Vacations...

Last one month has been nothing less than a roller coaster ride for me. I met a lot of people and visited amazing places. On one such occasion i had a rare chance of meeting a highly intellectual person with whom i was engaged in a discussion on which was better- objectivism or collectivism. I obviously supported collectivism without which our whole system stands to fall. Whatever had been our differences the only thing we agreed upon was that for the society and for the country to progress as a whole both the aspects are required at some point or the other. Whatever we discussed stood to crumble yesterday when i faced my worst day in terms of the way the government works.
As i was on vacation and had almost three days in hand before i embarked on my next trip i was entrusted with the job of getting the birth certificate of my nephew. I had two ways of getting the work done. Get a phone number from my dad, call that person, give him some extra money (read bribe) and i have the certificate in my hands without even stepping out of the house. The other was to go to the Municipal office and obtain the document ‘legally’. My dad advised me to exercise the first option but as i have been ‘taught’ all these years, i took the latter option. And lo i was standing infront of the municipality not knowing what to do next. But somehow i managed to find the office where certificates are issued. I filled up a form and after waiting for around 3 hours and fighting hard to listen to the grand old man to call out your name which produced infrasonic waves, i was told that the surname of my sis and jiju was wrongly entered in the computer. What on earth was this supposed to mean? I asked him but he shooed me away telling me that i shouldn’t be standing there if i didn’t know what was that supposed to mean. Go to hell- wanted to tell him this but my manners stopped me and i later realised that it was a mistake. This grand old man was supposed to cross check all the details and then pass it to some other person who did something which i guess will never be known to me. People were falling on top of each other just to know who was the lucky person whose name would be called and the voice didn’t help. I wanted to teach the grand old man ways to do his job in a better way but hell i was not the one who ran things there and above all he was a ‘government babu’.

Anyway i somehow again managed to find out the room which houses all the records and where i was supposed to go to get the surname corrected. Don’t ask me the logic. Even i fail to reason with them. The grand old man has all the records in his grand old computer but instead of correcting the name there he wanted me to go the main office, wait till the record book which has all the names hand written is fished out and then come back to him with the seal of a higher authority which says that the surname is spelt as choudhary and not chowdhury. Kudos to you man. We are impressed. And mind you, all this is because of the error of the government officials while transferring data. My jiju is learned and sane enough to spell his surname correctly atleast in a government document. Anyway i grudgingly stood in the long queue (all the people were standing to get their names corrected). After about half an hour a babu comes out and proudly declares that the office is closed for the day and calmly tells us to come the next day. The working hours is from 11-2 and yes there was no board or banner which said that. We are supposed to know that. Wow!!

I returned the next day as soon as the office opened only to find a longer queue. I can’t give up- i thought and stood in the line. After about an hour or so the queue didn’t even move an inch. Obviously these people were testing my patience so i barged into the office and was said, “You don’t run things over here. Go out (no please)”. I listened and me and my puppy face went back and stood in the queue. People empathised and told that the babus were busy doing the work of the higher class people who paid extra money and found standing in the queue an unimaginable task. A guy from the office was watching all this. After about five minutes he comes upto me and says, “Give 300 rupees and your work will be done”. Fists closed and mouth shut i just nodded my head in disagreement. I was the 15th person in line and it took two and half hours for my file to reach the ‘babu’. He saw me and asked my family history and how i was related to the child. In the end he closes the file and tells me that he cannot change the name. Either the child’s mother or father has to come with an affidavit and their voter ID card to get their name changed. I just sat looking at the person’s face with a confused look, not knowing what to do or say. He helped me- “Please go and let the next guy take your place.” And if you have forgotten this was a fault of some government official while copying the name from the hospital record to the municipal record. Even if it was a human error, a simple notice stating the things required to get your name corrected, outside the office would have done the job.
I went home. Took the number from my dad and told that person to get a birth certificate for me. Now i know why my dad advised me, now i know why no one knows what to do in a municipal office, now i know what to tell someone when he asks me how to make a birth certificate.. now i know.. now i know.. I don’t say i am proud to do this but i won’t stand in a municipality office like that ever again. Not as long as the system works like this. It’s very nice to say- we are the system, we will change everything, unless and until we change we can’t expect the system to change and we have no right to crib. All useless. After whatever i saw i can’t tell my sis or jiju to go and stand at the municipal office which closes down at 2 and then spurs the remaining people like a cur. I can’t.. i can’t.. I understand that all the young people reading this will abuse me for whatever i am telling but even i was determined to fight the system until this. Maybe things are different at other places, maybe this is an exception. But not this place again. I will fight for the other places but places like this....I GIVE UP..