The Neverending Story

Seeing this post by our friend Nandan about the difficulties he had obtaining a driving license in India reminded me that I haven't caught you up to speed on the interminable hell it has been for us to register our scooter.

It all started off innocently enough. We bought the scooter and the store said they would have no problem registering it for us, that our US documents (drivers licenses, passports, Foreign Resident Registration Office forms) would be enough to get the car* registered.

But it wasn't that simple. They (the powers that be) didn't like our documents and didn't know what the FRRO was** and therefore this didn't qualify as proper "proof" that we were legitimate.

Maybe it was just our dumb luck that we were trying, as foreign nationals, to register this Indian scooter just as all the David Headley mess was blowing up in October 2009. Maybe a government already slightly suspicious of long-term-stay foreigners was just more paranoid now...

We don't know, but the end result as been about 13 trips (30 mins each way) for Allen to the Regional Transportation Office to spend hours on end waiting to speak with the baraa admi (big man), only to then be told that he didn't have the right form filled out, that he would have to apply for an Indian driver's license, but then they would reject that, but maybe our new international driver's license would count, but now our other paperwork was out of date and our proof of residence needs to be updated, but now the baraa admi is on vacation and we'll have to wait another week for him to come back, but now that he's back he's changed his mind ... and actually since you are leaving for the summer for 3 months we shouldn't register the car now, wait until you come back to register it.

Did I just hear you correctly, mister government man, did you actually just recommend to us that we continue to drive an unregistered car until May then wait until September (nearly a year since we first bought the car) to finally register the damned thing? We can no longer park in attended parking lots because they don't want to allow unregistered vehicles in for security reasons (understandably, but annoyingly nonetheless) ... and what if we get stopped by the cops, who would have no problem ticketing us for something they have legitimate right to do ... ie, not registering our car!

Whose liability is it then if it is stolen? Mr. Police officer can you please find our car with no license plate?

Whose liability is it if something incredibly insane happens to it while it is stolen?

And you, Mr. Baraa Admi are OK with sending us off back onto the road like this?

So Allen spent upwards of 50 hours of his life at this stupid office just so you could say 5 months later that you are unwilling to register this car for no better reason than that we won't be driving it for three months in 3 1/2 months from NOW!

Really?

Well, we're not OK with the situation ... And as the scooter was my primary mode of transportation, I've given Allen the OK to lay down the gauntlet and up the anti with the TVS (scooter brand) store: if they don't register our scooter (which they were suppose to do for us, like they do for every other customer), we will demand a full refund or we will sue them for improperly selling us the car in the first place.

By our reasoning is that technically it is their fault that we have the scooter in the first place - buyer beware, bullshit! If it wasn't for them not actually checking us out properly, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Yes, we were naive enough to trust them when they said "Yes, yes, sir, we will register the vehicle ... one week!" ... but we didn't have any reason to suspect there would be a problem since several of our other foreign friends have registered vehicles without too much difficulty.

What we have on our hands is a full blown clusterf*ck break down of authority ... I recommend you read Nandan's post I mentioned earlier for another example of this ... where someone is itching for a bribe and it isn't being spelled out to us. Although, in all fairness to Allen, who has definitely dealt with the full brunt of this bullshit ... he would have happily greased the wheels to get things done quicker if it wasn't for the fact that every time he talks to someone important there are like between six or twenty other people in the room - all staring at him and hanging on every word that comes out of his mouth.

I'm sad to think that we need to get rid of the scooter - but on the balance, the benefit I get from having it in no way outweighs the burden that Allen has had to face dealing with all this insane bureaucracy. Fine, if you don't want us to have the scooter (or seem content to let us drive it illegally) then we want our money back.

Allen is telling me over my shoulder that if this doesn't get resolved soon he's going to start bad-mouthing TVS on the internet as much as he can.... this is getting serious folks.
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* Another name for scooter here is car

**This never ceases to amaze me - one aspect of the town's government doesn't know of, hasn't heard of, does not recognize the authority of another government agency.