Today (Thursday) we delivered our special sealed envelop from the MHA to the FRRO. Again, Kuldeep met us outside the FRRO offices and walked us through the entire process. He filled out the required forms in the first waiting room (where he pulled out of his "McGiver" backpack a hole punch, paperclips and a glue stick to affix Cornelia's picture to the forms), escorted us past two very long lines, delivered the documents to the necessary official (who opened the special sealed envelope although we never saw the documents inside), found us seats in the second, very crowded waiting room, and then chatted with us for thirty minutes while we waited. He mentioned that he was very happy because today was the one-year anniversary of his arranged marriage (he didn't meet his wife in person until his wedding day!), their recent week-long trip to the famous Golden Palace, and some interesting Indian history related to the Palace. At that point, the only thing he didn't do was offer us cocktails from his backpack. But it was before noon after all.
The entire FRRO experience was quite a "parade of nations" as Ken described it. From outside the building in the chaos of the parking lot to the crowds in the second waiting room, the crowd must have represented dozens of nations. There were many, many people from Afghanistan. Apparently there is a very large Afghan community in India and it's relatively easy to enter the country for work. Everybody was dressed in their ethnic or national costume: Sikhs in their turbans, women in bedazzled burkas (Ken described it as "very Sex in the City II"), an African woman in a bright yellow, full-length beaded dress and, of course, the blond "hippy-dippy dude" from the U.S. Ken was a bit jealous that he didn't have a costume as well, until he realized his Banana Republic khaki shorts, plaid Penguin shirt and All Star Converse tennis shoes were his national costume.
The entire time he kept us abreast of the progress of Cornelia's documents. "Ah, they have just been taken to the Server Room," he told us at one point, nodding at the room labeled "Server Room / Access Restricted. Then when the documents reappeared from that room he collected them and escorted us to a counter where he had a very involved conversation with the woman behind the counter. Mike's anxiety climbed a bit at that point since the conversation went on for some time and there was much talk, some shaking of heads and very little smiling. Finally, that conversation finished and Kuldeep escorted us to the "Pay Here" counter where we paid the necessary fees. Grinning, Kuldeep announced that we were done; we could take Cornelia out of India.
Once in the car Mike asked Kuldeep if the woman behind the counter had raised concerns or objections. "Oh, no," he said, "we know her well and she was just asking about Radhika." So, essentially there were just old friend catching up. In fact, as we talked more with Kuldeep we realized that he brings clients to the MHA and FRRO on daily basis. Tomorrow he will start the process all over again with another U.S. couple who just had twin girls this week. He said that in all that time he has never had a problem with the process. Wish he would have told us that at the outset.
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