Banking out of recession!!

I have a new theory on how India escaped recession. It's the banking system which should get the credit.

No, not the international banking system which spent all our money (and more) in the belief that even bad debt is a good investment.

It's the banking system in India - the federal Reserve Bank of India, the state banks and private banks - which ensure a strong capital base by actively discouraging customers from spending their money.

The first inkling came last week. I was trying to pay for a hotel we had booked on New Year's eve and the internet portal of World's Local Bank told me "Cannot transfer this amount as you have exceeded your limit".

I wondered how an expenditure of 9,000 INR rupees could have exceed my limit. More importantly, I was outraged (even embarrassed) with myself for having taken such a stupid limit on my transactions.

Called up the "Happy to help you" call centre and was told that the limit has to be set up before any electronic transactions could happen. Don't worry, you put in a request and it'll be done within 3-4 days. But this is my own money. Why do I need permission from you to spend a very small bit of it? Sir, this is for your own security. But isn't the security ensured when I come in through a login, a password and a random number generated by my very own unique ID device? It is, sir. But it is possible that someone could get their hands on these details and try to steal your money. But isn't it logical that if someone was so determined, he would put a gun to my head and march me to an ATM? Sir, I can't talk about that. We are doing this for your own security.

In the end, I had to walk into the World's Local Bank's Not So Busy Local Branch and wait for 30 minutes before someone took my request for a transfer limit. Do you want this facility set up over the phone too? Why would I want to do that? Isn't that a risky option? The lady smiled and offered another form to make an immediate transfer of 9000 INR to the hotel concerned.

The hotel done, I got busy booking the flights to my destination and back. The budget airline was really efficient and allowed me to hold three seats at my preferred fare for 24 hours, over the phone. However, the guy on the other side could only accept payment from a credit card. Don't worry, you can get on to our site and use your Debit Card there.

At the first opportunity, I got on to the internet and tried to confirm the booking. After filling in the relevant details and submitting the form, a message appeared: "Unfortunately, the transaction has been declined by your bank". I took it as a one-off failure of the system and tried to pay again. It came back with the same message.

Happy to help you call-centre guy told me this was because the Reserve Bank of India doesn't allow internet payments by Debit Card. So what do I do, I asked him. The best suggestion was withdrawing cash and paying for the flight in cash. But all the ATMs around me only allow a maximum transaction of 12,000 INR a day when I need to pay nearly 50,000 INR.

I asked to speak to the supervisor, and she was the usual pleasant-mannered but unhelpful sort. Her standard line was Reserve Bank of India does not allow electronic transactions and we have to abide by it. As I ranted about how there was nothing international about this bank, I could picture her filing her nails and making faces at her colleagues. My sad tale of inconvenience only got lonng bits of silence from her. Maybe we can offer you a credit card? Why would I ever be interested in another card from you, when the first two are causing so much misery? In any case, that will take its own sweet time and doesn't solve my problem.

For a moment, I thought of asking friends-with-credit-cards for a favour. But not many of them have 50,000 INR knocking about after mortgage, car loans and other expenditure. So, the best option seemed to be to go to Delhi's Local but Quite Busy airport to pay for my tickets. The card is accepted at merchant terminals, the bank had told me.

But just like a six-year-old told off by the trustees for going way beyond his usual candy-and-soda allowance from the well-resourced trust fund, I wanted to be sure. This time the happy to help you girl told me one of my accounts allowed a maximum daily transaction of 40,000 INR and the other 50,000 INR. Which meant I would have to split the payments between my two cards.

As I drove to the airport, I wondered what made the Reserve Bank of India come up with such a brilliant idea. It stops the good guys from spending their own hard-earned money. The bad guys continue to use cash liberally to buy services with coming under the radar. It was only a few months ago that a story appeared of an associated of a tainted political depositing 6,400,000,000 INR in a Mumbai bank branch. Neither the Reserve Bank of India, nor its stringent policies of monitoring cash flows, seemed to skip a heartbeat at this transaction.

But then again, this guy was depositing money into the system and not attempting to take it out. And with that kind of cash flows, the worst of economic recession can seem like just a minor inconvenience.

My phone from the government-owned utility arrived, by the way. The guys were working on Saturday and even though they arrived at 1500 hrs (as against the promised 1000-1200 hrs), the installation was smooth and the phone is still working.

Meet the Principal

A friend helpfully passed on the mobile number of the Principal of a well-known Delhi school. "Talk to him. He is new in his job and he may be more receptive to a personal contact."

This followed advice from other friends about choosing the face-to-face contact route. The trouble is every one's scared of the Directorate of Education directive, and insists on no contact until the admission process is over.

The Principal also tried to point me towards the school's website, but did ultimately agree to meet. Come to the school at 11.

Me and my better-half reached there sharp at 11 and were pointed towards the school's Administrator. He is the one who sees anyone with an admission query. The gentleman looked at us like a plague-affected ship, which should be burnt soon. And he got to the task straightaway. You don't have a Registered Deed? Then we can't do anything about it. But this is an 11-month lease, which doesn't need to be registered. Who are you telling this? I live in a rented accommodation myself and it is registered. Then he got busy on his cellphone - a signal for us to get out.

We wondered if this is the kind of person our little one will turn out. Not a bone of politeness, but will every blood vessel bubbling with acid.

Thankfully, some others weren't this bad. They asked us to sit down as the Principal was showing a visitor around.

After a few apologies and sending a school clerk, the Principal appeared. He was a nice and courteous guy and asked us into his room. As we were exchanging business cards, he also called the Administrator in. The Administrator started to bark straightaway, but the Principal said: Listen to what they have to say first. We can then decide what we can or cannot do in this case. I was impressed with his political sense!

We presented our case : recently moved from the UK, less than two months in our own accommodation, no Indian government identity documents - but really interested in sending our daughter to this particular school.

The Principal listened to us patiently and courteously. Then he started: I do understand what you are saying, but you still don't have much of a chance. Staying the locality doesn't mean a lot of points. Having a sibling here and a father/mother for alumni fetches much higher points. Plus we are in an area surrounded by government employees, so they will get a strong consideration as well.

He told us our daughter was a bit old for Nursery (What? Old for nursery at just 4?) and that we should try and send her to Preparatory class. But she hasn't been to a proper school, we said. The Administrator jumped in - Nursery is our school is all play as well, no studies.

The Principal suggested that we get our little one admitted to another school this year. By April, I may know what the situation in my school is. Also, we won't be bound by Directorate of Education's rules. But we want our daughter to start in his school and this year. I really can't do anything, sir. We are bound by the rulings of honourable High Court and Supreme Court and the directives of the Directorate of Education.

Then he suddenly turned to the Administrator: We have to do everything by the book this time, right? Any digression and we will get into serious trouble. The plague-killer nodded in agreement.

The media has done a very good thing. People can seek information through the Right to Information act and we have to be fair and balanced in our shortlisting. I wish you the best of luck in your effort to secure admission for your daughter.

That seemed to be his cue for us to leave the room. But my better-half was determined. She put in another attempt at convincing the Principal to help us: I do understand what you are trying to do, and am respectful of that. But ours must surely not be that extremely rare case. This is totally unfair to our young daughter.

The Principal did not take the bait. He repeated how his hands were tied by the Honourable High Court and Supreme Court and the Directorate of Education. Then he had a bright idea. Why don't you send her to the British School? We told him that the session in that school begins in September, which might be a bit late for our little one.

He tried to assure us that everything will be fine, but without telling us how exactly. If the technicality has been defined by the Directorate of Education, how would it differ for any other school?

After another few minutes of conversation, the Principal got restless. He started talking to a senior police officer, who was patiently sitting through our conversation. It was impossible to ignore this, so me and my better half stepped out of the room after expressing our gratitude for his time.

Our effort wasted, I chose to focus on that one thing that friends say definitely works - a phone supplied by the government utility company.

I got the Estate Agent to get the Lease Deed notarised, got the landlord to provide the last paid electricity bill and got a photocopy of my own PAN (tax) card.

Took the relevant documents to the utility company's local office. It hasn't changed in the last 10 years. The corridors were as dark and damp as ever. Most of the rooms had files piled up to the ceiling and the files' carer taking an afternoon siesta. The ladies, who deal with new connections, were having their lunch and nudged me to the next room.

The guy in the next room was helpful. He asked me to fill up a yellow form, confirmed the documents and sent me back to the ladies (who thankfully had finished their lunch now) to take the deposit and kick-off the process.

I had to choose a phone number (which I did) and pay the deposit (which I did). After a few notations on the form, I was handed an acknowledgement slip and asked to wait for the linesman to arrive and hook up the phone.

Get to the school, quick!

The school admission season has begun in Delhi.

Unlike past years, when different schools had their own schedule, this year all the schools have to adhere to the schedule charted by the Department of Education. This means the parents aren't choking the only telephone line the school has or making endless trips there to check if the process has begun.

December 15 was the day the process kicked off and I reached the closest school at 8 in the morning. The idea was to get in and grab a form before the crowds arrived. Unfortunately, another 30-odd parents were thinking the same and had already reached the school-gate.

During my stay in Hounslow (London) and Caversham (Reading), the key factor was being reasonably close to a good school. But in Delhi, even that isn't good enough. We are within 3-4 kilometers of six of the best schools in Delhi, but will probably need to fill in the applications for all of them. Still there is no guarantee that the application will be successful.

For starters, there is the issue of the proof of residence. A Rent Deed/Agreement isn't accepted as a proof of residence. The rare school that accepts it, wants you to be staying at the address for at least six months before making the application. In an increasingly liberalised India, the proof of residence is still the Voter ID Card, Driving License, National Food Distribution Card, a Phone/Electricity Bill issued by the government-owned utility company. Having been away from India for 10 years, and in our own accommodation for less than two months, we are in a tricky situation.

Admission in Delhi schools is based on a points-system. Being a girl is good. Being a first-born is also good. Staying locally is helpful. Having a single parent is also helpful. But a sibling studying in the same school or a parent who is an alumni is super-good.

Some schools allocate points on crisp, considered and well-articulated views on education, education in a particular school and education with kids from different walks of life.

The educational and professional achievements of the parents don't attract any points, but are to be mentioned in the forms. And a couple of schools even want the parents' photos to be submitted with the application.

In keeping with the times, some schools facilitate the submission of form electronically. But as I have discovered of late, school sites seem to attract frequent malware attacks. So, the search engines and browsers stop you from accessing the sites with a message "this site may be harmful to your computer".

Looks like it'll have to be a paper application and that dreaded feeling of being marked on your responses. They better be good otherwise your parents (in the current scenario, wife and child) won't be happy. No wonder then that this dread of exams make me take the first escape-hatch out of education.

Right now, the biggest issue is proving I actually live in the house that I say I do. Making amendments to the Electricity Bill means supplying a No Objection Certificate prepared by a Notary, photocopy of the ownership, last paid bill, two photos and a proof of identity. That would be fun with a hard-of-hearing landlord, who is suspicious of any requests for help.

Getting a new telephone connection requires a proof of identity too. The proof could be Voter ID Card, Driving License or National Food Distribution Card, and a copy of the Rent Deed. Hang on, is the rent deed an Agreement or a Registered document?

Missing in Kolkata

Apologies for the slightly prolonged absence from this blog.

I was in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata on a work assignment.

It wasn't a planned visit, unlike my last and only trip to the city. That was almost 13 years ago and I was travelling with three of my closest friends.

All three have their origins in West Bengal and reasonably familiar with its capital, Calcutta (as the city was known then). My first memory of that trip is getting out of the Howrah Station and into a sea of traffic. It took quite a while to get to the Howrah Bridge, but the journey became faster as we got closer to Dum Dum – where we had found affordable accommodation.

The four of us had made a pact on not eating anything vegetarian. Only creatures that live on land or swim in sea. And wash that down with loads of drinks.

Each day, we would take the Metro (India's oldest underground transport system) and go Park Street to have kathi rolls. For those of you who do not know, a kathi roll is made of thin bread with delicious chicken or lamb filling.

The rest of our time was spent discovering the other culinary options in the city - with the occasional bit of sight-seeing. Victoria Memorial is the only place that stuck to memory from that trip.

On the way back to Howrah Station, our taxi got stuck in traffic again – and we had to rely on a ferry to catch our train back to Delhi.

This trip was different in every way. For starters, I was flying from Delhi to Kolkata. Delhi's new domestic airport is quite impressive. The check-in happened in a flash and there were loads of options for window-shopping.

The flight landed towards Dum Dum and we had to make our way into the city, where our hotel was.

Along the way, there were hoardings selling brand-new housing development, telecom services or cosmetics. The Hindi language seemed to have muscled its way into the market, sitting proudly amidst English and Bangla. So had names like South City, which probably took roots in the real-estate book in the Delhi NCR (National Capital Region). Retailers like Big Bazaar are establishing themselves quickly, and shops selling mobile services can be found everywhere.

Like the other big Indian cities, Kolkata has also seen a rapid rise in car ownership. And this rise has been followed by construction of flyovers and other such structures to ease the movement of cars along the city.

An early morning excursion (and trust me that's the only time you'd like to be in a car) to the Howrah Wholesale Fish Market exposed me to another interesting dimension. Most parks were full of boys playing cricket, football or volleyball. The Maidan - a huge park in front of Victoria Memorial - had many middle-aged men and women out to get some exercise.

Like in Delhi or Mumbai, they came in their swank cars - many driven by chauffers and parked by the memorial - to get a breath of fresh air.

Yet, Kolkata feels much smaller than Delhi or Mumbai. It still gives impression of a city that had a glorious past, but is trying hard to catch up with an exciting present and even more exciting future. Apart from those numerous colonial-era buildings, it also has its hand-drawn rickshaws and the bright yellow taxis.

In my six days in Kolkata, I saw the city largely through the windows of a hired car. There was little time to eat, so we had our meals either at the hotel or in our local bureau. The bureau had a stunning view of the Victoria Memorial - and that is what will stay with me again.

Unfortunately, I can't share it here as the office was on the 11th floor, the window was too dirty and it seemed too risky to hang out of the window for the sake of a photo - when loads of them, in much better quality, exist on the web!!

The shipment has arrived!

After two months of waiting in a UK warehouse, floating through the oceans and travelling through the roads in India, our stuff has finally reached home.

"Can you please come to the Inland Container Depot in Patparganj on Monday," the local shipping agent told me at the end of last week. "I will meet you there at 11 am".

The ICD is one of three around Delhi - the others being in Tughlakabad and Loni (in the neighbouring state of Haryana). "Just take a turn towards Anand Vihar from National Highway-24 and you'll see lots of containers on your right hand side. That is where the ICD is," he told me on Monday morning. "I will see you there at 11".

Getting to the depot wasn't a problem. I did see the containers from quite a distance and was there by 11. "On my way, sir - be there soon," said the agent. "I will get one of our guys to come and pick you up".

The guy was a stickly thin but street smart clearing agent, who helps people get their stuff out quickly and with as little custom duty paid as possible. He is well-versed in the drill - the forms that needed to be filled, the officials that needed to be dealt with, the signatures and notations required on various forms and the palms that need to be greased along the way.

"Let us get your stuff out of the container first," he said. "Have you got any wine, whisky etc?". I replied in negative. "What about electronics? What gadgets have you got from there?" A microwave oven. A computer. A DVD player. And, yes, an LCD TV. "An LCD TV? I don't have any TV on my list."

I was stunned. There definitely was a TV before the packers came into my home. There definitely was a TV that they packed. And there most definitely was a TV that they took into their van. What had happened since? Did the UK customs seize it under the "exotic things" category or did it catch the fancy of Somali pirates?

It was nothing of the sort. The clearing agent was working with "Page-1 of 3" and "Page-3 of 3". Thankfully, I was carrying my copy of the packing list and pointed him towards Package-67 on the list. "Right," he said, as he called the local agent and gave him an earful for not providing the correct papers.

The clock had reach 12.00 pm, so I asked where our man was. "He has reached Akshardham Temple, so should be with us in 10-15 minutes."

The clearing agent nudged me to walk towards the Customs Office, as he took my passport and tried to put together the estimated prices of all the electronic items I was bring in. The Customs Office is a two-storeyed structure sitting amidst piles of containers. It is like many other government offices - dark corridors, doors with strings instead of door-handles, blue linoleum floor, sparse seating, steel cupboards with additional locks, files stacked up along the corridor and big waste-bins where everyone spits.

There were the regular signs too. Thookna mana hai (Spitting prohibited), Dhoomrapaan nishedh (Smoking prohibited), Bharatiyata ka naam Hindi hai (Being India is speaking Hindi), Ganmanya atithi ka haardik abhinandan (Heartiest welcome to the esteemed visitor).......An enterprising (or maybe cheesed-off) soul had distorted the first sign to read Thakna mana hai (Getting tired prohibited)!!

The office would have seen good days and the promise for a better future. A sign asked visitors to use the "Touch Screen below" to check the status of your request. The touch screen was long gone, leaving behind a commemorative plaque and a sign warning people not to import exotic birds or animals.

"The computers hardly work here," complained one of the officials. He was too busy to inspect my stuff, but warmed up on hearing I was a media-person from his home state. "How many computers you see here?" he asked me, offering biscuits and other snacks. Two. "Only one works. And do you think this looks like a working space?" It most certainly didn't. The room was about 7 feet by 7 feet, with two occupants and a huge big single-seater sofa for "esteemed visitors" to the office.

Agent after agent walked into the room. Armed with with sheaves of papers, they convinced him why he should put his sought-after signature on the file. The official knew the rules and the procedures and wanted more documents. I am certain I heard kal aana (come tomorrow) a few times.

He had threatend to look at all the electronic items personally, but with the other official dealing with a Right to Information query - spent most of the time inside the room. My clearing agent ran around the office, trying to get the necessary signatures and notations for him to put his signature on the file.

Around 12.30, the local agent finally arrived. "There was too much traffic on the roads, sir," as I came out to speak with him. He set his co-workers on locating and taking out the electronic items from the four cartons that my stuff had arrived in.

By the time they located and took out the stuff, another agent was yelling at them to move my cartons away. "You have blocked my container? Move the stuff away or I will throw it," he threatened. I didn't want any harm coming to my beloved TV - especially after it had been located - so I personally oversaw the shifting of boxes.

Eventually, the official didn't have time to inspect my stuff and decided to trust me on my word. "We just need to deposit the customs duty now," the clearing agent said. "Then you can go away and we'll get the stuff checked out of the depot".

My joy at finally being able to get out of the place was short-lived. It was 2 and the bank had its lunch-time. "Come back at 3," the bank clerk announced. With nothing better to do, I tried to make sense of my surroundings.

The Inland Container Depot seems like a well-oiled system. It has a functional community of clearing agents. Most of them carry black bags, which are dropped at the entrance to the office. They know each other, try and help each other, mentor the newer agents and advice the hopeless ones to try out another career. As they have to spend the entire day there, they come armed with newspapers, lunch, snacks and ........a lot of patience.

At 3, I was able to pay the customs duty and take control of my passport. Before I could walk away, the agent said, "Is it possible to borrow 1600 rupees from you? We need to pay the depot storage charges for the duration the container was here. The ATM here is not working, otherwise I would have paid it myself."

Not paying wasn't an option. The depot wouldn't allow the stuff to be taken out without the storage charge being paid. And I had waited too long to see my stuff.