In India, one thing I quickly found out
is that the ecosystem is built in such a way that unless you do your own thing,
you will be bleeding money. Take visa applications for example. All my life, I have
done my own visa applications (and I have done it many times, thanks to my foreign
student/worker status as well as my love for travel). US visa applications from
Kolkata are easy. I have driven to Washington DC at 4 am to reach the German consulate on time. I have driven all day to apply for a German visa in Chicago,
struggling with finding parking more than driving. I have traveled for 8 hours
in a bus to go to Berlin for a US visa. Long story short, I am used to spending
a lot of time to get a visa.
Back in India, I have an upcoming
conference in Canada and need to apply for a visa. The travel agent my employer
hires assures me that they will take care of everything. That, they do. They do
the paperwork and get me appointment dates. They compile the application together,
book me a car, and come to my office to give me my file. All this looks great
on paper. But here is the catch!
I don’t need a car, I can take an Ola/Uber.
Yet, they hire a car for 4 hours that will wait till I submit my visa paperwork
and bring me back on campus. It roughly costs 1,500 INR. I could have taken a
cab for less than 150 INR round trip. But they do not let me do that.
They tell me that “their man will be
waiting in front of the Canada consulate.” I am still not clear what the role
of this man was. All he did is take the stairs with me to the second floor
office, hold my bag (although I asked him not to), and wait for a few hours
till I came back. Yes, I needed a photocopy in the meantime, which I could have
totally done on my own. I ask him to go home but he assures me that his travel
agent office is next door and he is happy to wait. Till date, I still don’t know
what his job was, but he would have taken a commission in the process.
And yes, he put me in some premium waiting
lounge without asking me. All that premium lounge does is seclude you from the
suffering of the common man. While everyone waits in the common area, only six
people get to wait in a special room. They ask you for tea and coffee, which I never
needed anyway. They have a bowl of unhealthy chocolates and cookies in front of
you to munch on. They assure you with bold letters on that application you signed
that up to six sheets of photocopy is free for people in the premier lounge. How
much does 6 pages of photocopying need? I am used to carrying 2 extra
copies of all documents anyway. I still had to wait there for 2 hours. The man
whose role I did not know assured me that I would have had to wait for five
hours otherwise. I was half ready to stay there for a few more hours and see if
his claims were true. Oh, and they charged me 2,000+ INR for access to the
premier lounge I never wanted in the first place.
You might be wondering what a
miserly, complaining woman I am. Yes, I am careful about my money, that money
came from my grant and I have a limited budget. The visa itself cost me 14,000
INR, but with a car and a middle-man and a premier lounge, I will be shelling close
to 5k INR more in my estimate. I watch my money like a hawk, and I am proud of
it. And other than money, I also have
problems with the lack of transparency. The travel agent I worked with
never told me about these add-ons and the amount I have to shell out in the
process. If you are not careful, you end up wasting a lot of money. The ecosystem
is built in such a way that there will be a middle-man at every node asking for
money.
It has been a sharp learning curve
for me the past 6 weeks. Surviving and thriving in India takes a different
mindset. I am very happy that I am back for many reasons. But I have quickly
learned to get my alert radar very active. Every person I do business with, I clearly
ask them how much money they will charge and how many people will be getting a
share of that money. Talking about money is somewhat of a taboo in our culture,
but screw all that. I have quickly learned to unlearn a lot of my prior
programming. I know that if I have to survive here for the next 30-35 years, I will
be encountering a lot of middle-men after my money. The only way I can deal
with it is by keeping my alert radar at high levels all the time and doing as
much of my paperwork as I can on my own.
PS: On a different note, I am
considering moving away from blogging. I have found other platforms on social
media that are way more interactive. The only reason I keep writing here is
sheer nostalgia for having owned this space for 13 years now. I started blogging
way before I knew of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram. Now, I have
found all those platforms and no longer know what I am doing here.
sunshine
