First of all, let me apologize most profoundly for neglecting my blog for the last two weeks. Some of my excuses are reasonable, most are not. I've been quite busy the last few weeks at PremaVidya (PV) trying to hash out exactly what sort of project we will be working on. The PV staff is so enthusiastic and optimistic that the second week we went into work they plopped down a lengthy list of some very broad and ambitious jobs for us to work on. Basically, we have been busy narrowing and fine tuning just a little piece of these broad issues to work on for the next three weeks. Additionally, in lieu of writing in this blog, I have been writing some blog posts for the official Wooster GSE blog, which can be found on the side bar of this blog. If you just want to read an article I wrote about my initial impressions about PV, just click here, but I highly encourage you to check out the rest of the blog, because many of my classmates have constructed some very thought-provoking, reflective, and well-written posts. Their writings are certainly much more profound than what I have written about.
Alright, what has happened to me since I last posted about my film debut? Quite a bit actually. Way back two weeks ago I actually had to take a couple days off from work because I had to go register at the Foreigner's Regional Registration Office (FRRO). All foreigners holding any visa that is for longer than a few months are required to register with the Indian government. If we don't register within 14 days of our arrival in India, and we try to leave the country, we can be detained, fined, and jailed for 5 years before finally being deported. I'm still trying to work out why they would want to keep you in jail for a few years if they are just going to deport you afterward. Anyway, I arrive at the FRRO office with three other GSE students. At the FRRO they have gates set up at the entrance of the building in order to bottleneck the group of people coming or going. There is only space for one person to squeeze through at a time. There is also a guy with a big gun at the gate. Not a warm and friendly welcome to be sure. He actually tried to stop Navee from entering the building because she looks Indian; now Navee won't stand for that sort of thing so she totally sassed-out the guy with the gun by basically saying "back off, I'm Malaysian. I need to go register." Guy-with-the-big-gun just stared; he didn't know what to do with Navee, and she waltzes right in. When we get in we have to get a token (actually just a slip of paper with a number on it) by showing the man at the desk a bunch of documents in the exact right order. They would call your number and send you upstairs. I was number 145, it was 10:30 and the counter was at number 100. Not too bad. We wait. At 1:30pm the men at the front desk leave for lunch, and we still haven't been called yet. So we leave to get juice (lime, it's the best!), and when we step out on the street we see a group of people coming down the street, drumming and dancing. Excited, Maddy, Sam and I step closer to the curb to see this parade, and Navee chuckles and shakes her head. The drummers pass, and they are followed by a large white van, and inside the van is a dead man shrouded in nice smelling flowers. Navee knew exactly what was happening and she just laughed at our astounded and shocked looks. This was not the sort of parade I had expected to see, it was actually the first time I had seen a dead body. Just our luck to stumble across a funeral procession after spending all morning in the most joyless building on the face of the planet, and we still had to go back for another afternoon of sitting.
After the lunch break we sat for another couple of hours and were FINALLY called upstairs where....we sat again and waited for our token number to be called AGAIN. When our token numbers are called, we have our documents checked over by a person at the (appropriately titled) "scrutiny" desk. Actually, I believe I had to visit four different "scrutiny" desks during the registration process, and throughout those four desks someone decided to give each one of us a hard time about something. For example, all four of us who were there had the EXACT SAME document stating where were were staying in Bangalore for our stay. Three of us go through that desk relatively easily. When it's Maddy's turn they hold her up because they need proof that the woman who gave us those documents actually exists. I feel sort of bad for those people behind the desks because giving me a hard time is probably the only form of entertainment they have during the day. I know if I worked in a place like that, I would be cranky all the time. So at the end of the day (5:30pm) I get through to the final desk...and they tell me to come back the next day at 10am. The next day is very similar. I go, wait for a bit, and finally get the piece of official paper that will allow me to leave the country in July. I will say, the ONE cool thing about the FRRO is that there's a wide array of people from all over the world, so if you are a person who enjoys recreational people watching (like myself), this is the place to be. Off the top of my head I saw people from Spain, Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran, Democratic Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and New Zealand. There were countless others, but these were only from the passports I was able to snag a glimpse of as people sat around and waited. Fortunately, this second round only took half a day, so I was able to make it back to PV in the afternoon to meet the Quality team, whom I will be working with for the rest of my time here (more about the Quality team later, because they are awesome).
So, I will be stopping this post for now. I still have a lot of things to share, as well as pictures to include, so never fear, I'll be back! I have to take a break from this post because a) I want to break it up into manageable pieces for your convenience, and b) I have some homework that I desperately need to do, and that unfortunately takes precedence over my personal blog :-(
Alright, what has happened to me since I last posted about my film debut? Quite a bit actually. Way back two weeks ago I actually had to take a couple days off from work because I had to go register at the Foreigner's Regional Registration Office (FRRO). All foreigners holding any visa that is for longer than a few months are required to register with the Indian government. If we don't register within 14 days of our arrival in India, and we try to leave the country, we can be detained, fined, and jailed for 5 years before finally being deported. I'm still trying to work out why they would want to keep you in jail for a few years if they are just going to deport you afterward. Anyway, I arrive at the FRRO office with three other GSE students. At the FRRO they have gates set up at the entrance of the building in order to bottleneck the group of people coming or going. There is only space for one person to squeeze through at a time. There is also a guy with a big gun at the gate. Not a warm and friendly welcome to be sure. He actually tried to stop Navee from entering the building because she looks Indian; now Navee won't stand for that sort of thing so she totally sassed-out the guy with the gun by basically saying "back off, I'm Malaysian. I need to go register." Guy-with-the-big-gun just stared; he didn't know what to do with Navee, and she waltzes right in. When we get in we have to get a token (actually just a slip of paper with a number on it) by showing the man at the desk a bunch of documents in the exact right order. They would call your number and send you upstairs. I was number 145, it was 10:30 and the counter was at number 100. Not too bad. We wait. At 1:30pm the men at the front desk leave for lunch, and we still haven't been called yet. So we leave to get juice (lime, it's the best!), and when we step out on the street we see a group of people coming down the street, drumming and dancing. Excited, Maddy, Sam and I step closer to the curb to see this parade, and Navee chuckles and shakes her head. The drummers pass, and they are followed by a large white van, and inside the van is a dead man shrouded in nice smelling flowers. Navee knew exactly what was happening and she just laughed at our astounded and shocked looks. This was not the sort of parade I had expected to see, it was actually the first time I had seen a dead body. Just our luck to stumble across a funeral procession after spending all morning in the most joyless building on the face of the planet, and we still had to go back for another afternoon of sitting.
After the lunch break we sat for another couple of hours and were FINALLY called upstairs where....we sat again and waited for our token number to be called AGAIN. When our token numbers are called, we have our documents checked over by a person at the (appropriately titled) "scrutiny" desk. Actually, I believe I had to visit four different "scrutiny" desks during the registration process, and throughout those four desks someone decided to give each one of us a hard time about something. For example, all four of us who were there had the EXACT SAME document stating where were were staying in Bangalore for our stay. Three of us go through that desk relatively easily. When it's Maddy's turn they hold her up because they need proof that the woman who gave us those documents actually exists. I feel sort of bad for those people behind the desks because giving me a hard time is probably the only form of entertainment they have during the day. I know if I worked in a place like that, I would be cranky all the time. So at the end of the day (5:30pm) I get through to the final desk...and they tell me to come back the next day at 10am. The next day is very similar. I go, wait for a bit, and finally get the piece of official paper that will allow me to leave the country in July. I will say, the ONE cool thing about the FRRO is that there's a wide array of people from all over the world, so if you are a person who enjoys recreational people watching (like myself), this is the place to be. Off the top of my head I saw people from Spain, Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran, Democratic Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and New Zealand. There were countless others, but these were only from the passports I was able to snag a glimpse of as people sat around and waited. Fortunately, this second round only took half a day, so I was able to make it back to PV in the afternoon to meet the Quality team, whom I will be working with for the rest of my time here (more about the Quality team later, because they are awesome).
So, I will be stopping this post for now. I still have a lot of things to share, as well as pictures to include, so never fear, I'll be back! I have to take a break from this post because a) I want to break it up into manageable pieces for your convenience, and b) I have some homework that I desperately need to do, and that unfortunately takes precedence over my personal blog :-(
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