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The Mumbai was becoming invasive. It sneaks into every fold of skin, into armpits, it trickles down down back fat into bum cracks under ball sacks it festers, soaking flesh as gaping pores ooze a smelly slick of sweat that sticks the city stench to the skin. Mumbaikars desperately seek out sanctuaries of air-conditioned bliss only to find that as the sweat evaporates, it leaves smudgy black grime and salt crystals that crush, itch and irritate even into the fitful, frustrating, sleepless nights.

I had to get out. The city seemed to want me gone, as if it had risen its temperature to fight me off like an infection, and the bureaucracy had developed a sudden resistance to foreign bodies like mine. Like an immune system, with single-mindedness they are purging foreigners from their midst, but to argue with a government peon is much like having a debate with a white blood cell.

This cheery chap is tasked with making sure his own job is always necessary. This is a real photo of the FRRO.

I went back into the Foreigner’s Regional Registration Office to get my permission to leave the country. I’d been there the day earlier to be excused for overstaying my visa by two days. I had showed them my ticket and passport, and they sent me away, telling me I needed to come back with my proof of address, a letter explaining why I was leaving late, and a letter to verify that I should have been allowed into India in the first place.I’d returned with those documents and was told that they wanted a further four, but time was running out: I had a flight to catch at 5:50, and it was now 3pm – and I still had to get my bike from the police who’d impounded it (again), ride it home, grab my bags and get to the airport.

My brother and housemate faxed the stuff to me, but I had to take a moment outside the ‘Fax, Xerox and Phone’ shop and had one of those thoroughly unsatisfying inward screams, I almost shat my pants and burst a vein from the force of it.

The fax machine had jammed and two of my documents were still inside its memory, waiting to be unsatisfactorily printed. This man runs a shop that does three things – and one of them is send and receive faxes, yet rather than spending the excessive amount he charges for faxes on keeping his fax machine working, he spends it on the creature comforts.

Most of the floor space in his shop is taken by his bed, on which he was sleeping when we arrived; he had bought an air conditioning unit and sat it on a box out in front of his shop, It was pumping expensive cold air in the general direction of his shop, but most of it flows out into the rest of the world. Perhaps he’s trying to combat global warming.

I fixed his machine for him by slapping it and extract the last two pages of the fax, which are barely visible because it’s also out of ink. He insists it isn’t a problem because he can just run it through his photocopier a few times to progressively darken it. Voila. He’s saved money on ink cartridges and fax repairs and recouped costs by charging me for multiple runs at the photocopier, the profits of which he presumably spends on enormous AC bills.

I got back to the FRRO and the woman looked at my stuff and said ‘You’re running too late, you won’t get your flight’ to which I rather coolly pointed out that if she hurried the fuck up I might just get there for check-in, that I was flying domestic to Delhi then to Los Angeles from there. Domestic check-ins only take 30 minutes, so chop bloody chop. She seemed puzzled by something, paused and rechecked my ticket for the fourth time…

“This ticket is domestic to Delhi,” she said.

“I know. That’s why I said that. Otherwise I would have said something else.”

“You must go to the FRRO in Delhi, we don’t have authority to grant an exit here.”

I tried pointing out to them that I’d shown them the same ticket yesterday, and had they mentioned this stupid rule then, I would have been able to do something about it. I’d shown them again when I arrived that morning, and still could have done something about it then, but now, at 4:50pm it was too late to re-book a ticket and get my exit permission because these useful and intelligent peons are pretty punctual when it come to a 5pm closing time, at which point they cease not doing their job (which is to check paperwork) and go home to suck otherwise useful oxygen out of the atmosphere and raising large litters of similarly useful children.

While this particular oxygen thief was filling out the forms the next day (because was forced to reroute my flight), I said: “It’s very difficult to get visas now, all my friends are being rejected.”

She said “Yes, the consul has changed all the procedures”

“You mean, made them harder” I suggested helpfully.

“Yes.”

“Why?” I asked… She didn’t reply. “Is it to keep foreigners out?”

“Yes.”

Marvelous. Great – well India, you win. If you want to keep me out then I don’t want to be there. Your people are wonderfully open, welcoming, intelligent, friendly, helpful and accommodating, but your bureaucracy is the exact opposite.

So you win, I’m out.

Technorati Tags: bureaucracy, frustration, immigration, India, passport, visa