And on the 15th Day Progress Was Made

Happy New Year!

Getting administrative things done in India is no easy task. For almost everything, a Residential Permit is required. To get my residential permit, I needed my passport, visa, passport sized photos, signed copy of my work contract, a number of letters from my company and notarized proof of my residency. Additionally, they want a local phone number…but to get a sim card for a local phone you need a residence permit! I originally tried to get the phone in my name but after a few days of back and forth I realized that wasn’t going to work. Luckily my coworker was willing to put the sim under her name. So after about 10 days, I had a phone and a sim that was ready to be activated. But then the server to activate new accounts was down for 2 days! After 10s of phone calls and lots of visits from the phone company representative, my phone was up and running on the 14th day. At this point, all the documents were ready for my residence permit and I had an appointment in the morning at the FRRO. There was a slight issue with my visa and there was a chance they wouldn’t issue me the permit for a few weeks. But I had made all the calls/emails that I could to the Indian Embassy in NYC and I was just hoping for the best. I had a 930 appointment, so I met a representative from the relocation company around 910, signed some papers and head over to the FRRO. So by 920 I was in the building and waiting in the queue to get my ticket to wait to see an agent. (Yes, you do have to wait on a line just to get your number.) I was through that in about 20 minutes and then I was just waiting to be called. After about 30 minutes, my number was called. The young guy behind the desk started asking me questions about my work here and about the visa process in the US. At first I wasn’t sure if he was grilling me about this as part of the application process, but I think he was just asking questions to be friendly and because he was curious. Before my appointment, I had been warned the process would take the whole day and I would be told to come back a few hours after I handed in my application to pick up the permit (that is if they were going to grant it to me). But to my surprise, I handed in the application and they told me to wait around because it shouldn’t be too long. After about 45 minutes they called me up again in order to pay (I had to pay a fee because I didn’t apply within 14 days of arriving in India). Another 30 minutes after that I walked out of there with the permit. By 1230 I was all squared away and on my way back to my apartment, which is unheard of. Now I can set up a bank account, get a PAN card (tax id) and all sorts of other fun things. It was a New Years Eve miracle!

Earlier last week, I attended an Internations event. Internations is an expat community that has different chapters throughout the world. Here in Bangalore they have a beer o’clock event on Tuesday nights. It had been a very frustrating day trying to get my phone/residence permit set up and I knew it would be somewhat difficult telling my driver where I was going but I forced myself to go to the event anyway, and I’m so glad I did. I met a great group of people at the event. I exchanged information with a few of them and felt like I had finally made some friends in Bangalore. The next day I spoke with a couple I met at the event and they invited me over for dinner for NYE. New Years dinner was fantastic, it was really nice to have some home cooked western food. We sat around eating and drinking wine and then went up to their roof to watch the fireworks and check out the stars. Was a great way to wrap up 2015.

I had also reached out to someone else on Internations earlier in the week about their NYE plans. We weren’t able to link up that night but we made plans for lunch on Friday. I went for a full English breakfast and a beer to start off the new year. I had made plans to head outside the city and visit two towns about 4 hours for Bangalore on Saturday and I invited her to join. The towns are famous for their architecture. They each have amazing temples that were built during the 12th century and I was eager to check them out. We hit the road around 630 Saturday morning and were in the town of Halebidu by 10. The Hoysaleswara Temple is absolutely stunning. Construction of the temple began in 1120 and continued for 30 years (I’ve also seen sources that say 190 years, but that seems unbelievable). The entire exterior of the temple has intricate carvings of Hindu mythology/epics where no two carvings are the same. This temple was situated in the middle of a beautiful garden. I had been warned prior to moving to India that many locals would be in awe of me as a westerner/white person. I hadn’t experienced this in Bangalore, but as soon as we arrived at the temple, I knew what people were talking about. An American and an Australian at an Indian Temple is apparently a sight to see. People were staring at us and taking pictures and eventually a group of children ran up and started asking if they could take a picture with us.  It was all downhill from there and who knows how many people have pictures with me now. We left that temple and went over to the next town Belur which has the famous Chennakesava Temple. Construction on this temple began in 1117 and it is equally beautiful. Unlike the temple in Halebidu, the one in Belur is still functional. We followed the crowd and took part in the rituals. Along with the main temple, there are a number of smaller temples  throughout the grounds that all have the carvings of Hindu epics. The pictures and staring continued at this temple also, but by this point we were pretty entertained and just went along with it.

Hoysaleswara Temple

Cow Statue in Halebidu

Sample of some of the Hindu epic carvings

Chennakesava Main Temple

Sample of some of the art work on the columns in Belur

A portion of the temple grounds in Belur

Sunday I went for a pedicure with my friend who invited me over for NYE dinner and checked out the mall nearby. It was fun to walk around and do some shopping although I didn’t buy anything. I found my way to the grocery store and bought some fruits and vegetables for the first time, I figured it’s time to try my luck with that. Cross my fingers that I don’t get sick. It’s back to the daily grind tomorrow…