Today we had to go to the FRRO, the Foreigners Regional Registration Office, to have our visa's extended. We can't really say it is the most pleasant of 'time pass' activities (good Indian verb), but it certainly is an 'incredible India' experience.
It takes at least 3-4 weeks of gathering paperwork, with support from an agent, through a lot of 'lost in translation' and duplicate communication. After gathering such documents as 'Bonafide' certificates from school (confirming the kids date of birth and passport details we provide the school with), tax returns, birth certificates, more tax papers, marriage certificates, registration of address etc etc we where finally good to go this morning. The process is to gather there at 8, get in at 8:30 to have your paperwork checked 2x, at the desk with a sign above it confirming it is the 'scrutiny desk' before you get a token. Then you wait till 9:30 before you are allowed to go upstairs and wait your turn (as per the token).
Staff sits in pairs behind dated pc's some of which placed on plastic garden furniture and your paperwork is reviewed in detail again and your picture is taken. Then you get a receipt (by then it is 10:30 at the earliest if you are lucky) and you have to go outside the office to go pay. No Indians allowed inside so the agent spends his day on the sidewalk waiting for us to help with this stuff. You come back having made the payment at a bank with the confirmation, and if you are one of the lucky few that indeed has all paperwork correct (5x in our case!) you are given a time later in the afternoon to return. The kids do not need to be there to pick up the paperwork - so we send them home with the driver and only kept Duuk with us whilst we went for lunch in town - not really wanting to sit in traffic 4 hours today after sitting and waiting for 4 already in the FRRO office.
Sarala (who was at home when the kids arrived) and Anbu obviously debated our plans for the day and so we received a message from Anbu (who is the only one out of the 3 who can send & read text messages in English):
"Hi mam for DOOK u need milk."
Mam stands for madam and is really me, and I guess they all are a little concerned when we decide to look after our own kids for the day. We had at least 5 bottles worth of milk for the little guy with us in which he was not interested as he wanted to eat pita bread, bread sticks and prunes pannacotta from the 5 start hotel lunch buffet at the lila palace. On the bright side - they clearly really care an awful lot about our little man and take great care of him and the other two. The even better news is that despite the fact that we where 300 rupees (5 USD) short on our payment which we found out about very late pm, all our paperwork got done and we can leave the country Friday early and come back also such that the ladies & Anbu do not have to miss DOOK too long -;)
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