Wrung out and held up to dry

Some people travel because they enjoy it. Other people travel because they like the idea of lazing on a sunny shore at the end of the journey.
I have travelled a great deal, but enjoyment has not had much to do with it. I've had to find my enjoyment along the way. Sometimes, I realised it was fun well after the journey was over.

I believe that it was often like this. I was born in the Tata Main Hospital in the eastern Indian city of Jamshedpur. My mother's parents lived there at the time and it was customary in those days for a child to be born in the mother's parents' home. This led to my first big journey, as my mother and I had to cross the sub-continent to be with my father, who was in the depths of western India.

Some 40 years later, I had to make my way to Jamshedpur again, because I needed to collect my Birth Certificate from the Municipality. I was coming from Dubai, and I had no idea what to expect.

When you want something done at a government office in India, it is reasonable to assume that you will encounter some form of corruption. This applies to the smallest and the highest official, and if you must pay out a bribe, the chances are that both have a finger in the pie. But the Registry of Births and Deaths? I believe that I was overdue by 10 days - what would I be expected to pay to have an official attest to my stuttering start in life?

The centre of Jamshedpur is kept green and clean by Tata Steel. The Registry lies just outside this privileged enclave, a forlorn L shaped building in a dusty compound. One wing consists of securely locked rooms, except for the last, which has a desk with a bakelite telephone with three steel buttons. The chair behind the desk is usually impressively empty - it is the chair reserved for the sahib log, which includes the Registrar himself. Like Kipling's bandar log in The Jungle Book, the sahib log are a law unto themselves. Living well above the daily grind of survival in the forest below, they cackle and screech and swing from tree to tree. Unfortunately, it is necessary for them to come down to earth from time to time - the Registrar is obliged to sign each Certificate of Birth and Death. And if the clerks who prepared the Certificates were right, the Registrar had not graced the Registry with his presence for more than a month. Many a Birth and  Death awaited recognition under the Indian Births and Deaths Act (1969) in the files mouldering on his desk.

I was in luck. I had arrived at a moment when the whole machinery of the Registry was in motion. Just as you couldn't prod it to life when it was asleep, it moved relentlessly (but at its own pace) once it had shaken off its stupor. After three days, with a public holiday in between, I had my Birth Certificate in my hands. I had not been asked to pay any money above the usual fees. Yet, I felt as if I had been wrung out and held up to dry.

To understand why, I would invite you to accompany me to the Gents at Howrah Station in Calcutta. On long winter evenings, when the Gents have drunk more tea than usual, the queues at the pissoirs are long. You can be sure that nobody would endure the torture of slowly shuffling up the line to the ever-growing stink of ammonia unless the need was truly dire. And as Howrah is the great terminus of Eastern India, you can also be sure that you would encounter all sorts of Gents in the queue. Yet, even though the desire to piss is one of the strongest urges that a Gent encounters in his public life, there is no pushing or shoving in the queue. For those of you who enjoy proof of geographical dispersion, I would add that I have also seen the same thing at the Gents in Kasauli Bus Stand in the high North and at Batlagundu Bus Stand in the deep South.

But if you were to take this orderly line of Gents and place them in the Registry of Births and Deaths, they would undergo a remarkable transformation. They would become Supplicants.

The room in the Registry where the recognition of Births and Deaths took place consisted of three tables. Behind each sat a ''Sir''. One Sir gave you an Application form. He squinted at the trembling scrawl of your hand once you had filled up the form and placed his signature in one corner. This allowed you to go to the other Sir, who took your money and gave you the receipt. The third Sir gave you your Certificate after you had signed in his ledger. The matter does not sound particularly complicated - at worst, it is a small dance of musical chairs.

 That is far from the truth. Nowadays, when it is often possible to access a service by hitting Enter, we forget that being a Supplicant is hard work.

 Firstly, there is the posture of the body. You must drop your shoulders and make your torso look small. It helps if you are suffering from spondylitis or a similar affliction, as it makes you appear a trifle bent - always a helpful posture in case you are required to plead urgently with the Sir.

'Health is life lived in the silence of the organs,' the philosopher reminds us, and we could amend this to, 'Supplication is all about being focused on a Sir despite the speech of the organs'. I believe that the body never feels more thirsty, the stomach never growls as much, the feet are never more tired and the call to the Gents is never more insistent than when one is waiting to be noticed by a Sir, who is completely oblivious to the Supplicants surrounding his table.

Thirdly, there are the other Supplicants. Like you, they have come to this forlorn building due to a Birth or a Death, an event over which they had no control. In their anxiety to have it recognised in law, they try to push their form under the Sir's nose, exerting physical pressure on you, the Supplicant in front. In your frozen posture - your back bent, your hand outstretched, your tongue parched - you have plenty of time to become aware of the gentle, but insistent pressure on your back. You wonder when you last allowed complete strangers to press against you in this way. It can be a strange feeling.

And the Sirs themselves? One day, I came to the Registry and spied a Sir in his afternoon siesta. He had taken off his shoes and had stretched out on a bench. Rays of dusty sunlight played on his bald head. I must confess I felt a twinge of envy. What an uncomplicated life his was! All that he had to do was enter Births and Deaths in a ledger and sign some certificates. He never sweltered in the moist furnace of Sharjah in the summer, or got lost in the monotonous districts of Jebel Ali, and would never be screened for fever on arriving at Dubai. He simply came to work every day and would one day take his place in the Register of Deaths, his work done, his daughters married off, a Sir who knew his place in the world.

I was wrong. I came to learn that the Sirs hardly bothered to come to work, as the Registrar was often not at the Registry. I had been very lucky. It appeared that the Sirs had not been paid for some time. They were coming to the office in the hope of seeing a pay check.

National and international law conspire to ensure that once you become a Supplicant, you stay in practice. After receiving my Birth Certificate, the law required me to travel to Ranchi, the capital of the state, and present the certificate for a stamp and a signature from the Department of Home Affairs. I had given myself a day for the task. I could not imagine it taking longer.

The Department of Home Affairs is housed in some rooms of a long and dreary building, which used to be the offices of the Heavy Engineering Corporation. The Corporation has since shut its doors and fled the city, leaving the government to occupy it as a seat of its power.   

Consequently, the first hurdle to entry was a sentry with an aged Lee Enfield 303 rifle, attached to his belt with a chain - I suppose to prevent someone from snitching it while he was taking a nap.

I arrived at 9 am to find that the government was still in slumber, and that nobody was expected before 10 am. The sentry kindly let me sit at a bench while he moodily surveyed the scruffy lawn and the limp flag which were his to guard. As the clock ticked towards 10, however, he became increasingly restive and at one point, in a surprisingly aggressive tone, asked me to leave the building altogether.

'But I'm waiting to go to the Home Department,' I protested.

'The Chief Minister will be here soon!' he hissed. 'Nobody can be here when the Chief Minister arrives. Go away!'

I remembered a tale told of a British journalist, an old India hand. The Raj was collapsing, and irate mobs were taking to the streets, looking to rough up lingering Brits. 'What should we do?' asked the nervous newcomer of his older colleague. 'Oh, we'll just wrap ourselves in the Union Jack and sit out in the open,' replied the old India hand. 'And we'll keep a tin of condensed milk handy - it may be a while before we're rescued'.

Considering the limited options in front of me, I decided to sit at the base of the flagpole. The flag of India would surely protect its own subject, I reasoned.

This simply drove the sentry to fury. He ordered me out of the grounds altogether.

'But I have to take the 4 o'clock plane out of the city. I have to get to the Home Department in the morning!' I insisted.

      'You can't enter the building before 4 in the evening', hissed the sentry. 'Now get out of here!'

It was in a mood of great despair that I made my way to the only other building in the area - the staff canteen for the lower grade staff in government. I settled myself at a table at the far end of the room and asked 'Raju' for a cup of tea. I must have appeared to be very despondent indeed, because a voice rang out from the far corner of the room, 'Why worry? There is a solution for every problem!'

It was the owner of the canteen. All eyes turned to stare at me. Conversation stopped. I was being given a chance to tell my story.

So, I told my story, loudly, from my corner of the canteen. I had to leave in the evening, I lamented, and I couldn't even enter the building during office hours. Everyone listened and waited for the canteen owner to say something.

He pointed to Raju, who was standing at the doorway with six glasses of tea in a wire carrier in his hand. 'He will go with you', he said, 'and nobody will stop you from entering the building'.

I was amazed. What could this little boy do to change the mind of a sentry who had banished me from the area? At the same time, I realized that I had run out of options. So, I followed Raju as he took my rucksack in one hand and his wire tray of teas in another and set off for the building which I was forbidden to enter till 4 pm.

I spied the sentry from a distance, but I pretended not to notice him. Astonishingly, he did the same. A minute or two later, we were in the room of the official who would sign my Birth Certificate.

Predictably, the man had yet to come to work. I was assailed by doubt, remembering the Registrar who seldom visited his office in Jamshedpur.

Raju placed a glass of hot, sweet, milky tea in front of the officer’s high chair, a sure sign that the officer was expected very soon. ‘Please take a seat,’ he said, as if he was the office manager.

I was still gnawed by the improbability of the arrangement. ‘What if he doesn’t listen to me?’ I asked. 

He looked very serious. 'Then I will talk to the Personal Assistant to the Chief Minister,' he said.

I had no idea of the reach and influence of the canteen owner and this little boy, or why I deserved their kindness. But his assurance made me feel a lot better. Though he was soon on his way to hand out tea at other tables in other offices, I felt oddly protected.

The officer arrived. He ignored me completely as he busied himself in draping a fresh bath towel over the back of his high chair. By the time he bothered to look at me, I had dropped my shoulders, bowed my head and my eyes had the pleading gleam which a Supplicant must adopt in the presence of a Sir. Only Modernity stopped me from folding my hands in reverence in His Presence. I launched into my appeal in a whining, begging tone, aware that my flight was at 4 o’clock.

He cut me short.

‘You need it today?’

 ‘Yes, Sir,’ I said.

‘You go and meet Mr. So-and-So,’ he said, waving me out of the office.

Mr. So-and-So turned out to be the very picture of Modernity. He wore smart shoes. He had abandoned the dreary shirt of white cotton for a maroon one purchased at a branded outlet – an Arrow, perhaps a Colour Plus! He had even distanced himself from the traditional polyester pants in favour of stone-washed blue jeans! This was a man I could do business with!

‘Come back at 4,’ he said.

‘But Sir, my flight leaves at 4!’ I protested, confident that he would understand my dilemma. After all, he wore jeans.

‘Come at 1.30 then,’ he said.

Raju had done it. There was no reason to talk to the Assistant to the Chief Minister now.

The sentry waved me through without a second glance when I returned to the building at 1.30. I was under Raju’s protection, after all.

Sure enough, Mr. So-and-So had arranged for my Birth Certificate to be signed and stamped. But there was a little ritual to be observed before it was in my hands. Mr. So-and-So led me into the corridor, which was lined by tall, wide steel cupboards. He opened one of them and gestured to me to stand next to him and between the doors. ‘Give me a five rupee note,’ he said.

This was some years ago, and five hundred rupees was still a respectable sum of money.   

Who was I to argue? It was a matter of Birth and Death, after all. And wasn’t I eternally grateful that my work had been done in a few hours?

At the security check in the airport, another official in uniform insisted on going through every item in my hand baggage. The name on his chest indicated that he was a Hindu. The expression on his face suggested surprise and disapproval when he came across a document folder with the stationary manufacturer's name on the label. Farook. A Muslim name. He looked suspiciously at me. I could read his thoughts. He wanted to know if I was a Muslim, and a threat to his plane.

I looked around. As there was no Raju in sight, I decided to hold my peace. I showed him my passport, displaying my caste Hindu surname. I was waved through.