Twice over now I have had to brush shoulders at close quarters with India's babudom. With much trepidation, the first time over, I went to the local municipal office for applying for Antara's birth certificate. i had read horror stories online about the start of bureaucracy in a person's life happening with birth certificate related red tape. Much to my utter surprise, I walked into a closely guarded air conditioned office where a number of folks were sitting neatly in a queue (surprise surprise - there was enough and comfortable seating there). A woman officer policed the queues and even policed the officers at the counters from accepting any bribe! Everything was computerized. Within 3-5 days of a baby being born the registration file is automatically sent to the local municipal office and you can access this from any municipal office in the country....Now if you are like me, you are probably gaping with your mouth open or falling off the chair right now. Anyway, what was even better was that you ordered any number of copies you wanted of the document (mouth open wider?) and they are instantly printed out in good quality colour print outs!!
I was impressed and thought it surely must be a one off, championed by the head of one department in the government who had been visionary etc...much like a Rudi Guliani in NY or the guy that managed the delhi airport project.
Then came the time when Hari and I had to register our flat in Mumbai. Registration office was computerized and fully loaded with cornea scanners, state of the art printers, thumbprint scanners and digicams....
So, no more babudom posts on my blog!!!!
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