could print out copies of our offer letter (which we were supposed to have anyways, and most of us did) and get directions.  Why she couldn't do this before we left, I'm not sure.  We finally left Infosys and continued on our journey.

Next stop: notary office.  It took maybe an hour to get there, and we all had to give Roopa 150Rs to pay for a letter to get notarized.  Why Infosys couldn't pay beats me, but I'm going to work on getting reimbursed.  We waited on the bus for that to get done, and Rizwan pointed out two cute little school children walking home from school.  We all turn and look and the older of the two decides its a good time to take a piss.  He pees on this crack between two different fences and then his little brother sticks his foot in the crack, trying to jump onto the smaller fence.  They both had huge backpacks, and there were little glass shards on some of the fence tops (a normal thing around here), so it was impressive to see them succeed in getting over the fence.  It was just a totally random thing to watch, and it all started with just looking at cute kids.  This was probably the highlight of my day, by the way.

After that we were finally on our way to the police commissioner.  It took another 45 minutes to get there from the notary office, and we arrived around 3:30 or 4.  Once we got there, though, we had two forms we had to fill out.  Of course there weren't any copies for us to use, and Roopa had to borrow money from one of us to make copies to give us.  (Why she didn't get the forms before we got there is up in the air...)  It was literally 5 when we were finally filling out paperwork.  And she says "Hurry up, we need these forms filled out by 5:30 when the office closes."  Once the forms were filled out, they needed to make 3 copies of one of them, and of course we were not done by 5:30.  We saw the door close, and truly thought we still had a chance.  They did let two or three people in, but one of the forms that established our residency (in Bangalore btw, we had to lie and say we were working there instead of Mysore) was dated the 3rd and it should have been dated within a week of arriving in India.  So they rejected us and said to come back the next day.

Everyone was heading back to the Infosys campus (at least an hour and a half away), but Myra has an aunt and uncle living in Bangalore, close to the commissioner.  So I went there with Myra and 2 other girls, and I got to stay in a real Indian home.  (But might I point out that I didn't have a toothbrush, contact solution, or anything else that I would need for the night) Her aunt made us mango milkshakes that were WONDERFUL and very addictive.  If it weren't for that shake I think I would have stayed stressed out.  I was also fed a home cooked Indian meal, and things were good.  We complained to them about the lack of efficiency, and all they had to say was that "This is India! Don't expect much!"  I went to an ATM when we were with them, and Myra's aunt was surprised at how fast it took.  I guess even the simplest things don't always work... However, the day was a waste.  After all, what had I accomplished other than sitting around waiting all day?  Absolutely nothing.

The next day we were supposed to meet the group at 10AM at the commissioner's office, and we got there around 9:45.  However, the rest of our group had not left Infosys, and did not leave until 11:30.  I guess they couldn't remember how to get to the commissioner's office, and there were more papers to print out.  Again... Why they weren't printed before I have no idea... Other than the fact that this is India.  They came in at 1, and Roopa gave us new copies of our offer letters that had letterheads.  Its funny because the ones that I had brought already had the letterhead, so we could have gone through the line and gotten everything done while we were waiting, but Roopa wouldn't let us.  Instead the group got in line, and I think one person became a legal visitor before they went on an hour lunch break at 1:30.  So of course we were all waiting, AGAIN.  Fortunately though, I got the best piece of chocolate cake, and I was happy again.  After 2:30 we went through the line, and I think all 20 of us became legal by 3:30.  For some reason, the residency papers didn't matter anymore, and I really think that there might have been a little pay off or something... But that is just speculation.  So we finally left Bangalore and got back to our campus at 6:15.  That made it a 35hour trip, because of their lack of organization I lost my Friday night, and entire Saturday day.  We are going to try to get an extra vacation day because of it, but we will see what happens.

Anyways, I was planning on writing more, but I didn't realize how long this was going to be.  More about the past week soon!