More Running Around...Without Much Gain

Friday, July 19, 2019
Bombay

More Running Around...Without Much Gain

     Namaste from Bombay!
     My recent days in Bombay have acquired a certain Kafka-esque quality about them! Merely gaining access to some of my own funds based on a bank account I had set up thirty years ago under my maiden name prior to my marriage is causing all sorts of problems. Determined to get a hold of a municipal marriage certificate (as banks in India no longer recognize those issued by religious institutions such as churches), I steeled myself for what the day would hold.
     But first, I blogged and made my breakfast: muesli with coffee. I will need to buy some more almond milk and yogurt before I finish all of the granola that I made myself in Connecticut and which I carried to India in three giant Ziploc bags of 3 pounds each! Can you believe that it has lasted me almost an entire year???
     I then sat down to complete the grant application on which I am currently working with the idea of sending it off in a couple of days. I needed, as part of the application, to put together an academic advisory committee--email correspondence with them then took up a bit of my time. However, at 10.30am, I stopped as I had two errands to run: I needed to get to the Bank to pay Dad's electricity bill and I needed to get to the Khar Telephone Exchange (as instructed by the Bandra Municipal Ward office yesterday), to get a copy of my municipal marriage certificate.
     It was a good way to get in some exercise and so I walked briskly for the fifteen minutes it took to get to the bank. The first errand literally took less than a minute as the check and bill were handed over and the counterfoil was stamped and returned to me. In a couple of seconds, I was out of the bank and making my way on foot towards Linking Road to get to the Khar Telephone Exchange.
         Once I got there, the entire place looked familiar to me and I remember that I had come to this exact same place, a year ago, when I had to sign the lease on my studio. In the back is a small structure that attends to matter concerning leasing of homes, buying and selling of property, etc. Upstairs on the second floor is the section devoted to marriage matters. It was fun to see that this is also the spot where registered marriages occur. In fact, these days, I understand that all couples must get married in a registrar's office first. A marriage license is then issued which one takes to a church or temple so that religious rites can then be performed. Brides dressed to the hilt and fully made up and grooms dressed in suits (some made of velvet and decorated lavishly with gold braid making them look as if they were performers in a nankatai band!) were all over the place touching up their faces in the cruel humidity that was not kind at all to their make-up! It was all quite bizarre. 
     A young man then came up to me and asked if he could help me. I told him that I had come to pick up a marriage certificate. He told me that I would have to apply online and he pointed to a computer. This led me to believe that I had to sit at the computer and register first. So I took my place in what I thought was a line behind a couple of colorfully dressed brides-to-be. A little later, he came up and told me that I would need to register at a cyber cafe!That's when it occurred to me that I could not do the registration at the office! Hmmm! Ok, well, I suppose I could do it in a nearby cyber cafe. Next thing I knew he was telling me that after registration, it would take two months for me to get the certificate! Two months??? I repeated. Yes, he smiled. It takes a long time. There is a big backlog.
     Well, I did not have two months! Heck, I did not have two weeks! The humor of the situation struck me and I grinned at him and said, Oh well, this won't do. And I made a right about turn and walked down the steps and away from that building. See what I mean when I say that I am starring in a novel by Kafka???
     Well, I walked back all the way to the bank to tell them that obtaining the marriage certificate was out of the question and to find out if there was an alternative to getting my money. There, the very nice Parsi lady named Rashna told me that I could get an affidavit signed by a gazetted officer, etc. but she said that since mine was an unusual case, it would be best for me to speak with Jayant, the man who was in-charge. Jayant is a really nice guy and has been very helpful to me over the months. He now knows me well and when I explained my predicament, he simply told me to get a signed affidavit. When I asked him to tell me exactly what it should contain, he took me inside to the manager, a nice lady, who really did want to help me too. Finally, between the three of us, we decided that the best thing to do was for me to make a statement on stamp paper giving details about my maiden name, married name, bank account, etc. It would have to be notarized and then with a copy of my passport and OCI card, the bank would change the name on my account and then release the funds in the form of a check in my married name which I could then deposit into one of my current accounts.
        I then walked the next few minutes to Dad's to hand over the counterfoil of his electricity bill and to bring him up-to-date on my bank saga. He sympathized with me and told me that he knew a notary named Joan to whom he had sent a bunch of people in years gone by. He did have her number but when I called, her maid told me that she doesn't do this work anymore! So there I was hitting my head against a blank wall yet again!
     That was when I remembered my fiend Denzil D'Mello, a real estate and property lawyer in Bandra. Surely Denzil would know a notary though whom I could get such a statement validated. Well, I tried Denzil's number and got him at the first ring. He was in town, in court, but he had the time to listen to what I needed. Within minutes, he told me to email him all my personal details. He said that his man would get me the stamp paper, that he (Denzil) would draft out the affidavit for me and would sign it and that I could pick it up from his office tomorrow and take it to a notary public that he usually uses down the street from his place.
     Hallelujah! I could not believe that I had found the solution to my problem! Well, I stayed at Dad's for just a while longer, took one last look at the flooring in the bathroom and saw that I needed one small adjustment to be made. There is now about a rise of an inch and a half at the door which Russel will have to encounter as the floor cannot be flattened out completely. We shall know in a few weeks from now when he is able to move about again on his walker.
     I left Dad's place, went home, sent Denzil the details he needed and went in for a shower. It is not as hot now that the rains have begun as it was in the summer. But the humidity is simply evil. One is simply bathed with sweat after any time spent outdoors. I tend to sweat on the upper part of my body only--the neck upwards. So I sweat profusely from my scalp. This means that my thin(ning) hair is plastered to my scalp. I need to wash my hair daily (I used to do that only once a week when I lived in Connecticut!) and I feel like a wet dish rag most of the time! Once I got out of the shower, I had my lunch: last of the paneer tikka masala, last of the meat lasagna and last of the mashed potato. That finally finishes my leftovers of the past week or two!!!
     It was time for a nap and I dozed off for about twenty minutes after listening to my audio book--The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith. I was not able to get back to my application (most of which is finished anyway), as I began to get email messages from the UK to which I had to respond.
         In the evening, as usual, I had a pot of tea and a handful of nuts and continued watching Wycliff which I had begun at lunch time. I dressed and then left for Dad's. I spent about a half hour with him and Russel relieved to find that all the work was done: the bathroom is complete and can now be used and the chairs and a lot of other wooden items that needed touch-up repairs have been done. Phew! It has been a Herculean task for Dad and Russel to deal with and I am glad it took no more than five days.
     I then left for Mass--Dad wisely decided to stay at home and rest as he is still very weak although his flu-like symptoms have disappeared. He will be seeing the doctor again tomorrow for his weekly follow-up appointment.
     At Mass, I discovered that the Novena to St. Anne begins today. She is the patroness of our parish of St. Anne's and there is a nine-day novena that precedes her feast. The initial hymn is sung in Marathi as this part of Bandra was once the stronghold of the Catholic East Indian community whose mother tongue is Marathi.  They are the original kolis or fisherfolk of Bombay, descendants of the employees of the British East India Company who hired them after the Portuguese passed Bombay on to the British as part of the dowry of King Charles II following his wedding to Katherine of Braganza. I was delighted to sing the hymn in Marathi--it has a very catchy tune and since the lyrics are placed on a large screen at the altar, the entire congregation can join in. There was a much larger crowd in church today and this can be expected for the next nine days. There was also a guest priest named Dr. Gerard Rodriguez, S.J. a Jesuit who is attached to St. Peter's Church on Hill Road. The novena elongated the Mass which had a full sermon and all the trappings of a Sunday Mass.  I left right after Communion as I had a real estate agent bringing a potential tenant to see my studio at 8.00 pm. En route home, I stopped briefly to pick up almond milk (they ran out and so I got soya milk for the first time) and yogurt from the dairy.
     The agent and potential tenants arrived five minutes after I got home. It took them only seconds to see my place (yes, it is that small!) and left me to have my dinner. I had a cup of soup and some cheese and crackers and I told Valerie to send me a meal tomorrow and not to send any for Dad as neither he nor Russel have been eating normally. Valerie is most obliging, thankfully.
     I watched an episode of McCallum ("Harvest") but I did not finish it. Denzil pinged me on my mobile to tell me that the affidavit was ready and that I could pick it up tomorrow morning and take it to the notary. Wow! That was truly fast work and I realized how important it is in Bombay to have a close lawyer friend!
      I was sleepy and after listening a bit more to my book, I crashed.
      Until tomorrow...