Bureaucracy at it's Best

This morning at 9.30am we had our Immigration appointment to get our permits and paperwork etc all in order and rubber stamped.

Now, I've never been to an Immigration department anywhere in the world before so the experience could be standard practice the world over but somehow I don't really think so! This is India after all!

You start at an open entrance hall with rows of chairs on either side, imagine a clock, you join the queue at 1'O Clock and move down and round to 11 O'Clock. At 12 O'Clock sits a stony faced official who directs the charade that is 'musical chairs' but without the music. Let's also just mention that he was VERY particular on where the pushchair should be placed as we made our way round.

We get to about 10 O'Clock in the musical chairs game and all of a sudden there's a flurry of activity and we are marched up some steps to a desk where the first Official checked through all our paperwork and signed each application. Into another room, with yet more chairs but this time in rows, apparently this is a queuing system but no-one else seemed to know what or where to sit either, and besides Indians don't do queues! At the front of the room is a 'Helpdesk' but they didn't look very helpful and were the only ones in the room lucky enough to have a fan on them, and the temperature was rising.

We then join a line of chairs against the wall and it looks like this could be the homeward straight as we inch along from chair to chair as and when the director comes in to tell us to do so. We've now been doing this for an hour, it's hot, the kids have exhausted every toy I have in my possession and are beginning to play up. Today was one of those days when Cute Kids Don't Help!!

Then GASP! We're told it's our turn next, This is it we think, it's nearly all over. The director instructs me to wait with the kids outside and sends DH into a room where the paperwork is checked through yet again and a second Official signs the paperwork.

He comes out of the room and goes to the 'Helpdesk' where a third Official checks through the paperwork and another signature is added. He is given four plastic tokens and then directed to another desk.

Into another room where you must hand over the plastic tokens before they will do anything with your paperwork and then a fourth official checks through the paperwork and finally it gets stamped and you're free to go.


Hooray, after an hour and a half it's over as we emerge back out into the daylight and heat, we call Kumar and get back into the A/C car and I breath a sigh of relief, until DH tells me that he and I have to return in 1 weeks time to collect the permits and paperwork. Deep Joy.

And, just to top the experience off we drive round the building to exit and we have to pay 10rps to leave! How come? There's is nowhere to park, there are NO PARKING signs everywhere and Kumar bless him has spent all the time driving round in circles waiting for us. Like I said, Bureaucracy at it's VERY best! And the best part...we in fact only have ourselves to blame, it was the years of British rule that put the big wheels of Bureaucracy into motion in India!