Breaking the Law

I’ve always been something of a fanboy of police, tending to take the side of the boys in blue over, say, Don’t Tase Me, Bro. But living in India has made me appreciate American police even more.

My first encounter with police was last weekend, when we went to a 24-hour truck stop outside of town late at night. Everything closes early here, and some people got hungry, so we made a run. The guy driving had made a point not to drink anything, even a sip, lest he get stopped and get breathalizered. He explained that even though 0.00 isn’t the legal limit, anything above that can get you hassled by the cops, and that can get problematic late at night. Sure enough, there was a road block on the way, with a breathalizer for everyone passing by. I got stopped at a road block once at the U of I. They asked me a couple of questions and sent me on my way. There were no questions here. The cop simply stuck out the breahtalizer, Ajit blew into it, and then we left. I suppose that’s simpler than the Q&A in the US, but it seemed intrusive. But that wasn’t it for the night. We were stopped at a second roadblock, this one much more in the middle of nowhere, and this time with no breathalizer. Ostensibly, this was because they were expecting a security threat, but I’m pretty sure this was just to extract bribes. To be honest, I’m not positive anyone there was actually a cop–you could set up a road block with a couple of barriers and something that looks like a uniform. They were suspicious of why we were going to this truck stop so late at night, but they had no reason to hold us, so even if they were just a bunch of yahoos, they had nothing on us. We encountered neither road block on the return trip.

My next one came when Sanju’s car got booted for illegal parking. For starters, the spot she was in was in no way blocking a road–between the curb and protruding driveways, there’s no way anyone could have driven along the path she’d parked in. Second, there were tons of cars parked there, and no clear signage. And their response is... boot everyone? No tickets, just mass-botting? Third, this is freaking India. Come on, people. THIS is what your tax dollars go to? Not, say, cleaning the streets? Or making it so the power doesn’t turn off daily? Anyway, we arrived back at the car to see a sign that said that we’d been "clamped," and which gave a number (this was in Kanada and English). This was a problem because Sanju and I were in the cell phone district to get new phones, as she’d dropped hers in the Arabian Sea and mine had inexplicably stopped turning on. But we were able to get them there to un-clamp us, but only after paying the whopping RS.200 fine (about $4.50). Again, the Indian police confuse me.

Tulsi, Sanju’s roommate, also had a good story of one of her encounters with a cop. She was pulled over for talking on her phone while driving. She truthfully told the cop that it was her mom, and he seemed sympathetic, and they both used this as a segue to bribery, rather than ticketry. Tulsi realized, though, that all she had on her was an Rs.10 note (20 cents-ish), and an Rs.500 note ($12, but quite a bit of money here). She offered the Rs.10 note, and the guy balked. "10 rupees? Really?" She then asked if he had change, which only annoyed him more. In her final act of desperation, she offered her small stash of chocolates that she keeps on hand for beggar children. A huge smile appeared on the cop’s face, and he laughed and took the bribe. If only one of us worked in advertising, we’d have a whole campaign lined up for Cadbury.

Blackouts Reported. Check Power Map.

India has some severe infrastructure problems. The first is electricity. We’re in a pretty nice neighborhood in a decent apartment complex, and the power still goes in and out here at least once a day. It’s out right now, even though the weather’s great. This usually only lasts 20 minutes or so, and has only once lasted more than an hour. At some point I’ll try to figure out why this happens. It could be an issue with power plants. It could be circuit breakers in the building. It could be the family of opossums living in the switching station. Some impacts of this: laptops are really popular, since battery backups for desktops don’t last very long. Nobody bothers setting the clock on the microwave or TV, since they reset daily. Everyone has a stash of candles ready. Here, they’re already spread around the apartment, waiting to be lit. Stores seem to continue to function during power outages, although I haven’t gone shopping during one yet (reminiscent of the time when the power was out at the Watseka Subway, and of the three employees, the only one who knew how to take out a calculator and find the taxes by hand was the mentally challenged guy). I’m sure I’ll find more interesting impacts of unreliable power supplies as this sojourn wears on.

The layout in this city is also a total disaster. London puts it to shame. I’ve always said every major city needs to burn to the ground at least once (London did this too early), and this place is in dire need of a reset button. Just look at it:



There’s no order to the streets. The streets aren’t physically labeled, either, making navigation impossible without resorting to [[Indian GPS]], since you can’t tell what street you’re on, even at major intersections. The buildings are numbered, but since most streets are so short, the numbering doesn’t do much, and it certainly isn’t as useful of a numbering system as used in the US. Rather, the numbers begin at 1 at one end of the street and continue to the other end. Navigation winds up being accomplished by neighborhood and landmarks. When I want to go home, I ask for “Koramangala, Sony World.” Apparently this Sony store at a busy intersection qualifies as a landmark, as every rickshaw driver so far has known exactly where it is.

In addition to the gridlessness, there are no real arterial streets. There are some highwayish stretches, but a trip across town involves weaving around many small streets. There are ring roads, Outer Ring Road, Inner Ring Road, and one other, but none of those are true highways, Rather, they’re just routes patched together from existing streets. My guess is that eminent domain isn’t very powerful here, and that it’s impossible to condemn enough property to construct a highway from scratch. So you just draw out a route and designate it as the highway, then you work on making all stretches of that route as fast as possible. If you look at this map of Outer Ring Road, you’ll see how it weaves all over the place:



At least Karnataka isn’t in $15B of debt. Nor, as far as I know, does it owe over $1B to any university system. So at least it has that on Illinois.

---

The FRRO

I had a rough time getting a visa. They throw up a ton of meaningless roadblocks, I think largely just to make sure you really care. I eventually pulled it off with some help, but you can imagine how I felt when I found out I’d have to do basically the same process all over again once I got here.

India requires foreigners to register with the local Foreigners [Regional] Registration Office, the FRO or FRRO, depending on how big the office is you’re dealing with. This applies to anyone here on a visa that’s valid for more than 6 months, so tourists are generally exempt. Registration isn’t just as simple as showing up, though. You must compile a long list of documents, largely repetitive with the stuff they make you compile to get the visa in the first place, but with a few new difficult roadblocks.

The hardest thing to get is the “proof of address.” This is easy if you’re staying in a hotel, which is what they expect. For me, though, it wasn’t that simple. I couldn’t just say I was staying with a friend–there had to be a signed lease agreement. And a sublease wouldn’t work without the landlord’s approval, something which would be just as tough. So I was going to have to actually find a place to stay within the first two weeks of showing up.

Not that hard, right? Think again. Before you can do ANYTHING in this country, you have to get that FRRO registration document. You can’t get a post-paid cell phone or an ID without one, but most importantly, you can’t open a bank account without one. How they expect people to sign leases without bank accounts is beyond me, but thanks to some connections, I’ve made it happen.

I’d sorta suspected this for a while, but since coming here I think I’m sure of it: you cannot possibly do anything in this country without connections. It’s what separates the legitimate people from those just faking it. This is one of India’s largest problems, just as big as its infrastructure issues or how the whole place smells like a fireworks display: The system is set up such that there are enormous transaction costs in everything you do. My lease had to be on “stamp paper,” for example, which is just a sheet of paper that costs about $1 and is sold at banks. It’s only special because it has a stamp on it–think Stamp Act. And that stuff isn’t sold at nearly every bank, nor is there any reliable resource on where to get it. You just have to know, or know someone who knows.

When I finally got everything together, my FRRO process actually went smoothly. Unlike for the Mongolians ahead of me in line. As for the busload of Malaysians who were there on my first day, or the busload of Maldivians who were there the next, I can only hope they did well, too. But we all had help. Everyone going through that process needs help, because the information just isn’t available any other way.

Shiva help me if I need to extend my visa.

“OK, So You Saw Your First Eunuch”

Sanju and I drove to the orphanage today, and the ride itself was an experience. First, obviously, traffic is insane. How Sanju does it is beyond me, because I could never drive in this without freezing. Indian concepts of personal space extend to the automotive world–a two foot barrier is all you need between you and any other vehicle. Sanju drives a Hyundai, but the roads are dominated by rickshaws, motorcycles (with 2, 3, 4 people on them), and huge trucks. None of those would be phased by a little bump with another car, especially at the low speeds here, so the stakes are much lower. In the US, with everyone traveling quickly in expensive cars, any contact between cars will leave a significant mark on both. Crumple zones may be safe, but they wreck your car upon any contact. Anyway, there are no set lanes, you gun it whenever there’s space in front of you, and honking is necessary, not just something you do for show. When traffic is so fluid, it’s totally normal to honk to get a rickshaw to shift by 2 feet, allowing you to get alongside him.

I also saw my first cows on the street, but I didn’t have my camera on me, since we were heading to the orphanage, which doesn’t like photography on the inside. Best not to even bring one. The first cow was shivering from the rain. The afternoon of my arrival, there was a huge, torrential downpour, which Sanju’s roommate described as some sort of residual monsoon or something. Sanju said she was shocked–she didn’t see it coming at all. Upshot: on my first day, the power was in and out, internet was spotty at best, and the cows were surprised and cold.

I also saw my first eunuch. Picture a cross-dressing, aggressive bum, and you’ve got an Indian eunuch. These are the equivalents of the dudes who knock on your window at the Garfield exit off the Dan Ryan, except wearing dresses. I actually saw him first–I saw someone in a dress up ahead poking into a stopped rickshaw and just said “That’s a dude.” Sanju’s Hyundai had windows and locks, so he didn’t bother with us, but the guys in the rickshaws and the motorcycles were out of luck. They all got harassed until traffic started to move again. Sanju was excited that I’d seen my first eunuch, but of course said “That was nothing.”