Final moments in ACC
Anyways, the customs loader who brought the boxes up to the gate was expecting a “baksheesh” (reward) for his effort but I was determined not to bribe anyone at this last juncture even at the cost of being thought as petty. I had officially paid Rs. 955 as handling charges and that should take care of the services of the loader. I had to pay an additional Rs. 100 to another loader to load the truck and conceded to pay the driver Rs.100 additionally to unload the boxes and take them up to my residential flat in an elevator / lift. All told, the drivers and the loaders costed me Rs. 1,200 as opposed to Rs. 600 that I would have paid to Rupesh.
I have sent my feedback to the customs authorities (I picked the feedback forms near one of the counters where they calculated the customs handling fees) and appreciated the clean and professional behavior of all the above mentioned names. I also requested them to look into exorbitant local charges of the truck union. I even felt like going back somehow to Mr. Gautam Wahi and see if he could crackdown on unfair practices of that truck union, but memory of those curtains and the pan-spit-stained walls make me hesitate. If the Asst. Commissioner of Customs couldn’t get those simple things in order through the bureaucracy, what was he going to do with the union goons. After all, he must already be aware of their existence and misdeeds of that Union.
Tags: Bribery, Chai Paani, Corruption, customs clearance, mumbai customs, Relocate to India, Transfer of residence, USA to India
A Simple Person's Blog 
November 27, 2013 at 4:34 am |
Hi, This is a small world. I was looking at shipping from US to India when i happened across your blog. Gautam Wahi is a classmate of mine. He definitely isn’t mid-40s; he would be mid-30s in the timeframe that you talked about. Glad to hear that he has remained honest.
November 27, 2013 at 8:47 am |
Hi, my apologies to the dynamic Mr.Gautam Wahi – he definitely deserves to be in mid-thirties for rest of his life 🙂
Its been 4+ years since we relocated to India and I value people like him more because they are so rare and yet so badly needed for our system to have any hope.
Best wishes Adi for your shipping from US to India!
Some of the memories of my time in US and the relocation have faded and sometimes I ask myself, did this all really happen in this lifetime?
The Sin City (Mumbai) has more or less moulded me into its framework. I still refuse to pay bribes, still do my own study of the process and then finish Government work on my own, but feel a lot more despondent and hopeless at the sheer magnitude of corruption cancer. I would say in Mumbai, 90% of the people are ‘them’ now and I feel insecure with the very minority of people to whom any of these things matter.
Still, chin up and fight back.