FRRO YOU!

The  time has come for me to reach far into the depths of my inner

sanctum and try to pull out the strength I need to make that trip

to the hell hole we all know as the FRRO.

Just the thought of entering those doors, ascending those stairs

and waiting behind those ropes until the clock strikes nine fills me

with a primal fear. 

 The sign on the wall says: “Do not stand beneath the ceiling” and

I know that once again I am about to enter the Graham Green-

esque world, the parallel universe that is the Foreigners

Registration Office with its surreal twists and turns. Even the extra

‘R’ in FRRO is there to confuse and torment me. I can’t even say

FRRO without sounding like a pathetic, stuttering dog.

The trick is to stay calm despite the nest of vipers squirming in the

pit of my stomach. I have in my hands umpteen copies of umpteen

documents but I know this will not be enough. Past experience has

taught me that if I have ten copies of a document, they will

require 11. Past experience has taught me that after a patient 15

minute wait to use the Xerox machine, someone will announce

the machine is broken: “Come back in some time.”

The dilemma is;  do I wait in the hope that the machine will

magically start up again,  just as magically as it broke down, or do I

go into the street and wait in a long line for use of another Xerox

machine – all the while painfully aware that the clock is ticking

and they will soon close for their two hour lunch meaning I will

have to return the next day and possibly the next and the next...

The very first time I darkened the doors of this ramshackle hell

hole I was an ignorant fool. I thought we’d just waltz in with our

British passports, get them stamped and then mooch off to Colaba

for a lovely lunch.  

No, that first time I had to be helped down the stairs by a

bemused European backpacker (whose handkerchief I still have)

as I cried “but I don’t understand” to the porcine official in the

regulation navy sari who made me wait for four hours before

telling me I had the wrong documents, without giving away what

documents I would need.

The next time I went, I took the kids as instructed and they sat in

their uniforms, again for four hours, before I was told I didn’t

actually need to bring them. You can bet your bottom dollar that

if I hadn’t brought them, they would have insisted on habeas

corpus.   On that particular occasion I broke the mouse on the

computer in frustration and stood up and screamed like the

Edvard Munch character as I failed, repeatedly, to register us

online.  A Japanese lady put her hands over her ears and began to

rock back and forth. Grown men wept. We were like the wretched

souls of Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa. In hell!

That afternoon I was informed that I would have to come back the

next day with rupees converted from however many dollars it was

for our visas. That night, I took the conversion rate from the Bank

of India website and withdrew the exact amount in rupees. The

next day I stood in line with my rupees in a dirty, brown envelope

and when I handed them over, was told I was 500 rupees short.

“Whaatttt!!!”

I  Googled the rate and shoved the iphone under her nose.  

“We use the Thomas Cook rate,” she said.

“Arrrrggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, but it’s the Bank of India!”

“Either give me the correct money or stand aside.”

“Arrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

So that was the last straw. I handed over the extra money and fell

back into the plastic sofa, defeated, a shadow of my former self.

All anybody wants to do is to get into the chamber beyond the

ante-chamber because then there is hope. The queuing system,

which, on the face of it, looks as easy as taking a ticket in a Clarkes

shoe shop, is actually based on chaos theory and is impossible to

fathom. People just shuffle silently towards the door, pointing

their toe forward a little if it looks like someone else is going to

push in.

It was not until the third or fourth visit that we began to notice

that some people had agents. The people who appeared calm,

those who were not crying, had representation. I marched up to

one of them and demanded his card and since then, dear reader,

the experience has become a little less fraught.

We now go along with the agent, feeling like children in the

presence of an appropriate adult. We pay him an absolute fortune

and he does the necessary while I sit in a chair  like the Jack

Nicholson character in ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” after

he’s had the lobotomy. Silent and defeated.

I am tempted to go in this time wearing my Anna Hazare T-shirt

and white topi but I don’t want to make it harder for myself.  Let’s

just hope the ceiling doesn’t come down on the lot of them!