Technical difficulties

At the immigration office the other day, I sat from 9 am until 4 pm ‘registering’ as a foreign resident of India.  I’m not exactly sure what registering means since I already have a visa; except that I know that if I didn’t do it within 2 weeks of arrival I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the country.  I also know that it was a huge, bureaucratic pain in the behind.  From filling in the application online to the mountains of paperwork to the accusatory questions, it was not a pleasant experience. 

To top it off, the day we registered, the office was suffering from ‘technical difficulties’ and we had to wait to receive our very official certificate printed on ordinary printer paper that is stamped manually.  Is there really that much that could go technically wrong with this process?  Apparently so.  And with over 100 people waiting for the same thing, it was a cluster fluster in the Old Airport.  A long one…

This should be a ubiquitous sign: ONLY if what should be working happens to actually be working.

But this didn’t surprise me, really.  Not after 10 days of auto drivers and internet provider searching and applications and rolling blackouts.  This is the way things are – ‘technical difficulties.’ There are so many multitudes of highs and lows in a single day that it seems as if I’ve been here a month.  I feel as if I’ve been operating under a state of mild irritation for the past several days.  Maybe it started at the immigration office, or maybe that was the height of it. 

This feeling is escalated by the fact that it’s difficult to talk to the people in my life who understand me, who understand why all of these things are affecting me the way that they are.  Instead I am getting to know (wonderful) new people who just may not relate to the way I feel about all this delay and enthusiasm and not-yet-being-productive-ness.  I’m tired and feeling a bit not myself.

You’ve experienced technical difficulties before.  So, you know how I feel – frustrated.  (But then something wonderful happens, like a fantastic conversation or seeing the lit up Buddha in the lake or recognizing the part of town you are in or finally getting the internet and talking to your mom, and you smile again.)

There has been a request for more pics.  Some views of monsoon-rain/clouds-views from the apt:

P.S. I now know why chocolate is not largely common here.  It's not that it's so hot and rainy all the time, but it is always a kind of moist (at least during the rainy season thus far).  Chocolate gets melt-y.  But it is still comforting.