| Some very dear friends of mine came to India recently… and after a night of the usual drowning in drinks, they sprung a wonderful surprise…
“We are going to the Maldives to get married!”
I imagined just the two of them, no family, no friends, no pomp and circumstance, no Johnny Walker to impress the Uncles, no Barat to block the streets…
No center-pieces so big you can’t converse across the table, no “there is too much masala in the food” so you can’t stop crapping the rest of the weekend.
No DJs digging deep in their arsenal to “Ta Ra Ra” the masses from the bar to the dance-floor.
No speeches or toasts, no slide shows or roasts, no fifteen year old cousin with the energy of an atom bomb making me dance to every other song…
(What exactly happens that genetically allows a girl to dance for four hours without breaking a sweat, while I’m soaking in my own filth by the end of the first verse of “Shava Shava”?)
But I digress… Most importantly no hours and efforts were wasted on a wedding, while they instead celebrated and commenced a marriage, in one of the most romantic and meaningful ways I can imagine.
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I was also happy that their trip would yield a short stop back in Bombay, with plenty of time for us to have the incredible leg of lamb at the Maratha Sheridan over some drinks, before they blissfully began their journey home.
But like they say in “Blood Diamond” (but bent for our purposes)… “T. I. I.” - This Is India…
There was no chance that this plan should happen so smoothly, in a country that doesn’t understand that it could.
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It would seem that India had changed its immigration policy while they were in the Maldives…
In a reactionary rule to the rampant need to seem proactively secure… you can no longer leave India for two months, if you come to India on a Tourist Visa and then leave again, and then come back and then want to leave again… wait… is that right?
Anyways, they discovered this when they reached Chennai on Saturday afternoon to connect to their flight home through Bombay.
The kind gentleman at immigration told them they had to wait till Monday to get their passports stamped at the FRO (Foreigner Registration Office), before they would be allowed to leave the country.
After complaining, crying, and cringing, and then calling me, we figured that their best bet would be to come back to Bombay where they could still try to catch the flight home or stay with me and then go to the FRO here.
That’s when the kind gentleman wrote in their passports that they could only go to the FRO office in Chennai, and then kindly let them board their flight to Bombay without saying a word.
At the Bombay airport their charm fared no better, as they were told to go back to the Chennai FRO, as the next kind gentleman pointed to the fresh writing on their Visa.
And despite hours of passionate pleas for compassion, they arrived back at my place in the wee hours of the night.
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Adamant about not being bullied into going back to Chennai, they went to the FRO here in Bombay.
While they waited in the long and countless lines, an “Agent” approached them that said he could help.
For a few grand, he could “handle” their problem for them, and send them on their merry way… after all, “You are foreigners here on vacation, you should be enjoying instead of waiting in such a cue!”
And sure enough after some money exchanged hands, they were shortly on their way…
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I can’t help but wonder how many hours and efforts are wasted on “our” security, at the expense of our marriage to what used to be a normal life.
Especially here in India where we can at best only engineer the appearance of safety without any concept of design…
Where we have somehow become resigned to celebrate… “Hey… At least you were able to pay someone off…”
So after having a great time with my dear friends in India for two years in a row… I fear that I won’t be seeing them on this side of the planet any time soon.
Their Honeymoon with India has come to an end. |
When Mika Singh had mentioned to me that he had a bodyguard, I had already figured as much.
