Government at its best!

Slowly, I have come to believe that the job of government is to harass people, make their lives a little more complicated at every step, and slow down whatever progress they want to make. That is why when I went to the registrar office to get my marriage certificate done, the government was at its best.

My father-in-law had been preparing for this hectic adventure since about a month. He had noted down all the neccessary documents needed, and arranged them. The day when we had to go to the registrar office arrived. And, we realised the first offence that we had made! None of us was a government employee. So, all our documents that were duly signed by the great authorities of India hold no significance, until their photocopies were signed by a gazetted government officer. With people going less and less for government job in Mumbai, it was no easy task to find an officer at home. Ultimately we found one, and went to the registrar office.

The office was in a dark, old building, and looking at it, it was easy to understand the mental state of employees working there. Anyways, we patiently stood at window for our turn. The lady officer there looked at us with an expression which seem to suggest "Why do you marry after all to increase our workload!". Then, she took the documents and said where is the file? One person ran to buy the file. Then she started examing the documents, and we stood waiting nervously, as a child waits when his father is examining his report-card. She threw some small small points which we handled successfully! At last she caught us! She asked "Photographs kahan hai?". We said the marriage photographs are there. She looked at us with a wining expression, and handing the file back to us said, "Passport size photograph chahiye sabka". It would have been an offence to say that it is nowhere written in the instructions. So, we meekly asked, kab tak la sakte hain? She said come by 1:30. Then, again returning to her-haughty-self said, "1 baje tak aa gaye to kaam hoga, nahin to nahin hoga". It was 12:15.

So, now all the private systems get their efficiency together to fight against the inefficiency of government. The auto-rickshaw person takes us home in 10 minutes. We collect the photographs. The Konicha photo labs give us a polaroid photo ready in 5 minutes. We get back in another 10 minutes, and phew, we are there at 12:45!

Thankfully, the proceedings start. Everything goes well, till we reach the desk of a person, who seems like a nobody but is bent upon impressing himself as the highest authenticating officer in the office. He takes our file, and goes through the documents very carefully again and again, reading each line. (Note that this has been done already by two people in line.) He stucks at my name, and says - "Write full name". I told him that my full name is as written - "Shweta Agrawal". He insists on writing father's name in between. But, I am afraid that if my certificate is printed with that name it may mismatch with my existing documents, esp. passport. Anyways, I agree and write the full name on the form. After doing some more time-pass, he takes out the certificate and signs it. (Note that the certificate was already done, and name was already there on it!).

Atlast, we reach the last desk, back from where we had started. She gives us the certificate, and says, "50 rs. for receipt and 200 more". Hmmm, so all this delay was to impress how important those additional 200 are. It doesn't matter that we had done more labour for the certificate than those people, and probably we deserved those additional 200. We give the money, and return back.

Happy, because at last we are legally married. Not so happy, because the "legally" comes from so drone a system...