Travel from Canada to India is long, no matter how you do it.  We are pretty lucky in that we only have to take two flights, but when you take into account the travel to the airport and the time spent waiting around in airports, it is almost thirty hours door to door.  I am tired and cranky at the end of it, so I can’t fault the lils if they are feeling the same when we arrive at our destination.

For the most part, the lils were perfect on the way back to India. They mostly listened, mostly got along with each other, and at least one of them slept quite a bit (the other is as stubborn as his mama, and will only sleep when he is ready).  Still, it was late when we arrived in Bangalore, so we tried to be as patient as we could and let them do pretty much whatever they wanted, as long as it kept them moving in the right direction. This might have included rolling around on the floor in the airport.  They were rolling forward…

We were one of two large international flights that arrived at the same time, so there was a queue to get into the immigration room.  As we shuffled along, I mentioned to Willy that we might luck out and get pulled into the family line, that last line where the special people get processed before and faster than the others, to minimize their inconvenience.  His reply was less than enthusiastic, pointing out that there were a number of families on our flight, that we were one of the last off of our plane, and that they would likely find a way to screw that system up. If only I knew then how right he was.

We entered the immigration room and got into a long and winding line. We had made some headway as exited the plane and a number of people were still filling out their forms, but we were in the middle of this large group.  Given the two full planes, that meant that there were about 400 people ahead of us. Even though there were eighteen agents on duty, we knew this was going to be a long process.  Then it happened, one of the airport workers pulled us into the family line, a line where there were only four groups in front of us, the first of whom was already being seen.  This couldn’t take so long, could it?

We watched and waited as the officer very s-l-o-w-l-y processed the elderly lady at her counter.  I found myself wondering what she could have done to have warranted such scrutiny.  Was carrying too much cash? Had she admitted to smuggling plants into India? Was she packing heat?!?! Eventually she cleared and the first of the three families in front of us went to the counter.  Ten minutes later, we hadn’t moved, and it dawned on me that it might just have been the officer who was slowing things down.  The airport worker seemed to have realized this, and was now directing families to every line but ours.  We were caught.  All the lines close to us were more than twice as long as ours, and there were now only two groups in front of us. It wouldn’t take that much longer, would it?

The family in front consisted of an Indian father and a German mother.  They had three children, two little girls about Woo and Goose’s age, and a little boy who was about 9 months old.  He was being carried by his mama, and getting sadder and sadder as the wait dragged on, he started crying nonstop after about thirty minutes, and I can’t say that I blamed him.  I felt like crying myself.  The parents were obviously unhappy with having been put into this line, and were animatedly discussing it in a mixture of Hindi and German. They seemed to be suffering from the same paralysis that we thinking (though they would have been thinking in Hindi/German), what if we move lines and it is worse?

By the time that they were at the front of the line, the woman at the front of the line next to them indicated that they should take her place.  They hesitated ever so briefly, and in that moment someone jumped in front of them and took the open spot.  At this point the mom lost it.  She went to the agent that had been offered to her, and gave her a piece of her mind.  The complaint went unheard (possibly because it was given in a mixture of German, Hindi, and English), and the man who had jumped the queue was served.  So the woman just stood there, with her screaming child still strapped to her chest, making it extremely unpleasant for both the budder and the immigration officer.  Something I wish I would have been able to do.

By the time this all played out, we had moved lines and were one of about four passenger groups still waiting, waiting for any officer other than the initial slow one.  As luck would have it, she became free before any one near us did, but we averted our eyes and went to the next agent that came free. Her computer ended up freezing as she attempted to scan us, so we went to another officer and were finally sent through, the last four of approximately 800 that were processed in the hour that it took us to go through.  At least our bags were waiting for us at the carrousel.

I don’t understand how they could allow this to have gone on for so long, and clearly fail to in any way assist the families that were placed in that long. All through this process we wanted to say something, but did not want to irk the wrong person and end up with “special” treatment. There were clearly supervisors who checked in with each officer regularly, yet they did nothing to help her to process people at a speed would come close to what her peers were achieving.  As we left, I saw that the slow officer was sitting with what was obviously a superior.  I hoped that she was getting a reprimand, but somehow I doubt it.

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One of the things that we were frequently reminded of as we prepared for our move to Bangalore, was that the city is often referred to as the “high-tech” capital of India. With knowledge in hand, we figured that we would be able sign up for high speed internet pretty easily, but this did not prove to be the case.  There is one main provider that serves our community, and the top speed that they offer is 512kbps, which is v-e-r-y s-l-o-w, especially if you are trying to stream hockey games. We got hooked up, but started looking for other solutions.  We found that our villa was in range for a second provider, who offers 2mbps, at roughly four times the cost of the slow connection.  We asked to be hooked up, and three months later we were. It seemed lightning fast!

This spring brought the promise of a third provider, willing to come in to our community and offer fibre connections with speeds of up to 10mbps.  They needed a minimum number of sign-ups, and once the threshold was met, they gave us a tentative connection date of May. We were the third people to sign up, and very much looking forward to the start date.  As much as the connection we have is workable, we were actually still subscribing to both services.  We needed this, as both were frequently down, and if Willy needed to be on a skype call, I need to move to the slower connection to leave him enough bandwidth.

The last few weeks have really opened my eyes as to how business, on some level, is conducted in India.  It started with a posting on the internal message board:

“Community contact” wrote:

Dear Residents,
This is to inform you that Provider Three has pulled out from our community as of yesterday.

A couple of days ago their team was manhandled and threatened by some unknown persons near here while testing the cable. Yesterday our local cable T.V operator mystery fourth company (Manjunath & Jerry) met with me and informed me that – ONLY IF the residents of are willing to pay the rates (given in the attachment) to THEM will any other service provider be allowed to come into the community. The rates that they have offered are about 300% – 500% more than Provider Three’s rates.

… The truth of the matter is, the service offered by mystery fourth company is a monopoly, like the newspaper, the milk supply, etc and all these services are run by Manjunath who over charges us, huge rates on all services and is just not allowing any other service provider to come in………

This shocked both Willy and me.  We had read in the history of the message board about one provider sabotaging another to get a leg up, or blocking cables from being run, but the physical violence was unexpected. We didn’t know what to expect.

Members of the community were up in arms. There was talk of boycotts, of arranging meetings, of engaging law enforcement. One suggestion that did get some support was to have all of those who had signed up for the service pay a united visit to the “broadband monopoly”.  Further suggestions were that the owner of provider three should be informed, as he was “an old thug himself”, and would make “mincemeat of Manjunath and company” when he found out.  As I read this, I pictured the fights that used to occur in the village where my cottage is located. There were two large families that accounted for a large portion of the village’s 1000 residents.  When they disagreed (which happened pretty regularly, especially on a Saturday night after the bar closed), they would block the main street and fight it out with shovels, rocks, and sticks.

As it stands now, the community is trying to resolve this without resorting to violence, or encouraging violence by any party.  Members of the community have stated that they are watching, and have discussed the problem outside of the message group and have considered “a number of actions”. It’s definitely a sobering view of the growth of certain segments of the economy here. I’m a little afraid to see where this goes next. Until then, I hope that at least one of my connections stays up.

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