Saurav scoured his belongings for his Nepali driver’s license. He had packed, was getting ready to vacate his apartment in New Jersey and head back to Nepal for good. His license was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he had accidentally tossed it out when sifting through the stacks of dusty files that had sat for years in his cabinet. College transcripts, copies of immigration applications, the offer letter from his first employer, bank statements, traffic tickets, and credit card bills were symbols of the life in America he was saying good bye to. He decided he would apply for a replacement license in Kathmandu.
However, once back in Nepal, he was told photocopy of the original license was needed to get a replacement. He hadn't kept a copy. He was asked if he remembered his license number. He didn't remember a thing about the license other than the embarrassing photograph affixed to it. In that picture, he wore a mullet and was staring wide-eyed into the camera. The photographer kept telling him to put his chin down which resulted in a final shot that showed him with a double-chin even though he was skinny, and sixteen, at that time.
So Saurav drove around Kathmandu with his New Jersey license. One evening, he was on his way back from a gathering of his school friends at Jhamel. Most were in their late twenties and early thirties and reminisced about the days of yore. They let off steam about the present. Saurav had almost forgotten the profanity laced young male vernacular of Kathmandu. Years of living in the US, first as a student and then an overworked office worker, had turned him into a polite and timid shadow of his former self. As he approached the Ring Road intersection, he saw a group of policeman waving red LED batons. They flagged down traffic to check people’s licenses and blue-books. A tall and broad shouldered policeman with an imposing moustache approached and asked to see his license.
Saurav told them he had been living in the US and that his Nepali license was lost and he was in the process of getting a new one made.
"Do you have your American license then?"
He took out his New Jersey license and handed it over. The policeman took a long hard look at the license, flipped it over, and asked "What do you do in America?”
“I worked in healthcare but I am now back in Nepal” Saurav replied putting on an earnest smile.
“A doctor?” he asked. Perhaps the policeman had mistaken the bookish look conferred by the prescription glasses Saurav was wearing for a career in medicine. The dusty Kathmandu air usually played havoc with his contacts and had he switched to his spectacles when leaving the house that evening. Before Saurav could reply, he said “You are not allowed to drive in Nepal with this licence. I will let you go this time but you must get a license soon”
Saurav knew he had saved his hide through a spell of luck and a dose of wit and charm, a performance he was determined not to have to repeat.
So he braved the horror stories he had heard about the license office in Ekanta Kuna and set off the next day with his cousin Rajesh, who came along for moral support. They parked across the road and headed over to the building where a red-and-white sign read "Yatayat Byawastha Bibhag" - Transportation Management Department.
The office was marked by a conspicuous lack of management making a mockery of the sign outside. There was no reception to ask questions of. No ticket machines to punch, get a number and wait your turn. Saurav and Rajesh strolled down the corridors past dark brown wooden name plaques displaying names of officers, their titles and sections. An "in-out" slider indicated the presence or absence of those in the offices. Many offices were empty even though the slider outside indicated otherwise. There were three large painted notice boards near the main entrance of the building that listed the policies and procedures of the Transportation Management Department. None of them indicated which room or service desk one had to go to in order to collect forms and initiate the process of getting a new licence. Yet the office was abuzz with activity and most people moving about seemed to know what they were doing.
Rajesh suggested they contact one of the touts, pay him his fees and get the work done.
"No" said Saurav. He was not inclined to engage in corruption and did not like how Rajesh tried to pay his way through everything. It was an old habit of Rajesh's that bothered him. Prithvi Narayan Shah's words of the corrupter being worse than the corrupted were etched to his conscience. Besides, he wasn’t asking special favors of anyone and it felt wrong to pay a bribe for something he was entitled to as a citizen. He decided to follow the due process laid out by the law.
The process, as explained to Saurav by a neighbour, was pretty simple. He had to fill the forms for "Nepalikaran" which meant a Nepali license would be issued based on a valid foreign license. Saurav liked the warm and welcoming tone of the word, implying, rather magnanimously, that no matter how foreign something was, there was a way to make it Nepali. Like his license, he too, in a way was undergoing Nepalikaran, turning himself back into a Nepali one experience at a time.
A lot had changed in the ten years he was away and he had slowly lost touch with the way things worked in Nepal. Something as routine as checking out at the grocery store could turn into a battle of nerves when a shopper, spotting the two inches he had left between himself and the person in front, would cut in front of him just as he was about to place his groceries on the conveyor belt. There were times where he confronted such people and told them to wait their turn. Then there were times when he just let them go, too amused by what was happening, too lost in in his own thoughts and ideas to confront people who he felt would never learn.
He once went to open a checking account at a local bank. He got his cheque book and when asked what he needed to do to access his account online, was told to fill a paper-based form to activate online banking. He submitted the form and was told, this time in a very authoritative and unapologetic voice, to come back in a week to pick up his username and password. When he did so, he was handed a sealed envelope after signing a log book acknowledging their receipt of his online password. He went home to find the username and password did not work. It took another application and a month to gain online access to his account.
He hoped the experience of renewing his license at the Yatayat office, regardless of the frustrations it might trigger, would help him reacquaint himself with the workings of the country's public services system. After all, if he was to set up a business, as he was planning to do, he would eventually have to deal with the country's notorious culture of red tapism, so why not start learning now?
The Yatayat office was a microcosm of Nepal. People came here from all walks of life : men and women, young and old, capitalists and communists, businessmen and factory workers, teachers and students, sportsmen and poets, farmers, doctors, housewives, truck drivers all with the singular and unifying purpose of renewing their licenses. Crowds pushed and shoved at the service windows. The bathrooms were in a deplorable state, the stench of urine wafted out and added to the vile odor and squalor of the poorly ventilated and dimly-lit hallways. Saurav noticed people hurrying through the corridors seemed the least bit bothered by any of it. Perhaps these were just minor annoyances, trivial to the joys of going home with a newly minted license and the pleasant thoughts of not having to set foot on the wretched premises for another five years. He drew energy from the crowd around him, from the glimmers of hope and determination in their eyes, from the excitement and confidence in their voices.
Rajesh caught a glimpse of the wandering gaze on Saurav's face and felt he needed to step in and help. Saurav was as sharp as a Swiss kitchen-knife when it came to his profession but he could be a dreamer on other matters. These days everything about Nepal fascinated him. Even things that no reasonable person should be fascinated by. Rajesh once pointed to a heap of cow dung on the street and declared to Saurav that Nepal could become self-sufficient in cooking gas if the people of this glorious land did a better job picking up after their cows. It was a joke, a play on the signs Rajesh had seen in US parks telling people to pick up after their dogs. He expected Saurav to laugh but Saurav completely missed the sarcasm and responded with utmost seriousness saying what a shame that was with petrol prices going up the way they were.
Rajesh realized his cousin had been away from home too long and needed some guidance and re-education about Nepal. He knew they were out of their league in this place. If he let Saurav have his way, they would be making daily trips down the squalid hallways of the Yatayat office for the next six months and still come back empty-handed. It was the least he could do for Saurav, who had helped him get started in America when he went there for graduate school many years ago. Saurav had helped Rajesh find a place, showed him how to work the subway system, how to apply for a credit card, taught him the cultural grammar that he struggled with, taken him to baseball games and explained to him the rules of American football. Saurav had been his guide to starting student life in America, always ready to smile and make excuses for Rajesh, in a manner that did not insult or belittle Rajesh, especially when Rajesh unwittingly breached American etiquette and social norms.
Rajesh told Saurav to go out and wait in the sun while he asked around and figured out where the Nepalikaran forms where. He went over to where the touts were and asked one of them. The tout offered to fill out forms, submit and get them approved by the concerned section officers and bring back a signed and valid license.
"How much?" Rajesh gruffed up his voice and asked.
The tout initially demanded three-hundred rupees but after a few minutes of haggling and Rajesh's threats, albeit empty, of walking away if the tout did not come down, they settled for fifteen-hundred rupees.
When Rajesh returned he found Saurav talking to a farmer about vegetable farming. He told Saurav he had run into someone he knew who worked in the office and had offered to help. The tout filled out the forms, had Saurav sign and put down his thumb impressions and said he would contact them the next day.
"Teti ho? That's all? " asked Saurav "That wasn’t too difficult"
"Chinya mancche bhae pachhi Nepal ma kam bhai halccha" Rajesh said smiling and winked at the tout "I am hungry, let's go grab a beer and food."
"Sure, but I was thinking, if it’s that easy, I might as was well get my passport renewed tomorrow."
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