Bureaucratic memories refreshed

"Kya chaihiye? ... jao yahaNse"
"I don't know"
"Aaj nahin hoga ... kall ana"
"Uni to ajke ashen ni"

This is what I wrote to the consul general at the Indian Consulate here in San Francisco. I got pretty riled up this morning but it may fade late this afternoon ...

Dear Sir,

I am an Indian citizen working here in California. My Indian passport is due to expire sometime next month and I was about to send my old passport along with the necessary forms and documents over to your office. I had a couple questions about some of the instructions that were not clear or obvious to me. I did not want to interpret them and send them over in an incorrect fashion and land up putting me and your office under any inconvenience. I came to my office at 9 AM today and tried calling the couple of telephone numbers listed on your website dedicated specifically for passport inquiries. Even after 9 AM, there was no one available to answer any of the phone lines. I then called the hotline and asked to be transferred to someone in passport division. The woman who picked up the phone did mention that this was a hotline, but even before I could tell her that I simply needed to speak to someone from passport, she started talking to me in the perennial unfriendly tone, simple trying to shut me off with hurried and unfriendly manner that all of us are so used to hearing back home. I immediately recalled my occasional visits to the government offices or colleges and universities back home where the general tendency was to shoo the “annoying public” away. I can say this with certainty and confidence that even if an alien (like me) were to call the most obscure place here in the US with the most irrelevant questions, they will always be spoken to in a polite and friendly manner, which was clearly lacking here. It was disappointing to realize that the basic courtesy of warmth and friendliness that these people extend to guests like us, we don’t get it from our own countrymen … our own family members, if you will.

On a more technical note, I believe instructions need to be clear and distinct, with no room for subjective interpretation. I was quite disappointed to see otherwise. For instance, the passport application form talks about affixing 4 photographs on the pages of the form but there are places for only 2. This immediately brings a host of questions into mind. Is 4 a typographical error and it actually should be 2? If it is not, what am I supposed to do with the other two photographs? Attach with the form using a binder clip. The website, on the contrary, mentions two photographs that adds to the confusion.

Moreover, the size of the photographs to be attached to the passport form (3.5 cm x 3.5 cm) does not conform to the US passport photographs standard (2 in x 2 in). It is obvious that since we are here in the US, in order to take photographs we will visit our local post office or Walgreen’s/ CVS. There should have been some instruction on what sizes we needed to choose. Should we take a 2 by 2 and cut it down or should we take whatever is closest to 3.5 cm?

One can argue with me that in all these we can use our common sense. In that case the whole process becomes subjective and the point of having any kind of directions or instructions becomes meaningless.

I hope I was not rude while I voiced my dissatisfaction and in all this you will be able to objectively identify my suggestions. As an Indian, I hold my beloved country to higher standards than I would to any other. I hope you will understand.

Kind regards,
Siladitya

THE ONE ABOUT "Ganguly dropped as selectors focus on youth"

While I was still in Calcutta (it became 'Kolkata' only after I came here), seldom has a test match been played at Eden Gardens without me being present in the gallery. I am not just an ardent cricket fan but a dedicated lover of the game. With love comes the obligation to behave responsibly which meant I had to follow the unofficial edict laid down by the Cricket pundits that appreciation of talent, sportsmanship and the game should come before any emotional aspects. I have tried this and had limited success with other teams playing but failed miserably when it came to India. When Miandad would frustrate the Indian bowling attack or people like Afridi, Jayasuriya, Saeed Anwar, Ponting would mercilessly thrash our bowlers all over the ground ... I could hardly appreciate their cricketing genius and my patriotic sentiments hoplessly took over. However, the buck stopped there and no emotion would trickle down to the domestic level with thoughts of regionalism cropping up. This is contrary to how most Bengali's would probably approach the game in thinking that when it comes to Cricket, Saurav Ganguly is God. Such has been the impact over the past 13 years that his name is, at times, uttered with that of Rabindranath Thakur, Satyajit Ray or Amartya Sen. Most Bengalis believe that we desperately needed a cricketing role model from Bengal in order to wipe off the smirk off the rest of the country (especially Bombay) that Bengalis can't play Cricket! "Be with your Football and East Bengal and Mohan Bagan .... this is different ... leave this to us". From the very beginning, the Indian cricket team has almost been run like a personal piggy-bank of the Bombay Cricket Association, with our cricketing history filled with hundreds of negative decisions against other provinces (including Bengal), who were not considered to be of the right 'pedigree'. The popular thought went as this ... if you can hold a cricket bat in Bombay ... you can stand in line for the India cap. Finaly in 1995, with a couple of dazzling centurion innings in England, Saurav Ganguly debuted as a prominent beacon of Bengal cricket. Surprisingly, even at a young age of 20, I was not washed away by popular clannish feelings. I remember being simply happy that we found a couple of strong and powerful cricketers because I was tired of seeing a lot of mediocre ones that just acted as fillers in our team. In case you are wondering what I meant by 'couple of ... cricketers', I am referring to Rahul Dravid who also started with Saurav and handsomely scored 95 and 87, unlucky to miss out on his centuries but enough to leave a strong impression. Even though I am a Bengali and did not have very respectable things to say about the Bombay Cricket Association, my version of God when it comes to Cricket is ... unarguably ... Sachin Tendulkar. I have literally admired, revered and worshipped him. He single-handedly pulled Indian cricket during its dark ages, when he did not have the support of players like Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman and Sehwag. Of all the Cricket, Bollywood and Hollywood celebrities taken together, it was only Sachin's poster that was proudly put up on my bedroom wall. Even today, given a choice, I would like to speak and shake hands with Tendulkar. He is not a player but a phenomenon in Indian cricket and I can frankly give a damn if he is from Bombay or Bhilai or Barmer. In spite of this, my non-bengai friends at the University tried relentlessly to awaken the sleeping lion inside my Bengali soul by choosing to say negative things about Saurav (which I am sure they didn't mean) just to see how this Bong reacts but they were never succesful. I would not bite the bait and always convert the discussion into a technical one, putting emphasis on the exchange of cricketing logic and statistics. Never have my friends heard me speak out for Saurav Ganguly simply because I am regionally and culturally predisposed to do so. Why should today be an exception? It isn't ... it is logic and statistics all over again. The decision to drop Ganguly it seems was a result of strong opposition to his inclusion from our one-day skipper MS Dhoni. This is the same person who, a few days back during the 1st innings of the Adelaide test when India really needed him to stay put and score some valuable runs, scored 16 off 64 balls! Instead, it was the old horse Anil Kumble and the eternal toss around Harbhajan Singh score 87 and 63, respectively and put some respectability into our total. The skeptic would argue that test cricket is a completely difefrent game and shouldn't be mixed with ODIs. But, that shouldn't mean in tests he doesn't need to bat or score runs. After all it is on the same turf against the same bowler throwing the same ball at the same speed from the same distance. Then what is the God damn holdup? Anyay, I will satisfy the skeptic and ignore his recent Test record and focus only on ODIs. In the One-Day Internationals (ODIs), Dhoni in the past 1 year has scored 1035 runs in 35 matches with an average of 43.12, while Ganguly has scored 1129 runs in 30 matches with an average of 43.42. Even today at the lone T20 match at Melbourne, our proud skipper scored 9 off 27 deliveries. So, the guy with more runs in fewer appearences with an equal (to be precise slightly better) average has to drop out of the squad and the other gets to lead the team??? I must have gone stark raving mad as to not see the obvious flaws with Ganguly, which Dhoni himself or the selectors could easily observe. To rub salt on his (and our) wounds, he was replaced by Suresh Raina, who magically keeps coming back after having gone through multiple cycles of trials, tests and failures. His statistics show a total 612 runs in 36 matches with an average of 26.60. This person will replace Ganguly? Well .... the official comment was "Ganguly has been left out because youngsters are being included in the one-day squad with the future in mind ... and he is not a very good fielder". So, it is not about talent, experience or even record ... it is about age and fielding skills. There is nothing Ganguly or anyone can do about his age, so it is pointless talking about it. As far as fielding is concerned, isn't that why we dropped Md. Kaif? In spite of being the most athletic and agile fielder, we said "enough running around .... you bat or you go". So, with this burning example of how fielding skills alone cannot justify someone's presence in our team, we dropped one of the most experienced and talented cricketers in our team with someone who has no experience, talent or record and point fingers at fielding? I could never understand the need of our selectors to keep trying players like Sunil Joshi, Nikhil Chopra, Ramesh Powar, Dinesh Mongia (to name a few) over and over again in spite of them failing to make a mark on the international arena. We see it, you see it, everyone sees it yet the selectors mysterisouly (or conviniently) don't! I though it is the job of our politicians and beaurocrats to look after the downtrodden and make it easier for them AND NOT THE JOB OF THE BCCI SELECTORS!! Is it some kind of delicate cosmic balance that they are after by ading junk to quality every time? The mysteries of indian cricket continue ...