To Do or Not to do?

Someone said that India stands for "I will Never Do It Again."

I went a step closer to that declaration today.

9 Am: I frantically drive through the maze called morning traffic congestion to find a stationery shop in what is the fastest growing suburb of the decade. Found one which had no name board.

It had notebooks, books, dust, a newborn baby inside the shop, its mother who also is the shop co-owner, her husband and a few assorted things that neednt be there. They had no stapler or pins. No complaints..It happens everywhere...Why blame the country?

I made a tough U-turn made tougher by impatient users of the road. Soft pedalling all the way to office, trying to catch a glimpse on both sides of the road, I reach the 40 ft gully where the state of the art IT companies have located themselves without much thought about approach roads.

9 30 AM: A speeding car at 60 Kmph hit my car mirror and gave some unpleasant free advice about the perils of sticking to a lane and driving under 40 kmph...Why blame the country..Its just a few people here and there (mostly around me, perhaps?)

I park the car in the safest possible area that wouldnt disturb traffic and walk to the petty shop for a cigarrette lighter (Note: To melt the seal that is used to seal confidential business documents). I got free advice, free "kangu" from used cigarrette and free matchstick all without asking my purpose and all without asking me if I needed an alternative method. Finally I settled down for the wax match box. Why sulk about lack of professionalism in a shack? Okay!

10 00 AM: Office. Sir we cannot print your document because we have only black and white printer. After a few airs of disbelief, calls to remote and unimpressionable people, I found a way to reach someone who can do just that - Print in color.

10 10 AM: Sorry sir. We have file size restrictions. Your 2 MB file is too big for us. We cannot get it.

10 20 AM: Sorry Sir. we need approvals to send the file in any other means. You can try telepathy instead

10 40 AM: Sorry I am alive!

10 50 AM: I hit the road searching for a color printer. 20 Kms and 4 stopovers at seemingly purpose built shops for print outs that dint conceive the need for color printing, I went back to the maze of a place where it all started.

11 30 AM: After precariously coming close to a vertical fall from an improbably tilted and compressed stair case, I ended up in a shop that proclaimed to print in color.

11 40 AM: The shopkeeper laid the bait of "quality" job and asked me to be back in 30 mins

12 30 PM: The shop boy had been sent to print the stuff out in a japan printer and where? 20 kms from where I was! And how? In a bus! And when will he be back? - Just now Saar!

1 00 PM: After impatient wait in a sultry car in a messy traffic junction, I climb back to the shop. The hot air from the fan named "toofan" (hindi for storm) blew the sweat of my face so that replinshment can go uninterrupted.

1 25 PM: The boy was not back and could not be communicated.

I wasnt close to thinking what someone said about India (until I realized that a couple of pages were missed out).

After a few catcalls, silent protests and unavoidable ambushes to strangers' cubicles, I finally printed all the stuff.

Can I not afford to buy a printer? Not until someone scientifically proves a printer's inability to sniff data from across the floor and teleport them to competitor organizations.

I may probably not do it again!

Incredibly Tolerant India

No. This is not a part of the clever tourism marketing campaign from Indian Tourism department. Its actually that part of the bigger construct that is not clearly represented in those adverts.

Relocation is always a stressful event that comes in two parts - when you leave out an old place and when you settle in a new one. If it happens that the settling in also includes an India angle to it, its no longer stress. Its acute depression that is just a part of a grand journey towards a cardiac collapse. In India, tolerance is taken to intolerable extents.

Right at the airport (which looks like the 1970 rajini movie climax pazhadanja bangala) I was harassed for bringing in a used LCD tv, even though law allows me to legally bring them in without duty. My nasal drawl dint work wonders with a chechi officer who said that I need to pay the duty. Much to my discomfort and resentment I realized that it was a kickback only after another chechi took the money in a dark room where any resistance would have to led to her running out proclaiming that I harassed her. I had to tolerate because otherwise, I would be made to wait for ridiculous amount of time for trivial reasons. My bags were strewn away from the conveyor belt in what seems to be an illconceived idea of organizing the bags in a perfect matrix with unapproachable walk paths towards them, much like how most processes with public or private enterprises are conceived. No one except me complained and insisted that my bags need to be re-dumped onto the conveyor. Its a system that works. In the hindsight its a bad idea, as the contract worker literally 'dumped' it in on the conveyor belt like how maniratnam made arvind swamy to dump madhubala in a meadow in Roja. Dumb then, dumb now. No one told him meadows were not spine massagers.

The roads from an international airport, could well have been laid anyother way or at least laid. That was not to be. In places where it was of international standards, the drivers went berserk, like flies running around sweets in no identifiable pattern. People find it easy to tolerate a rash driver who doesnot understand lanes. Honking irritates people but they dont care to work it out between themselves so that they could drive noise free. Taking a turn on a road seems to be a crime. No one has time to wait for someone to finish a turn and you are expected to tolerate the world's urgency while you are stranded in an awkward angle in the road, creating an impossible traffic jam without intending to.

Searching for a house for rent is another manifestation of the tolerance rot. Houses that cannot be in the market for the want of better sanitation were put up for top rent. Houses that had soiled closets, broken windows and chipped out floorings were advertised as premium houses. The least one could have done is fix them before calling visitors. May be everyone except me finds it okay to step into a rest room of a "house to let" which has yellow stains all over. The next time someone advertises for a house with lake view, I am going to drown them in that muck pit.

The apartment complex I rented in, shoved me with a electricity card which bore the name of a person other than the owner. The car park lot is yet to be re-worked to make it worthy.No one cares. And those who care park the car outside, dogs copulating under the chassis notwithstanding.In my street which is more like an enlarged nasal passage, there are 11 stray dogs. No one cares. Heck! They dont care for the neighborhood which is turning into a nomad's rest and an open shithole in the mornings.

Buying grocery is another hair raising experience. Firstly the air curtain blows the already raised hair into irrevocable patterns when you are least prepared. Secondly they have devised a rolling gate system to get in, which is a welded pipe that can perform a tubectomy if the shopper is not good at gymnastics. The stores stink. They dont switch on the air conditioners. Each store has more sweepers and helps than the employees and they giggle at you for every thing. I am yet to reason out what that giggle meant. But they do stop it when I hand them a debit card when I have bought items worth less than Rs.200. It sends shivers of megawatts if you had them a debit card without minimum purchase. There is no "Sorry, we cannot use this blah". Its just "What the fuck..how could you have done this" look, that I would not mind to convert myself into a murderer for. I protest. But no one does.

Sadly all of these could be fixed over night. No investment. No flyovers. No swanky new shopping districts. When will the society and polity stop tolerating the laisse faire attitude in every walk of life?

Incredible!