The drive to Bareilly was extremely bumpy, and the road replete with pot holes. But Bareilly struck us as a city of wonders, and entertained us beyond explanation!
The fun began when we had to cross a railway-cum-rail bridge, built on river Ganga. The deal about this narrow, single lane bridge was that it had a tarred road with a railway track. So when the bridge was closed for the train to pass, the vehicles would wait on both sides, and then one-by-one the traffic on each side would be let on the same bridge. After one side cleared, the other vehicles from the other side would be allowed. Hilarious!
Passport woes: I was the first to submit my passport application and the last to receive my passport. Apparently, it's more convenient to work in the reverse order, since you don't have to adjust the pile of files. Ridiculous! First come, first serve is boring. Anyway, the early bird doesn't catch the worm these days.
Only if I was a little smarter, I would have figured out that it takes only 4 to 5k to procure a passport the same day, without any documents or verification. I spent much more than that in order to obtain a verification certificate from an Inspector General of Police based in Allahabad and the necessary affidavits and documents. Pooh! 4 to 5k for a passport, that's why the bomb blasts and hijacks happen in our country.
I was told that I wasn't required to bribe since my documents were in place and complete, and at the same time I was asked if I still wanted to bribe. Excuse me?
A little bit of flash back, my bro and I submitted our passport application on the same day but he received a police inquiry while I didn't. Apparently, all pending files in the passport office had been kept on hold and only 'Haj' passports were being issued. I guess it was assumed that if someone wants her passport desperately, let her leave her job and other errands, run to Bareilly for few days and prove that herself worthy of the honor of receiving her passport on time. So much for changing my surname!
To beat it all, the passport authorities wouldn't have felt the need to verify my existence for the next few years, until I renewed my passport, if I didn't want to change my surname after marriage. But because I chose to, and they were burdened with this extra work, they decided to make the process utmost tedious for me.
With a few hours in hand, we tried to look for a mall or multiplex, the city had none. An advertisement about a local cinema hall, which was running 'Kites', in the local newspaper Dainik Jagran read, "Cooling will be provided subject to electricity". This freaked us out and we dropped the movie idea. So we tried to locate a Barista or a CCD, and were misguided to a Dominos. Indeed we felt privileged to enter an air-conditioned enclosure after riding on a manual rickshaw in the heat and humidity of the peculiarly amusing city.
Raghav was quick to observe and comment on the electricity scenario in the state, and relate it to the Earth Hour. He rightly pointed out that switching off the electricity for an hour could be a huge sacrifice for the Europeans and Americans because it is a basic necessity for them. However, for a majority of Indians, who don't get electricity for 8 to 9 hours, or even more, in a day, does the observance of the Earth Hour hold any significance at all?
