The Stupid Tax

Sarah calls it the "stupid tax."

(As I have said often to her and others, I won the roomate lottery. She is this young, brilliant, social activist who has lived in India for a year and a half and speaks Hindi. She has worked with people, like me, who come to a developing country, and have high expectations for achieving great things. She watches them, with quiet reserve, I might add,  repeatedly go through the same learning curve each time as they adapt, or don't adapt to the Indian culture.)

The stupid tax is the extra time and money you will often pay for learning things the hard way. For instance, an auto rickshaw should cost 50 -150 rupees ($1-$3) to go most places in town. The stupid tax is when you pay 200 rupees because you don't know from experience to bargain with the driver.

Yesterday, Alan and I paid the stupid tax for two hours as we searched for moving companies, whose names we had found on the Internet, who we intelligently thought should be able to sell us file-size moving boxes to begin the process of sorting and filing documents we have uncovered in Nek Chand's office.

Really? We really thought we would look up a name and address on the Internet and find a company that sells boxes, like we would do in a western country. Then we would hire an auto rickshaw for an hour and a half to go see them, get the boxes and other supplies and come back.

We went to the first address....no store. We call them. "Oh no mom, we are in Delhi, not Chandigarh. We use the address of our friend."

Store #2." Oh no mom, we do not sell boxes without packing and moving things by our men."

Store #3 - This number is no longer in service.

Ok, so who sells boxes? We drive to sector 17 (already one hour into this fiasco) to a stationery store we know, where Alan got bubble wrap two days ago.

Do you sell boxes? No mom, we sell packing tape. bubble wrap and file folders from the 1950s, but no boxes. But we do have some used boxes in the back that we will sell you if you want. So we go in the back of the store and find boxes that contained reams of white computer printer paper with tops.

"OK, we will take 20 boxes."

"Oh no mom, we cannot sell you 20 boxes. We can sell you two  boxes."

"But we need 20."

All ten guys give a bobble head at the same time (where they shake their heads from side to side and you have no idea what it means since we nod our heads up and down.) Mr. Singh, the owner (who always sits behind the counter with the money) says, "You will come tomorrow for more."

At this point, it is two hours into this project, so we take the two boxes and go. Along the way to the auto rickshaw, I see some empty boxes sitting in front of a retailer, which I steal and run for the taxi. Alan hobble behind me and we pay the stupid tax again!

More later on the unbelievable things we have found....
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