Stamped again!

My friend from the US is visiting me. This is her first time in India and she “thought” she was very well prepared for India, after having read “Holy Cow” and other such books. People! Tell me, can anyone be prepared for India? People in India themselves are not prepared for India :-) Every new place I visit, it’s a learning experience and I am always shocked by at least one thing.

So, last evening I decided to take her shopping to a government handicrafts/handloom store. Just to give you an idea – the store is probably twice the size of Frazier’s apartment (the sitcom). The store is divided into at least 8 sections. Now, that surely was not our problem. But every time we selected stuff from one area, a person would walk up to us and almost grab it out of our hands saying “we will hold this for you at THIS section’s billing station”.

Okay, we were okay with that. But then we realized that we liked many things from many sections. And EACH AND EVERY f***ing section had it’s own little billing station where money was not collected but ONLY BILLS WERE PRODUCED. So, my friend picked up stuff from all the 8 sections and I picked up stuff from six sections. We were handed 14 bills between the both of us from various stations. We then carried these bills to one location to get stamping done (You ask why? HOW WOULD I KNOW? Even the people who work there do not know why they stamp it – and I swear I have asked them that!). Then they directed us to a cashier section where we paid for our goodies and ALL the bills were stamped again. We then had to move to the delivery section where ALL our bills were stamped for the third time and finally we were handed our stuff. So, 14 bills, 11 stations, and 42 stamps later, we were ready to head out of the store and start breathing again. So, we rolled up the bills and stowed it away in our purses and just as we headed out of the store again…YOU GUESSED IT! At the door, they need to see the GODDAMN bills AGAIN to make sure we had claimed all our shopping (in other words, we had not stolen anything).

Harrowing – is the only word that came to my mind while we were pushed from one station to another. Now, why would anyone want to put anyone else through such a horrific experience? Shouldn’t the government be taking steps to make things AS SIMPLE and pleasurable as possible? *PHEW* Atleast the things we bought were worth the effort – or so we’ve been saying, to stop ourselves from setting the store ablaze…