We have learned very quickly that anything in India involving any sign up or registration also involves a lot of passport pictures. In the beginning we laughed about it but after Eelco made it through 20 prints in less than 3 weeks we realized that you really need pictures for everything. We also realized in dealing with maids & drivers and their CV’s and references that this probably makes more sense here than in many other places we have lived as many many people here have no real last name they use or one that is not all that meaningful meaning there must be in already a very populous country a disproportionate amount of people with the same names. On top of that many, particularly older people now, or younger poorer people, probably also don’t have quite all the paperwork that most Europeans have access to identify themselves and population registers are not bad here, with the British heritage, but not necessarily complete & inclusive. Although at work I feel like there is at least a million difficult & different long names to remember – in reality also many first names are the same or similar. I have meetings with 10 people which will involve 2 Patels and 2 Singhs or Kumars. Shiva or Manju – like our drivers – are very common 1st names too. So identification based on pictures is probably more relevant here than in many other places. But it still feels odd to us the things you need them for and how many!
The Foreigner Regional Registration Office: 2 each at registration, 2 at every change (i.e. new permanent address) + they take a picture off you there and then when you are in the office doing the registration.
Bank account: 2 per applicant / per account
PAN Card (Tax id): 2
To buy & register a car: 2x2
Internet connection: 2 for the account holder (we have 2 connections)
TV/Cable connection: 2 for the account holder for each cable box
Drivers License: 4 (photo copies ok), and by the way any errors in the spelling of your name can be altered manually on the spot without having a copy of your passport present
School: 5 per kid at once, and then another 5 later
School ID cards for the driver: 1 per kid
Club membership: 1 each if through Shell – otherwise more
Hospital Registration: 2
Our phones are registered to work so no pictures for that, so is our rental contract and the bulk of the associated utilities and maintenance contracts for the garden and the pool etc etc. The easy system is that the picture shop gave us a DVD of the pictures they took of us on day 2. We thought it a bit much, but are quite happy about that now as we can just send our driver to the store with the DVD to get another 32 prints of Eelco’s picture to distribute all through Bangalore. His is actually the better one anyway of all 4 of us so glad it is his name on everything!
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