Moving your files in a government office is similar to the process of training your dog. I don’t know how many of you have tried your hands at that. But it involves the same philosophy. Your dog won’t give you a shit when you call it to get trained. Here is the tip - take a Marie biscuit, and break it into 6 smaller pieces. Now throw one of the pieces to your dog. It will get up, eat it, stretch a bit, wag its tail, and come to you for more. Now push its back down, and say sit. When it is in a sitting posture, give another piece. It will stand up for another piece. Now push the back again, say sit, and give the 3rd piece. Now the 4th time, don’t push the back. Say sit and it will sit, and you give the 4th piece. So you have trained your dog to sit using ¾ of the biscuit. The same is true with government officials – the rule remains the same– thoda pheko thoda khilao (unlike the dialogue in Hindi movie Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron – thoda khao thoda pheko), and you can get your work done.
We took the final documents of Legal Heir Ship certificate to the Tahsildar’s office. The peon wouldn’t tell us what exactly has to be done. My uncle hands over Rs 100 to him, and he takes the file in his hand, as if it is his own. He submits it and gets us a token, saying come tomorrow things would be ready. We reach the next day, and he says, your file is inside and you need to pay another person who is in charge. We give another Rs 100 to this person and he gets our file from the office room and asks his assistance to fill the form. And we are asked to give this lady assistant another Rs 100 to fill the form! We do the same, and the form is filled, and now it will go to the Tahsildar’s desk.
I am happy that the Tahsildar didn’t take a single penny from us to sign the document. He just wasted 4 days of ours. We would go to his office, every morning and evening, and wait. Of course he had other works in life too. And on the 4th day, we got Legal Heirship form duly signed, and we finally submitted that in the post office, and booked our tickets back to Chennai.
The whole process took 25 days, and we spent some Rs1500 for travel and as corruption fees. But then we were glad it finally happened. My mom is lucky. She at least has 3 children who could remain close to her to finish all these formalities. But I really wonder how could an illiterate woman whose husband dies ever could manage all these things.
I was reading Kiruba’s blog today (http://www.kiruba.com) and read about how he witnessed few pregnant women in the US getting trained in ‘moaning’ - getting prepared for delivery. I really think he is lucky. In fact I witnessed at least 10 women, widowed recently, moaning in pain for not getting their pensions for at least 3 months now!
God Bless India!