Numerous times I’ve made mention of my neighbor Mr. Buffalo Ass but only made oblique references to the rest of the family. You may notice that I am calling him Mr. now instead of just Buffalo Ass. Well a while back I encountered him-the first time at close range, face to face since Ive been living here for a year- and he actually looked at me and ventured to give me a weak sort of smile that seemed almost like an apology. He knows I know what he and the Carp say about me but he’d never venture, even when in his usual state of inebriation to say those things to my face. Any ways I got a sort of human feeling off of him that moment so now I’ll call him Mr. Buffalo Ass.
About the Carp. That’s his wife. From approx. 6:30Am every day until 1:00AM she carps. And not just in any ordinary sort of way. She is loud voiced and spews words at a rate of about 500 per minute and at least at 90 decibels. Non Stop. All Day. She’d make a real fine auctioneer. You can imagine this gets on one’s nerves after a while.
She always starts with an inventory of all the defects of her drunken husband and the amount he drank on the night previously. Then as he starts work, he cooks in their restaurant, she starts on every single thing he does and tells him it is wrong or too slow or something like that. Then she starts on all the defects of the restaurant, their car, their children and then on to the neighbors. Then she stops for about 10 minutes to do puja (prayers) where she says them as loud and fast as she says everything else done to the ringing of a small bell she shakes. She sounds like she’s railing on Lord Shiva when she chants the mantras and prayers. No doubt even he is hanging his head in shame and going looking for a bottle too by the time she gets done with him.
Then it’s back to the husband. He then starts on the neighbors, I think to deflect her attention, and I am one he likes to pick on. I have said so far we, me and Manoj, are responsible for the water shortage, milk shortage, several power outages, screaming fights all night every night (sorry its them not us!), strange food being cooked in our kitchen, upsetting the balance of nature by not being married, and I forget what else. And he doesn’t care if I write about him in my books-he said so! He’ll say whatever he wants. At least he knows I’m a writer!
Well the Carp has nearly driven me to drink a few times as well. (tho I didn’t go there) I just want to say “Take a breath once in a while.”
Anyways the Carp has been gone for three days now. Oh there’s still arguing between Mr. Buffalo Ass and his son-its loud but it’s short and done with, not spurred on from the sidelines for 2 or 3 hours around midnight. She likes to keep the emotion hot as much as possible. It doesn’t mean that it’s quiet around here either. They’ve been remodeling the restaurant or preparing for painting or something and a lot of shifting of stuff around. Last night they were doing this shifting and sweeping until about 2AM-but at least they( father and son) weren’t arguing about it constantly.
Anyways this afternoon is real quiet and we even got to sleep in this morning til past 8:30 since the Carp wasn’t yelling at her husband or Lord Shiva at a volume resembling a jet plane taking off. I hope she stays away for a good long time. The old man misses her though I can tell. He’s singing all these forlorn love songs. He sings all the time when she isn’t yelling at him and is probably a nice guy. I mean he takes a hell of a lot of abuse and doesn’t turn around and give her a punch in the face like a lot of guys around here would do. Domestic violence is rampant in these parts. Most of the women sort of cower around the men. And most of the men are angry, arrogant, self-righteous assholes.
So maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on the Carp. She’s making up for all those other silent women in Mussoorie.
Note: About the unwanted visitors in previous posts. They showed up. The deal was made (with a little extra “needed” for the guy at the office) and that should be that. I’ll write more once Manoj actually gets his passport and we stash it someplace. We all got off real lucky-in Delhi it costs over 1oo,000Rs to get your passport usually I hear. Ahh the joys of corruption!
I was talking on May 1 2009 about the visit by the LIU-Local Intelligence Unit of the Police regarding Manoj’s passport application and the subsequent interest in finding a foreign person staying here.
For the past few days our landlord has been on edge about this. These LIU guys said when they left the last time that they would be coming back to talk further. That usually means some cash will have to exchange hands. I don’t want to accuse these guys of anything as nothing has been said though.
The usual way these things go (as I have seen personally and been informed by others) involves veiled references, glaring glances and a lot of huffing and puffing with nothing definite-that means nothing usable in a court regarding a charge of soliciting a bribe-being said. The police are being a lot more careful in some areas since press have been conducting sting operations and a fair number of cops have lost jobs and even been jailed for taking bribes caught on video. After the huffing and puffing part the nice guy approach is used and they say they only want to help you out of your predicament and that they have the power to “fix” things. That’s when the bargaining starts. It’s not only police but gov’t officials and anyone with any small iota of power to “fix” a problem they have invented for you.
Right now Manoj is out of town as he had to attend a wedding but he is expected back this evening. But he just called me and said the LIU guy (I don’t know which one) called our landlord and said he’d be stopping by again this evening. So I guess the bargaining the conversation will begin.
I am so tempted to have a lawyer there. I’d rather see the money go to fighting for people’s rights against this corruption than in the pocket of these kind of guys. The situation is however that right now they have the power to accept or deny the passport application and that is additional leverage if everything else falls through.
My landlord, if put under duress has the right to make and RTI-Request to Information from the FRO and the police regarding tenancy issues and the Foreigner Registration Act. He can get particulars of the conditions of the use of the Form C as well as any penalties for non-compliance as well as how these penalties are used and under what jurisdiction:the FRO or the LIU which are different divisions.
I’ve spent more time than I’d like looking up all the applicable laws online and consulting with places that have this information. I know it won’t really make any difference. If I bring it up with these guys they’ll get angry and make things worse until they can be reprimanded which could take years. And that will make it hard on the people here too. They can mess around with my visa too and give me a hard time to get another one so I have to be careful.
You’d think with tourism in decline drastically here due to the economy, terrorism and swine flu they’d want to keep a tourist or two around rather than giving them such a hard time. Yeah the cynicism is coming out now. But then again maybe these guys won’t show up. They’ve really taken their time to get around to even making contact (almost a week). Usually these things are quick and dirty and all parties walk away-no run in their own directions afterwards.
In any case I’ve packed my bags and will check into a guest house (and fill a Form C) if they get ugly. Then there’s no more situation for them to bother with. Part of the things too is if it seems like its going to be too much work for too little reward then the situation just sort of drops off. (We encountered such a situation last year and my persistance (and lack of anger, and endless patience) wore out a whole cadre of uniforms until they finally told us to get out of town. I”ll write that episode up soon and backdate it to last fall when it happened. It was rather amusing even though we were at the police station in that well known tourist town for nearly 8 hours.
Now recall I am a middle aged woman from Canada with no interest in criminal or other such things and only here for trekking and doing my writing and stuff. I keep my nose out of local politics, business, gossip and the like. So that’s the reason I’ve catagorized this as Advice for Travellers. You could just be minding your own business and come up against something completely unexpected. It happens all the time. So I guess that’s a warning.
So much for “The Guest Is God”.
Just sitting around watching a little cricket when a knock comes on the door. The LIU, that’s short for Local Intelligence Unit- a division of the police were at the door. An older guy and a young guy. They showed me their credentials and wanted to ask some questions.
I was a little taken aback. But what the thing involved was Manoj’s passport application. They just wanted to verify the particulars like the address and so forth. So it was a routine followup to that application.
Now I am not fond of Indian police for a number of reasons, mostly due to their abuse of power, force and corruption. And a lot of them don’t even know the laws they are pretending to enforce.
These guys were polite and once the address and such was verified they went downstairs to verify with the landlord as well.
So all well and good I thought.
Then comes another knock at the door. The younger guy with a piece of paper and pen wants me to write down my particulars including passport number and so forth. No problem. I give this information on a regular basis at every hotel I stay at in the Form C which is required to be filled out by foreigners.
Then he wants me to write the particulars of my tenancy in this place. Things such as who is the landlord and what is the rent. Also not a problem. I don’t lie to police as that gives them leverage to open the door to extortion. And believe me they only need a glimpse of that door opening to jump all over it and take advantage.
The problem according to this guy is that I didn’t fill out a Form C for my tenancy here. Well all well and good. The fine for that according to the Foreigners Registration Act 1939 is 1,000 rupees and payable by the landlord.
Now the thing is this tenancy falls under the Indian Tenancy Act and not the FRA and its subsequent amendments. Which means that I don’t have to fill out a Form C and have my whereabouts noted at the FRO-Foreigner Registration Office. If a foreigner is on a tourist visa of less then 180 days registration is not required at an FRO. This is made very clear in the amendments to the FRA1939.The FRA is only applicable to people running a hotel, guesthouse etc as a business and not to a private residence. That’s the difference in the jurisdiction of the law.
Now my landlord and his family don’t know too much about the law. These particulars would certainly escape them. The older guy from the LIU then proceeded to tell them that it was illegal to rent to foreigners. This is plainly nonsense. There is nothing in the Tenancy Acts that restricts rentals. The only place where there might be a restriction is in an Army Cantonment area and that is subject to Army regulations and not Tenancy Acts and the like.
The big thing is the LIU as police, while affiliated with the FRO are not its agents. They may take registrations at the police station in Dehra Dun for those foreigners on long visas but it it not within their jurisdiction to enforce this without an order from the FRO people and and subsequent legal notice.
I am writing this after the fact. I will update in the next post.
The trouble with living in Mussoorie mostly is that it is a party town. And the tourist season starts marginally in April, peaks in June and continues on until about mid-October. And with that are all the city folks coming up here to get away from all their stressful worries and getting sloshed and rowdy. Last night, Saturday it seemed like half the town was drunk. There was yelling late in the roadway and the neighbors imbibed as well which escalated as usual into the family fight and a lot of crashing around followed by crying and then silence. At least they got it over before midnight so we didn’t have to stay awake til 3 or 4 like usual.
It is better out here on the west side as there aren’t many guest houses or hotels and the only attractions of the Buddhist Temple and Company Garden close fairly early so there’s not much reason for the tourists to come out here. Except when they have relatives here.
Anyways we are planning another getaway this month and again in May so we can avoid a lot of this nonsense and especially the traffic jams.
But it has a bad effect on the local people. They see all these “rich” city types coming here and de-stressing while they are working like mad since it is the time they have to (many of them) make enough money to last through the winter. But the “to hell with responsibility” attitude is catching and I know it gives business owners a headache since if their employees catch it (especially on pay day) then they will be short staffed for a while.
Added to that is the water shortage that always comes with so many people just leaving taps running and stuff. One time I was staying at a place and I swear these Delhi types flushed the toilet upstairs at least 25 times in the morning (from 8-12). I even commented to Manoj “It sounds like someone has a loose motion (diarrhea) problem.” Then when the water ran out at 2pm they let out this huge hue and cry and complained for the rest of the day til water was pumped at 7pm. Water is only pumped twice a day and everyone fills their rooftop tanks and that’s all there is. So if they empty the tank then they have to wait. And sometimes when there is a shortage (coming up) and a lack of snowfall (like the winter just past) pumping is only once per day. Once when I lived on the east side the pump broke and we were without any water for nearly 5 days. So we had to haul some in containers in the car from a well. Thank goodness it rained in that time also and we hooked up an ad hoc rainwater catch system so at least we had enough water to flush the toilet a couple of times.
Anyways here comes the fun. And here we head for the higher hills!
Spent the afternoon sweltering at a local auto repair shop. Lots of work to do involving bushings, bearings, greasing, replacing a water pump and the like. Mountain roads take a huge toll on a vehicle during a long trip. Here is the car in question behind a bus that also required a little attention.
So there was not a lot to do as half a dozen guys worked on various parts of the vehicle. Auto repair shops are very similar to hospitals in India. The patient/client has to go around and collect all the parts, in the case of cars that includes various oils, grease, metal parts, hoses etc, in the case of hospitals this includes syringes, IV solution, medicines etc and once the parts are assembled the various “specialists” use them in their various areas of expertise. There are always supply shops near to the repair shops/hospitals. One is given a list and mobile phone calls ensue between the center and the supplier on specifics. At least 3 trips to the supplier will be involved in either case. In our case with the car, Manoj-car owner and Rajesh-car driver who works for Manoj each had to make 2 trips and one of the parts still eludes us this evening. It should be procured by morning so the work can be finished up.
In the mean time, I sat at this place for 5 hours drinking tea, watching repairs (everything is done by hand- there is no computerized this and that diagnostic things etc) and getting to know 7 chickens that are resident in the far corner of the repair yard. There were 3 roosters and 4 hens. This is the same autobody shop last year that impressed me with it’s elaborate fish tank I posted a photo of on one of my other blogs.
I have to admit a fondness for chickens since my childhood. My grandmother had a small farm and kept chickens, cows, pigs and horses. It was one of my fondest memories to just sit and watch the animals do their animal things.
Chickens especially are very lively. And they aren’t really doing anything. They mull about and follow the top bird, one of the roosters who also doesn’t really seem to know what he is doing. Once in a while he puffs himself up and utters a loud crow and then goes back to leading the mulling about. Oh there’s so much I would like to say here metaphorically!
But here are some chicken photos for your enjoyment/consideration/appreciation.
