Bikaner House

Had a lovely taste of Indian bureaucracy this afternoon. I needed to buy my bus ticket and book a couple nights at the state hotel in Nathdwara, so I took a rickshaw to India Gate, where many of the government offices are. I had made this same mission less than a week ago with Kylie, when I was planning to depart for N. on Sunday, so I already knew the hassle of getting down there and dealing with these jokers.

First I went to the bus ticket office, which is adjacent to Bikaner House--the Delhi headquarters of the Rajasthan Tourism department. The small concrete building was even fuller today than last time. I found my spot in the reservations line and settled in for a long, sweaty wait with everyone else. India seems to have less of a culture of lines than the U.S.; today, every third person first came to the front of the queue to scope out the scene and ask some questions of the cashier, before finding their spot in the back.

About halfway through this experience, a portly albino--wearing brown, flesh-colored makeup on the front of his head--planted himself to my left, at a closed window. Soon he was jamming his hand and slip through the plexi-glass opening, across the divide, towards the cashier helping my line, reservations. When the cashier attended to the albino next, rather than the person whose turn it was, I wasn't surprised. When you deal with a scene like this 40 hrs. a week in an un-airconditioned office, I imagine your sense of propriety adjusts to the strain. I tapped the albino on the shoulder and gave him a questioning look. He responded with a vigorous, smiling monologue that I decided was convincing enough, even though it was in Hindi and totally beyond my comprehension. I shrugged and waggled my head and the man to my right, whose turn it was supposed to be, gave me a reassuring grin.

Around this time, the lady in line behind me became more urgent. A squat yet formidable middle-aged woman, she began gently pushing me forward, demonstrating her conviction that the closer we all were to the window, the better our chances of getting served. I felt her pressure against my back periodically for the rest of the time until I was talking to the cashier.

When I finished with the ticket buying business, I walked over to Bikaner house. Last week, Kylie and I found the large building in the midst of a complete renovation and today the scene was no different. I worked my way around tired workers, bamboo ladders, wet paint and open circuitry to the staircase and second floor. The fun thing about booking a hotel room with the Rajasthan tourism office is that it is a three-stage process. In the outer office, two weary clerks sat behind desks trying to hear above the din of circular saws and yelling from the first floor. Here, I completed stage one: you tell the man where you want to stay, and then he gives you the form on which you write all the information yourself. In stage two, you go to the inner office where a second clerk reads the form you filled out and calls the actual hotel to make the reservation. The progress made in stage two is recorded with an illegible scribble drawn on the form. Finally, in stage three you return to the outer office, give the slip back to the first clerk, and pay him the amount owed.

I was packing up my things, having completed all three stages, when I asked the first clerk about the availability of non-state hotel rooms in Rajasthan. It was impossible to hear over the circular saw--which seemed to have gotten closer during stage two--so I kept raising my voice. Amazingly, every time I increased my volume the circular saw increased its RPMs to drown me out. After a minute of this game, the clerk--who had been leaning closer and closer to me across his desk--sat back again, folded his arms, and said: "I'm sorry, I just can't hear you," with a finality that led me to believe that my question could not be answered at all, at least not today. At which point the circular saw cut out completely, I repeated my question for the fourth time, and the man answered it concisely.