To bribe or not to bribe

What’s with bribe and Indian officials? Seeped into the system from the lowest to the highest level. Something we, the common citizens just have to accept and live with. We were at the registrar’s office last weekend. Had to get a registered document. There were a set of people (employees most likely) sitting right by the door, each with a table on which there was a fat typewriter. We went to the first one to inquire about our work. That’s it. From that moment on, we were his ‘clients’. He (we’ll call him Mr N) said he’ll get our work done. If we go inside and try and do it ourselves, it might take a very long time, so let him handle all of it was his suggestion. Being well versed with these kind of ‘helpful’ babus, we declined, told him we already had the application form all filled in, just let us know where we need to submit it. N had one look at it and said that it wasn’t the right form. Format has changed. We needed to buy a new application. Completely our fault, we should have smelled a rat at this stage. But there was one more person who came from inside and told us the format had indeed changed. So the application we had filled in went out and N gave us a brand new one (which now in hindsight looks suspiciously like the old one). He said he’ll do all the typing and even put in witnesses (along with signatures!!). So he took our details and typed everything in.

We had got some id proofs, but apparently we also needed a residence proof. Hubby darling went back home to get it. In the mean while, N called out to his friend and made him a witness. That guy asked for money. Rs 50 he said per signature. I refused. Told him one of my relative’s house was just 2 roads away and there were atleast 3 people there, so no problem about signatures. N said that’ll take a long time, the official who has to seal the form will leave in sometime, so we can’t afford to waste any time. I was still arguing, when his friend (a real cocky chap), just grabbed the form and signed!! Hubby came back. N said one fo the id proofs we submitted was not clear. The face wasn’t seen clearly. We need a new id proof. Hubby went back home to get another id proof. Once he was back, we thought we’d go and get the remaining signatures. But lo and behold, the remaining signatures are already done! That’s when I realised N had typed the reminaing two and signed (forged actually) them himself!! Goodness gracious. We were speechless. Of course it must be a very routine thing for him and no one bats an eyelid, I’m sure. Not left with too much of a choice (‘coz we really had to get the work done that day), we went inside wih N’s wife to submit it. It’s another story about how he treats his wife like she’s some kinda menial worker; Or maybe it’s just a farce to complete the picture. Inside the office, our work almost got done. The fee was paid by N’s wife. N went out to have his lunch, cribbing all the way about how our work delayed his lunch.

Coming to the ‘fee’ we had to pay him, he initially told us it would cost us Rs 1000. We flatly refused. Then he siad minimum 500. Th actual fee for this was Rs 150. Say another 50 Rs for his typing work. Rs 200. Ok, another 50 ‘coz he made life easy by getting it done. We didn’t have to wait inside n all that (plus we didn’t know about all the proofs we had to carry). That makes it Rs 250. The remaining money (Rs 250) would be a cool profit for him. But he asked for another 150 Rs (on top of the 500) for witness signatures (3 of them). Wow, 50 Rs per signature! We didn’t pay him that. We argued since we never asked for it. Plus there was only one person who came and signed. Remaining two, he himself had forged. He obviously didn’t argue with that, he knew, we knew. Then his wife refused to take the sealed papers to the first floor office to get us the final registered paper. She said the fee to give the final registered certificate was 200 Rs. We argued saying we’ve already payed you. We also said, we’ll come with you upstairs to get it done. She said no and quickly went upstairs. Of course we knew she was lying. Government fees don’t work that way. It’s a single consolidated fee. Just to prove it to her, I went back inside the office and asked one lady, if there was a fee for collecting the certificate upstairs? That lady knew our application was processed through N. So she called her manager and told him, N sent this application, there is a query. I couldn’t believe she was scared to answer me directly!! Her manager brought me outside and asked me what the problem was. I told him I just wanted to know if there is an additional fee upstairs. He said No, but since you’re happy with the work being done, you could choose to pay. Whattt?

 So N’s wife came back with our certificate ready. And borrowed my mobile phone to call N (inspite of having 2 mobiles in N’s table drawer. We saw N using 3 mobile phones earlier). Hubby spoke to N and said there’s no way we’re paying anything extra; First of all we were fools to even pay him 500; Also told him about how much more he can abuse people’s urgency in getting work done and hung up on him. We left with the certificate, hearing his wife crib about how everyone else shells out Rs 1000 for the same work! Really, it was our fault. We shouldn’t have let him stop us from entering the office and doing this ourselves inspite of the fact that it might have taken much much longer or might not have gotten done at all that day (sicne we didn’t have a couple of things in order). The N couple also kept saying, come back next week to pick up the document. I just couldn’t understand that, it was done in a day but yet they were asking us to come back later (that’s what they do with the others, probably to take a couple of hundred rupees more citing some other reason)

  You know this just reiterates my view of Indian politics. Order in chaos. The entire office knows this daylight bribe taking happens (I’m sure it’s not just N, but others too). But chooses not to do anything about it, obviously beacuse they all must be ‘getting a cut’ out of the money received. Old old story, what’s the big deal? That’s how these places function. How else can someone like N afford 3 mobile phones, a good sedan, gold jewellery (he had on him: 2 bracelets, 3 finger rings and his wife had on some assorted jewellery), sending his son to a convent school (his son came in later with the car to pick them up and he talks decent English).  I don’t know if they are the people to blame. Everyone wants a good life for themselves and their family, isn’t it? The fault I think is in the system which propagates this behaviour. And people like us who want to take advantage fo getting things done quicker. It’s a deadlock, a vicious circle. These governemnt offices make citizens run around, citizens want to get work done so they don’t mind paying more for it, the officials don’t mind it too ‘coz the government pays them a pittance, so they won’t say ‘No’ to extra money coming in (tax free that too). It all works. Except, it’s not right.