tying loose ends...

I mentioned a while ago that we had some issues with FRO and visa extension. As it was quite funny (if by funny you mean full of incomprehensible absurd) I decided to continue the saga.
After the last visit, we asked our landlord to come along with us to FRO and explain why he didn't provide the C-form on time. As it turned out, he used to work with like 70% of FRO officers, so there was much of back slapping, man hugging and weird boxing but not a lot of actual office work. It came as no surprise that we didn't get any answer then and had to make yet another trip the next day.

I have to say, they are very consistent in their lack of helpfulness, but the ways they invent to make your life harder are quite imaginative. As we got there, we were sent to talk to some women I never dealt with before. She glanced at our file, slammed it close and said, not even to us but to some other person, "Issue an exit permit" and made to leave without a word of explanation. At that, my dormant monster awoke, and I told her in no uncertain terms, what I think about this kind of behavior and of this office in general.
I mean, they accepted our file, gave us a confirmation and were supposed to send it to MHA in Delhi to be processed and all of a sudden she is issuing an exit permit without so much as "Hello, sorry we can't help you" ?!
What we got instead was, and I quote : "Visa expired, you ENJOYED here for almost three months, not you go".
So we went - to the guy who is supposed to be the head of something there. Honestly, at that point, I didn't much care.
He definitely tried to appear helpful but wasn't. Instead, he blessed us with this piece of office wisdom: "there are only two cases when we can extend X-visa. When you get married on it or if you are born on it". Now, how anyone is supposed to be born on any kind of visa - that I don't know. Don't you have to have a passport to have a visa? And a name, nationality, and date of birth for that matter?
He also got confused, and at some point, tried to send all of us- including my husband, out of the country,  to, I'm guessing, get rid of the problem altogether.
After much time wasted, they grudgingly agreed to forward our file to Delhi. It hardly felt like a victory then, and even less so when we learnt that we will have to wait for a decision for another 2 -3 months.
That was just too much on top of everything, so, in the end, I just packed my bags, book the tickets and came back to Europe with our little troublemaker.
It goes without saying, we needed a beforementioned exit permit, which we had to apply for. It's quite simple, really, though it didn't stop me wanting to rip their throats out at some point or the other.
You write an application mentioning that you need an exit permit, for when and why - they tell you to wait. At some point they will give you a green light to buy your tickets, you need to submit the copy and... wait. Then, you have to pay for overstaying your visa - mostly it's the cost of the visa you overstayed, as far as I can tell - they tell you to wait again. And finally, you can come and collect you permit, which will be issued a day or two before your flight - talk about nerve-wracking!

Of course 24 hours on the plane(s) with 6-month old is a whole other story, so I won't even get into it now. I'm just emerging from my post-travel coma, trying to comprehend the fact that just a couple of days ago I was packing in pre-monsoon Goa, and now I'm eating strawberries in pre-holiday Poland!