Day 1 at the Police Station

So, because we have been here almost 1 year, our visas are soon going to expire. Now we are going through the process of getting them renewed. One of the steps in this process is to have the Police Inspector verify that you actually are living here, and sign a paper. We met Kiran, one of the EY people in charge of helping get our visas renewed, at the Police station. He walked us in, and of course no communication in English. Kiran turned to us and told us to have a seat because the Inspector was coming in late that morning due to the elections from the previous day. They told us 10 minutes, which I should have known means "hours". We waited and waited, and witnessed cases coming in. Of course I don't speak Kannada, or Hindi, Telugu or Tamil so I have no clue what people were saying, I just saw what they did.

One man was brought in off the street and the police were hitting him and dragging him into the office. The man turned to look at me and WHAM!! He got punched right in the face, then the stomach, and smacked on back. I have no idea what the man had done to be brought in, but it made me think of the scenes in "Slumdog Millionaire" when they are torturing the man. The movie is becoming more and more real the longer we are here. They took the man to another room where I'm not sure what they were doing to him, but the officer came out putting his belt back on. I guess a good belt lashing was in order.

After sitting there waiting for over 2 hours, they came out and said that he wouldn't be there until that afternoon. They sent us home and told us to come back after 2:00. Alan came home with me and worked from home and Kiran who went back to the office called around 4 and said that the Inspector wasn't coming at all that day. What a waste of a day.