Conundrums

I have an Indian friend who says that the British left behind all that was bad about bureaucracy and the Indians made it worse. My personal experience of this has been getting an Indian SIM card. It’s much more complicated than simply walking into a shop, handing over a few bits of change and walking out. I needed a passport. And I had to fill out a form that asked me for my full name and my father’s/husband’s name. No name for a wife? Well, I guess that ends my chances of ever getting married. So after about a week of listening to an Indian woman saying, “All the services of this mobile card have been temporarily suspended,” I finally managed to get a working phone. I don’t like phones. I like them even less when they don’t work. Which is what mine started doing last week. I went back to the shop I hoped I would never have to set foot in again. And they told me to come back with a passport, passport-sized photo and go through the whole tedious process again. Why would I have to go through this again? Today, I discovered that the photocopy of my visa “wasn’t clear enough.” I knew I should’ve left my phone at home and accept the fact that by living in this city, I am effectively going back in time. So I went through the rigmarole again. When I asked them when the phone would work again, they told me 48 hours. It seemed to me that the phone wouldn’t work “without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, lost, found, queried, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighter.” Thanks to Douglas Adams for that insightful line.


Saturday was Foundation Day, The Hope Foundation’s 10th anniversary celebrations. Our day began when five of us crammed into the back of ambulance. Everyone else was dressed up in Punjabis and saris. I chose to stay Western because I didn’t want to wear something that looked like a dress. Gora, who works in the liaison office, was delighted when he saw that he wasn’t going to be the only one wearing jeans and a shirt. After a bumpy ride through the streets, we arrived at Science City where the festivities were taking place in a large auditorium. There were kids everywhere. And they were all hyper. I took a seat in the front row and promptly left because I was afraid the speakers would blow my eardrums out. There were a few speeches and then the lights went down for the main gig. It started with some children holding candles. We were promised something spectacular and they didn’t disappoint. The children had been up since 6am getting ready for their big day. They had been practicing endlessly for the last few weeks and it showed. Myself and Eoin found seats among a group of kids up towards the back. It was terrific entertainment. They went berserk whenever we took out our cameras. I had great fun doing Indian handshakes with them. Towards the end of the show, some popular Indian songs came on and the kids went wild. I could see them dancing in the aisles down the front so I went to join them. I can’t get enough of Indian music and dancing. I was thrilled when they played Jai Ho! But I wished they hadn’t cut it short. And then it was all over for another year. I’d come back just to do it again.