Read with popcorn!
Dear all,
To India and back.
Well, we made it back as you probably know, but there have been times over the last 7 weeks when we really didn't think we would. We never thought it was going to be easy, but we didn't realise just how difficult and stressful it was all going to be.
In August last year we were approached (by phone) by an 'acquaintance' of Victor who said he would act as 'honest broker' between us and Victor and help us to a compromise and the sale of the house. Sue & I agreed that it was worth one last shot, if we could get India out of our lives and make enough money to pay off our credit cards we would be happy. We realised that it was going to be difficult for lots of reasons: we would need to meet and work with Victor, without killing him; we had very little time to do anything in a country that has no time; we would be relying on lying, cheating, grasping Indians; and everybody we knew would want their cut.
We arrived in India and immediately set about emptying our HSBC bank account, meeting Nagurahja (the honest broker) and avoiding our advocate (until we knew where we were).
First the bank, A new business manager Manu, 'Oh, your account is closed' Yes it is your money but we will need to get you a cheque from HSBC Chennai next week. More later.
Then we set up a meeting with Nagurahja, who turns out to be Hindu mystic (a wanker with a third eye) a successful business man, a member of Victors caste, and a con artist. But he did two things, he convinced Victor that he was onto a good thing and (by using his third eye) he convinced Susan that (and I quote directly) 'he sees everything'. Only he didn't. More later.
Anyway we agree to give Victor a 30% of sale price and that we will all go forward together hand in hand to sell the house, and Victor will do the necessary. More later.
We have been in Kovalam for three days and strangely Venu our advocate, who we haven't contacted starts to ring everybody we know asking about us. So I arrange to meet him in his new office and tell him what's going on. Which I do. His new office is in a more upmarket area of Trivandrum than his old one, but apart from that it is remarkably similar. (Dirty walls, unfinished interior and exterior.) His filing system is as ever to pile it all up on the desk in front of him, well if it works, it works. Anyway at the mere mention of 10% of our cut he immediately sees it as a good plan and agrees to do the necessary. More later.
So the selling begins. We discover that Ratheesh who has been looking after the garden while we have been away and living in the 'Lady House' for 18 months has engaged an agency to help sell the house. No consultation or discussion, you have an agency. OK. If they send someone who buys the house they get 3%. It's the law. OK. Indeed anyone who 'introduces' a buyer expects 3%. OK. More later.
When agreeing to show people around your house you have to understand a little about India. It is a different country, different culture(s), different social structure. It is ruled by the four big C's: Caste, Culture, Corruption and Crap. When I get up at 7.30 am to make coffee for me and tea for Sue, I see my next door neighbour's bottom in the air as she bends over her tiny outdoor cooking fire, making the days rice and fish curry. She and all our Indian neighbours have been up since 5.00 am, all housework is undertaken between 5 am and 9 am, the cool part of the day. On the beach the men are all out for Chai and a crap. If only the tourists knew what happened on their beach before they got there. Apart from this early morning Indian time, no other time exists. Many Indian men wear very expensive (looking) watches often gold (looking) with lots of buttons and knobs but none of them have ever learnt to tell the time. So, when someone says I will visit your house at 10. am it might mean 6 am or 10 pm or 10 am the day after or never. But someone has to be there just in case they do turn up in their own time.
Hey, great, a call from Manu (HSBC) he has a cheque for us. So we taxi in and receive a cheque made out to our business account, which you will remember HSBC have closed. 'Oh well you will need to open a new account.' OK. What do you need to open a new account for us. 'All the stuff we needed last time, plus a bit more.' But you've had all that before (apart from the bit more). 'Yes but we need it again.' OK. More later.
There are two sorts of house buyers in India. The serious Indian buyers who always arrive gang handed. Six to ten gunda (Mafia men) is quite normal. The threat level is high to enormous depending on numbers and attitude. We try to keep smiling. You never speak to the actual buyer, you speak to his speaker. Speakers come in all shapes and sizes, one simply spoke in a croaky voice on the phone 'tomorrow you say yes, he put 50 lahk Rupees on the table.' Another who turned out to be a University of Delhi professor in Nuclear Physics, (but still couldn't tell the time) I thought of as snake man. He had white hair, a white shirt and a white doti, he was very thin with big dark eyes and his Indian head wobble went all the way down to his feet. The albino snake. He hung around the house for days on end. On one occasion we had had a meeting without agreeing any thing. So I said 'well goodbye' he asked was I going somewhere? I had to point out that he was, not me.
Along with the buyers entourage we started to notice another figure reoccurring in many different buyers groups. 'The life guard'. More later.
The second group of buyers are the Europeans. They come with their Indian boy friends (who have their hands in their girl friends wallets and knickers.) They are going to open an Meditation Centre or a Yoga clinic or an Ayurveyic Centre. 'Oh, that's lovely' 'I'll ring daddy tomorrow and arrange the cheque.' Oh no you won't daddy has got more sense.
Great we get a call from Menu at HSBC, we can take along all the stuff we've got including our driving licences, which need to say that we live at fremington quay, because that's what they have already on file. But our driving licenses are new and don't say fremington quay, we know that any change will mean delay. So we need a quick bit of photoshop work done. Our computer hasn't recovered from the last monsoon, so we have to go up the hill to our local forger. A quick crop and paste and it's done, no questions, cheap price and Manu accepts them. Only one piece of paper missing now, one we should have got last year, except we weren't in India at the time. So we turn to our long suffering Chartered Accountant, (who hasn't been paid for two years). He has moved north up to Ernaclium but says he will help. This man, Suresh Kumar Varma is the only honest man we have met in India. More later.
In the meantime we are approaching our first deadline. We have only had one real offer, a low one, from the man who says, "you say yes, he put 50 lahk rupees on the table." Sue and I talk and agree that it would cover our credit card bills and leave us with a bit of elbow room, so we should go for it. We call Victor and arrange a meeting with his advocate, us and ours and the buyer. A half an hour before the meeting Victor comes along looking shifty and says his advocate can't make it. So no meeting, no sale, no rupees on the table, and a nasty feeling that victor is not doing his all. I go and see the buyer and fix another meeting for the next day.
The next day Victor and his advocate turn up so does Venu, our advocate. Victor has a collection of house papers which I had to get copied. (The man in the copy shop, who I have never met, tells me that I am going to sell my house tonight and tells me how much I am going to be paid. News travels very fast in Kovalam.) That evening we sit down and wait, drinking my drinks, eating my nibbles, and the buyer doesn't turn up. There is a definite feeling in the air that Sue and I don't know what's going on and everybody else does. We reiterate to Victor that this is the only deal going, if we don't sell this time we will go back to court. He offers to buy us out. Sure thing, give us 40 lahk and we will just go. He promises to give it to us by noon on Tuesday. Even his advocate smiles and shakes his head.
More house visitors, 7 am; no notice, 6 pm; booked for 10 am. 2 pm; booked for the day before. All with the life guard in tow? We now discover that he is a fixer, he is after 3%. No big surprise Victor doesn't find 40 lahk. Time is going by. Victor is wasting time, everybody is against us.
This was the point at which Susan hit rock bottom. It was her birthday. She phoned Bethany and spoke of the Vulchers circling the house, (Brahmini Kites, they nest just across from our bed room), and the threatening youths watching the house a day long, (the dope smoking youths who are there all the time.) "Mark my words, we're not going to get anything out of here. We will go home with nothing, if we get home at all." Mutual suicide was on offer, I remember. On the whole not a good day. Or good week really. More later.
We are getting very short of time now a week to ten days. We have a couple of groups who seem to be serious but getting anything pinned down is really difficult. We have one buyer lined up and discover that Victor has not got all the papers required, he has to go to court to retrieve them. More meetings that never quite fix it. We discover that the life guard (probably in cahoots with Victor) has told a buyer that we had already sold, and told us that a buyer didn't have the money to buy. It is 6 pm and there are about 15 people hanging about outside the house. At this point Sue explodes.
She phones Venu (our advocate) and says it's all off! Unless some one makes us a real offer and Victor sticks to his part of the bargain, it is all off. Venu says hold on I will sort it out for you. Half a hour later the life guard hands 2 lahk rupees (about £2400) wrapped in newspaper, over the wall to Susan, while she was showing another group of house viewers around.
We have money in our hands. A deposit. No return. We know now we really could have a sale. We just don't know who the buyer is, or how much he is offering. And Menu HSBC rings to say that the account was now open and we can get our money out tomorrow.
Except on the next two days there is a general strike. Nothing is open , no one can go anywhere. No HSBC. Anyway, after two days of nerve wracking hassle, measuring the land, making a list of the house contents, and having Victors paper work scrutinised, we agree to all meet in the Court at Nyatinkera, 11am tomorrow. We are told by the life guard that Venu is going to get a back hander of 5 lahk for setting up the deal. Our faith in the big 4 C's is restored.
It is the 22 February we are due to fly out on the 26th. I agree to pay for a taxi and to collect Victor and go into Trivandrum for 10 am to pick up Venu so we can all go to Nyatinkera together. Sue will go into Trivandrum in another taxi and empty our HSBC account. We then intend to go to the court separately and as soon as we get our hands on the money we do a runner in her taxi and leave Victor and Venu to pay for their taxi. However, when I get to Venu's new office I discover that everything has been re organised. We are now meeting in Venu's office, no need for me to go to the court, all papers can be sign here and the buyer is at the bank getting the money. Once more we have been wrong footed. But OK, money is coming to the table. I phone Sue (who has successfully got our money out of HSBC) and get her to come to Venu's office, not the court at Nyatinkera. We sit in Venu's office and wait. Out side the crowds are growing, Victor, the life guard et al are mingling and the threat level increases. Clearly deals are still being done, Venu is out there, and the buyer. Everyone comes into the office. Papers are read aloud (by the only Indian woman in the entourage), clearly buyers can't just not tell the time they can't read either. Papers are signed. And Rupees are put on the table! Carrier bags full of Rupees.
We are sent into a rear room to count the money. It is an impossible task. Some of it is in bank wrapped blocks, some isn't. We separate out a lahk for Venu, and 75,000 rupees for our bit of the life guards 3%. Victor chokes, good. Then we say that we will take the money to our bank and get it counted and checked for forgery there. We get out of venu's office with our carrier bag of rupees and into our taxi. Whoopee!
We get to HSBC and plonk our carrier bag down on Manu's desk. He takes one look inside and begins to shake. "Oh, we can't ouch that, that's black money, terrorism, drug dealers, we can't even count it. You must go back and get a bankers draft. Oh no, ho dear me no." We retreat, agreeing to go back to our buyer and return in the afternoon with a draft. We are not going to do this. We do not want an Indian bank account full of Indian money that we can't take out of India. We need to change it into £s , Euros, anything other than rupees. But we didn't get our carrier bag of money counted or checked for forgeries. But we did have to phone Venu and say everything was OK. BIG GULP. We then went to the Taj Hotel in Trivandrum to hide from everyone we knew in Kovalam.
Since the Mumbia Taj hotel terror attack security at Taj hotels has been improved. Not only were our suitcases put through a scanner, our hand baggage was searched including our plastic carrier bag full of black money! As I walked into the hotel one of the security men asked what my room number was! I said I would let him know when I knew. Later Aviz explained that he was head of security and was concerned that we place the money in the safe in our room. We were clearly now people of interest. White gundas.
However, the real problem now was that we needed to change the money. It is of course illegal to take more than about £500 out of India, even if it is yours. So the money laundering begins. Kovalam is the place to change money, it is a tourist town and money comes in and goes out. We know most of the money changers in Kovalam, but there are not so many British tourists going to Kovalam these days. We need to enter Kovalam incognito. We have put it about that we flew to Mumbia after depositing our money in HSBC. If one person sees you, everybody sees you, word travels quicker than the internet. So a hotel taxi and Sue and I hiding behind copies of the Hindu. Park just here, out of the way and we run in to do our deals. However, it just isn't enough, It isn't nearly enough.
It is Sunday 24th, Monday is our last day. I have one last contact Arun, who says he can change any amount of money. When I go to see him at 11 am as agreed, he looks aghast and says he thought I wanted Roupies not £'s. But if I give him the afternoon he will come to the hotel at 5 pm and we will do the deal. What choice do we have? I agree to meet him at our hotel. By seven it is dark and he's not there. At half past seven I phone him and he says he's outside in a car and I should bring the money and we can go and get it changed. OK. Sue doesn't want to come with me. So I drive off into Trivandrum at night with this bloke I met yesterday for the first time, with a carrier bag with 20 lahk Rupies in it. (People kill each other for far less.) We arrive at a car park in front of an office block with small lock up offices, all closed. We sit there for half an hour in the dark, he tells me his friend is coming, he will be here soon. His friend does arrive eventually and goes round the corner (to open his office, I assume) and returns 15 mins later and sits in the back of the car. How much money? I hand him the bag, 20 lahks. Fine he says, I'll just take this into my office!" What to do? A VERY BIG GULP and I hand over the bag. My first thoughts are "What is Sue going to say when I tell her I lost all the money?" my second are "How will she know I'm dead if they just slit my throat and dump me here." Ten minutes later the friend returns with £5,000 in £50 notes. He disappears again. I try to count the money, in the dark with shaking hands. Twenty minutes later he returns with $10,000 in hundred dollar bills. He disappears again and returns twenty minutes later with thousands of Euros in every sort of denomination. Impossible to count in the dark with the shaking hands, but I'm still alive, I've got all our Rupees changed, even if I don't know if the money is forged. My new friend suggests I might like to phone Sue to let her know I'm alright. I do. Arun drives me back to the hotel. As I enter the lobby Aviz smiles and asks if I have been doing some late night shopping. I smile and nod.
In our bed room Sue & I get all of our various moneys out of the safe and out of the carrier bag and for the first time proper, we count it. Then we check on the lap top to see by how much we have been ripped off. It doesn't seem too bad. Assuming that none of it is forged.
The next problem is smuggling the money out. We devise a number of ways of disguising the money in our luggage. It is all going to be scanned and poked about. We have four suitcases and three hand bags and a laptop. We have checked that we are within the Etihad weight limits and at 2.30 am we enter the airport with confidence. However, the weight limits we had applied to our suitcases were those which included the hand baggage as well. So Sue finds herself emptying one suitcase at airport security and dropping $10,000 out on the floor. Nobody reacts, apart from Sue, who quickly sticks it in her hand bag. So much for carefully planned smuggling.
We have a stop over at Abu Dabi, while we are there we realise that we are not on the first flight out to London, nor the second but the third. A shadow crosses our minds, will our cases, the cases with our smuggled money be on the right flight. Are we going to loose it all, (apart from the $10,000 stuffed into Sues' bag at Trivandrum) at the last post, at Heathrow airport.
We touch down in Heathrow, our cases are in the first group off the carrousel, we've done it, almost. Now we have to pay these moneys into our bank accounts and we are not yet sure that the money is not forged. Sue is also convinced that you can't just go into a bank and pay in £10,000 with out questions, the police, the inland revenue.
It is now 27th Feb, we have 2 days to get £s into the bank, dollars into £'s, £'s into bank. We are in Frome. £'s into the bank, easy, a chat about babies and India, and it is in. $'s into £'s more difficult, the post office has the best rate but only a big city branch will have enough money and be able to accept $100 bills. So I drive to Trowbridge and spend an hour finding this 'big' post office. Then it was easy ish. The very nice lady wanted to chat, had I been on holiday. Well I'm changing $s so I find myself saying that we had been to New York and had wanted to buy a painting but we were out bid, which was why we had so many dollars to bring back. (A truly Susan moment.) Then I watched as she checked every note for forgery. I walk out 20 mins later with £££££s. I pay that in to a bank in Frome and we are done. The Euros will go to france with us. We've done it and we are both still alive. And we have paid off our credit cards and we have a very small amount of elbow room. No more India.
We leave Di and Andy (who have put us up for the last three days) with our last two 50 rupee notes, still grimy and smelling of shit.
