Welcome to my last post from India! We are staying with our fairy Mumbai parents, Max and Eve. Eve is a consular officer at the American consulate in Mumbai, and without her help, I may never be allowed to leave India. Let me tell you that story...
Our AirBnB host in Amritsar informed me that my visa, which I thought was a 90-day visa, expiring on May 30th, was in fact a 30-day visa, expiring on March 30th, and the guy who wrote the visa just has horrible handwriting, leading me to think that an r was a y. AirBnB host insists that we go to the Foreign Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in Amritsar, to get the situation sorted out (apparently, if he is found to be hosting someone who overstayed her visa, he gets in trouble). On Monday afternoon, we head to the office, where the FRRO folks inform me that since I have flying out of Mumbai, I have to obtain my exit permit from Mumbai. Otherwise, I won't be able to leave the country.
On Tuesday, we flew to Mumbai. Wednesday morning, bright and early, Ashoke, Max and Eve's driver (they have both a driver and housekeeper. It's a pretty sweet life. More about that later.) drives me to the FRRO in South Mumbai. After waiting on a whole bunch of lines, the receptionist informs me that in order to obtain an exit permit, I have to fill out an online form, bring a copy of Max and Eve's passports including their visas, a request letter from them stating that I'm allowed to stay with them, a copy of their electricity bill, a request letter in which I detail all of the places that I have stayed in India, and a copy of my passport and visa. Mind you, Eve and Max don't pay their own electricity bill--the consulate does. Also, the consulate is a bit uncomfortable giving out copies of diplomatic passports, so we need approval from the consulate both for the passports, and also for a different form of proof of residency, which is what we think the electricity bill is getting at.
While all this is going on, Leanne, who had been feeling sick for several days is getting a fever and muscle aches. She and Joanna head to a consulate-recommended hospital where she gets IV fluids, a prescription for rehydrating solution, and some blood work to test for Dengue Fever. More on that later.
I spend Wednesday night filling out forms and writing the request letter (no template to copy from online). Thursday morning, Max harasses the consulate to get them the paperwork that I need. Ashoke takes me down to the FRRO office, arriving about 45 minutes before they stop taking new cases. I'm assigned to an office, and a counter, and told to wait. Minutes later, someone comes out and asks why I'm waiting, and then ushers me in. Dude goes through my paperwork, and instructs me to buy one of their fancy folders for my casefile for 30 rupees. Then he tells me if I come back at 3 and pay $90, I'll have my exit permit. I return to the office at 2:55, and no one's there. Apparently, my dude's lunch order never came, so he's still on break. At 3:30, a different officeworker comes by, hands me my exit permit, tells me to review it, pay at the cashier, and then she'll sign it. Cashier doesn't want to give me change, but at this point I am unwilling to give the Indian government a single cent more than I have to, so I insist. After two days, I leave with an exit permit. Hopefully, I'll actually make it out of the country in a few hours.
Other interesting stories from Mumbai and Amritsar....
Twenty five kilometers from Amritsar is the Wagah-Attari border between India and Pakistan. Every day at sunset they have a ritualized ceremony where they take down the flags and close the border. Doors open on the India side at 3 PM, even though the ceremony won't start until 5:30. We're advised to get there early to ensure that we get seats--the stadium which probably seats about 4,000 fills up daily. By the time the performance actually starts, its standing room only, and there are easily 5,000 people in the stadium. As soon as we exit the car, touts grab our hands to paint Indian flags on the backs of our palms (40 rupees for two hands). More touts sell orange baseball caps with Indian flags on them. There's a one kilometer walk between where the car drops us off and the stadium itself, which includes a security checkpoint, where once again we get to experience some good ole pushing-and-shoving. We see several additional sets of bleachers under construction, which will probably fit another 2,000 people into the stadium. Our foreign passports (actually, our white skin) entitle us to the best seats in the house, adjacent to the border itself. Unfortunately, we are still sitting in the oppressive Amritsar heat, and even underneath some shading it's still pretty hot. Vendors sell sodas, ice cream and chips, but we found ourselves longing for hot pretzels and Cracker Jacks. At around 4:30, the music starts. First India starts blasting music, and in response Pakistan starts blasting their music. Oy.
First activity: A 60 women arrange themselves in a line, and the emcee, dressed in white, has them take turns parading up and down the center of the stadium while waving said flags. Second activity: dance party! Again, almost entirely women, who are able to distinguish the beat of the Indian music from the beat of the Pakistani music. Due to some well-positioned trees, I can't quite make out what is happening on the Pakistani side. I do sneak some peaks through the sparse leaves of one of the trees--it seems like their emcee is just waving a flag solo. Their stadium is also less full than ours. At the appropriate time, the real ritual starts. Pakistani and Indian soldier, who are both dressed in colonial-era headdresses start symmetrical routines of high kicks, frog marches and fist-pumping, directed at their counterpart dancer. It's clearly perfectly coordinated. The one difference is that India has two female soldiers start off the ceremony, and they lack counterparts. Because feminism, or something. A perfect nationalist pissing contest. Better this than nuclear war?
The US consulate provides Max and Eve with a gorgeous three-bedroom apartment less than a kilometer from the consulate, with a pool and gym in the building. In addition to a housekeeper and a driver, they have daily deliveries of dairy products, and a dog-sitter for their dog, Porter, when they go out. On Friday I both got to cook shabbat dinner for the first time in three months, and I didn't have to clean up after myself, because their housekeeper did it 😊. Max and Eve have a floor-to-ceiling chest full of board games, so I got to have the best kind of shabbat--a board game Shabbat! Unfortunate'y, Leanne, who had been feeling better on Friday, got sick again on Saturday. One of her Dengue tests came back positive, so she was hospitalized, and I didn't get to say goodbye before I left :( Saturday night we went to "A Lil Flea" which is a cross between an NYC street festival and an open air concert, with food from all over the world crossed with Indian food. Truly the only place in the world where you can get paneer tacos.
Postscript: I arrived in Israel last night, via Ethiopia. My flight from Addis to Tel Aviv included 30 Ethiopian-Israeli teenagers on מסע לאתיופיה 2017. It was kind of like being on a flight with a USY group. Oy. Despite my politics and the damage that Holi had done to my passport, I got through customs easily, met Tzvi, and am now typing this update from Kfar Sabba. Chag Sameach all!
Our AirBnB host in Amritsar informed me that my visa, which I thought was a 90-day visa, expiring on May 30th, was in fact a 30-day visa, expiring on March 30th, and the guy who wrote the visa just has horrible handwriting, leading me to think that an r was a y. AirBnB host insists that we go to the Foreign Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in Amritsar, to get the situation sorted out (apparently, if he is found to be hosting someone who overstayed her visa, he gets in trouble). On Monday afternoon, we head to the office, where the FRRO folks inform me that since I have flying out of Mumbai, I have to obtain my exit permit from Mumbai. Otherwise, I won't be able to leave the country.
On Tuesday, we flew to Mumbai. Wednesday morning, bright and early, Ashoke, Max and Eve's driver (they have both a driver and housekeeper. It's a pretty sweet life. More about that later.) drives me to the FRRO in South Mumbai. After waiting on a whole bunch of lines, the receptionist informs me that in order to obtain an exit permit, I have to fill out an online form, bring a copy of Max and Eve's passports including their visas, a request letter from them stating that I'm allowed to stay with them, a copy of their electricity bill, a request letter in which I detail all of the places that I have stayed in India, and a copy of my passport and visa. Mind you, Eve and Max don't pay their own electricity bill--the consulate does. Also, the consulate is a bit uncomfortable giving out copies of diplomatic passports, so we need approval from the consulate both for the passports, and also for a different form of proof of residency, which is what we think the electricity bill is getting at.
While all this is going on, Leanne, who had been feeling sick for several days is getting a fever and muscle aches. She and Joanna head to a consulate-recommended hospital where she gets IV fluids, a prescription for rehydrating solution, and some blood work to test for Dengue Fever. More on that later.
I spend Wednesday night filling out forms and writing the request letter (no template to copy from online). Thursday morning, Max harasses the consulate to get them the paperwork that I need. Ashoke takes me down to the FRRO office, arriving about 45 minutes before they stop taking new cases. I'm assigned to an office, and a counter, and told to wait. Minutes later, someone comes out and asks why I'm waiting, and then ushers me in. Dude goes through my paperwork, and instructs me to buy one of their fancy folders for my casefile for 30 rupees. Then he tells me if I come back at 3 and pay $90, I'll have my exit permit. I return to the office at 2:55, and no one's there. Apparently, my dude's lunch order never came, so he's still on break. At 3:30, a different officeworker comes by, hands me my exit permit, tells me to review it, pay at the cashier, and then she'll sign it. Cashier doesn't want to give me change, but at this point I am unwilling to give the Indian government a single cent more than I have to, so I insist. After two days, I leave with an exit permit. Hopefully, I'll actually make it out of the country in a few hours.
Other interesting stories from Mumbai and Amritsar....
Twenty five kilometers from Amritsar is the Wagah-Attari border between India and Pakistan. Every day at sunset they have a ritualized ceremony where they take down the flags and close the border. Doors open on the India side at 3 PM, even though the ceremony won't start until 5:30. We're advised to get there early to ensure that we get seats--the stadium which probably seats about 4,000 fills up daily. By the time the performance actually starts, its standing room only, and there are easily 5,000 people in the stadium. As soon as we exit the car, touts grab our hands to paint Indian flags on the backs of our palms (40 rupees for two hands). More touts sell orange baseball caps with Indian flags on them. There's a one kilometer walk between where the car drops us off and the stadium itself, which includes a security checkpoint, where once again we get to experience some good ole pushing-and-shoving. We see several additional sets of bleachers under construction, which will probably fit another 2,000 people into the stadium. Our foreign passports (actually, our white skin) entitle us to the best seats in the house, adjacent to the border itself. Unfortunately, we are still sitting in the oppressive Amritsar heat, and even underneath some shading it's still pretty hot. Vendors sell sodas, ice cream and chips, but we found ourselves longing for hot pretzels and Cracker Jacks. At around 4:30, the music starts. First India starts blasting music, and in response Pakistan starts blasting their music. Oy.
First activity: A 60 women arrange themselves in a line, and the emcee, dressed in white, has them take turns parading up and down the center of the stadium while waving said flags. Second activity: dance party! Again, almost entirely women, who are able to distinguish the beat of the Indian music from the beat of the Pakistani music. Due to some well-positioned trees, I can't quite make out what is happening on the Pakistani side. I do sneak some peaks through the sparse leaves of one of the trees--it seems like their emcee is just waving a flag solo. Their stadium is also less full than ours. At the appropriate time, the real ritual starts. Pakistani and Indian soldier, who are both dressed in colonial-era headdresses start symmetrical routines of high kicks, frog marches and fist-pumping, directed at their counterpart dancer. It's clearly perfectly coordinated. The one difference is that India has two female soldiers start off the ceremony, and they lack counterparts. Because feminism, or something. A perfect nationalist pissing contest. Better this than nuclear war?
The US consulate provides Max and Eve with a gorgeous three-bedroom apartment less than a kilometer from the consulate, with a pool and gym in the building. In addition to a housekeeper and a driver, they have daily deliveries of dairy products, and a dog-sitter for their dog, Porter, when they go out. On Friday I both got to cook shabbat dinner for the first time in three months, and I didn't have to clean up after myself, because their housekeeper did it 😊. Max and Eve have a floor-to-ceiling chest full of board games, so I got to have the best kind of shabbat--a board game Shabbat! Unfortunate'y, Leanne, who had been feeling better on Friday, got sick again on Saturday. One of her Dengue tests came back positive, so she was hospitalized, and I didn't get to say goodbye before I left :( Saturday night we went to "A Lil Flea" which is a cross between an NYC street festival and an open air concert, with food from all over the world crossed with Indian food. Truly the only place in the world where you can get paneer tacos.
Postscript: I arrived in Israel last night, via Ethiopia. My flight from Addis to Tel Aviv included 30 Ethiopian-Israeli teenagers on מסע לאתיופיה 2017. It was kind of like being on a flight with a USY group. Oy. Despite my politics and the damage that Holi had done to my passport, I got through customs easily, met Tzvi, and am now typing this update from Kfar Sabba. Chag Sameach all!
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