All the Right Choices

Today had the promise of merely being an experience of administration horror at the FRRO (Foreign Registration) in Delhi. Because we are students staying longer than 180 days, we have to register with Immigration within 2 weeks of ur arrival in India.

Cheeky snaps when the administration calamity was still funny

And it certainly was a horror. Half of the previous day had been spent collecting various, ridiculous forms of paperwork. Once we had spent two hours waiting (for half an hour we watched empty desks as they went on their lunch break) to submit our acquiescence to Indian bureaucracy, we were told that most of the documents we had were unnecessary, and we were missing a bona fied certificate from our host institution. What a stupid phrase.
After I got a teeny bit pissed off and we had a roadside thali for lunch, we figured there was nothing for it–we’d just go to Lady Shri Ram College and get the damn letter.
We jumped in an autorickshaw and fumed our way to our new university, and the day completely turned from there.

Centre garden

Lady Shri Ram College is absolutely lovely. A far cry from our Melbourne uni’s 70’s brick campus, it is rendered tangerine and sheltered by lush green tropical trees and plants. In an hour we had toured the campus while waiting for the precious bona-bullshit certificate. Soon it was in our hands and we can now drop it into the FRRO tomorrow morning.
Our hopes raised to the heavy, thunder-clapping sky, we eventually negotiated an 80-rupee ride home with another auto.

Such tiny decisions take me so far here. Just for swallowing my pride and allowing 20 rupees to be added onto my desired price, today was the best day in Delhi so far. Having haggled with me in Hindi, the driver began asking me about my knowledge of the language, and our studies and so on. We talked family; his eldest son is studying to be a civil engineer.
In the hectic traffic we passed a road and he said to me, ‘Woh rasta mei bahut accha khana hai. Sabse acche katchori hai’. Down that road is the best food, katchori. Well, I had never heard of katchori and immediately agreed to his invitation to take us for the best version of it–forgetting that Jordan had no idea what was going on. Our new friend made us wait in the auto while he bought back dried banana-leaf bowls, a plastic bag of strange sauce and a paper bag of thick, flat, round, fried papardum-things. According to him, we poured the sauce into the bowls, crushed the katchori into the bowl and then ate it with a flat chamach, spoon. Jordy was a little overwhelmed by the spice but it really was delicious. We chatted and laughed and he gave me explicit directions for when we would want to enjoy this katchori again. Then off we set once more, into the roaring traffic, the blaring horns and the beggars waiting to beg at the red lights.

At one of these red lights three tiny, weary children poked pleading palms into our auto. With approval from our driver, I gave them the rest of the papars. They retreated to the side of the road and one of the little girls watched me with her big, wide eyes. I smiled and waggled my head and felt this little burst of joy as she returned the gesture.

We were taken home through semi-sealed roads, through a Monday market to which we will definitely return. This and that was pointed out to us; This is where my brother lives, this is an army area, this is a great market.

He dropped us just by the enclave where we live. Aapse milke bahut accha laga, I say, How nice it was to meet you. I gave him a hundred rupee note expecting him to claim his right to the change, but he placidly pulled two floppy ten-rupee notes from his pocket, clasped my hand, and left.

We dodged our way across the road, chanting like a mantra, Gambiri Prassad. Gambiri Prassad, Gambiri Prassad.

Gambiri Prassad. That is his name. He made me feel like I could have done nothing better with my life than to be there and make all the choices that led me to India!

Tags: adventure, exchange, India, life, travel