The title of this week’s blontry refers to the fact we have renewed our visa. It’s probably the last time since they are good for one year and that’s when our contract ends. I honestly don’t see ourselves extending our contract beyond that, so I guess give it just one more year also applies to our stay here in India. Rae is going to talk about the visa renewal process I will talk about another highlight, the Bhoomi Puja for the K.K. Modi University that we are building.
As faithful readers of
oldfartsinnewdelhi know, we are here so I can run a joint venture of Stratford
University and the K. K. Modi Group. We essentially are a campus of an American
university transplanted in India. It is not a twinning program because there is
no Indian university involved. That has proven to be a limitation. Creation of
the K. K. Modi University, which will be a proper Indian university will
overcome that limitation. People have been working for over three years to get
approval to build this university, so it is a huge event for everyone involved.
Naming it after Mr. Modi, makes it also a memorial to him so the day also had
huge personal significance for the family.
In the US, there would have been a
ground breaking ceremony, with all the dignitaries turning over a shovel of
dirt after the prerequisite speeches. In India there is a Bhoomi Puja. This is
a Hindu religious ceremony in which the earth (Bhoomi) is blessed and thanked
for her bounty and offerings are made to atone for the disruption of the earth
and all the living things that were resident on the construction site.
Here are some pictures of the Bhoomi Puja:
Durg, where the new university will be
is not particularly close or convenient. Durg is a city in the center of India
in a state called Chhattisgarh. It is about an hour and a half flight and then
about another hour drive. So to get there for the ceremony we had to leave
early in the morning and it took until pretty late to get back. A long day.
Actually, the campus site is outside of
Durg on former farm land. There is a dirt road that cuts across the property that
leads through a small village and to a river. Pretty much a non-descript piece
of property in the middle of nowhere. However, I think it will be a great site
for the campus. All of Chhattisgarh is a major center for steel and cement
production. There are major infrastructure companies also located in the state.
However, the engineering colleges are not meeting the needs of these employers,
so there is a major gap we hope to fill. Here are some pictures of the site:
Well that’s it for me. Here’s Rae!
As Phil mentioned earlier, I’ll share a
bit about renewing our visas. Last years’
renewal was remarkable because we discovered after the fact that our visas had
already expired. This is not good, and
we were told it wouldn’t be an easy process and would be, at the very least, a
2 day process. At that time we had a man,
Ramdas, working at the campus who helped all the foreign students with their
visas. He was well respected at the FRRO
(foreign resident registration office) and so he said he would help us get
renewed. He contacted the person at the
FRRO office that he had a good working relationship with. We showed up, met that man in his office and
then went down to the process area. I’m
sure you’d love to hear all the tiny details of this process, but I’ll fast forward
though that and tell you that one hour later we walked out with our visas all
renewed for another year. “What, you
mean we’re all done, WOW!” We did have
to pay some fines, but that was expected.
This year we didn’t let our visas expire
and started the process in what we thought was a good amount of time to get it
all accomplished. Ramdas has left the
campus but has stayed in touch with people there, Phil being one of those. We asked him if he’d be able to help us again
this year and he was gracious and said yes.
We got all the necessary documentation prepared, with the required three
copies of everything, set our appointment and along with Ramdas went to the
FRRO office to begin the process.
Shouldn’t be more than an hour and no fines to pay, Right? We met the same man as last year only this
time we didn’t go into his office, we waited outside his office on a couch
while Ramdas went to his office alone; I’ll share the reason for this shortly.
We then went down to the process area to
begin our wait. Turns out they did
manage to find some further documentation they wanted. Phil called his office and the needed
documentation was emailed over. Ramdas
went to some other area, had the information printed out and helped us move forward
in the process. You may have noticed I use
the word process a lot, that’s because things here usually are a “process”. Two and a half hours and no fines later we walked
out with our visas renewed. Not quite as
fast as last time, but still not bad.
Remember I mentioned sitting on the
couch outside the man’s office, well, it seems he needed to tell Ramdas that he
might need a little incentive or gift (better known as a bribe) to help move
the process along. Three thousand rupees
would be good ($ 48.24). Phil gave Ramdas
the money during our waiting time but it turns out that the man didn’t want to
take the money at the FRRO office, there are cameras everywhere, so he came to
the campus later that day to pick up his “incentive or gift”. Of course, why would we even think that a
bribe wouldn’t be in order? It’s the
name of the game in India. I don’t sound
bitter do I?
We have visas until March 12, 2016. Thanks Ramdas for all your help.
Namaste.
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