FRRO, Foreigners Real Rough Ordeal

The dreaded yearly visit to the Foreign Regional Registration Office is an ordeal. All foreigners wishing to live in India need to get a yearly resident visa, and the FRRO is the one who delivers it. Some take this challenge by themselves, we were lucky to have the help of a specialized agency.
 

Start the process well in advance because you could be up for surprises. All members of the family must appear in person, and each must have a full file with relevant documents. These include the usual ones, like copy of passport, most pages are needed, a set of photographs, a Bona Fide from school for all children, several forms to prove that the parent that works in India has indeed paid taxes in India, sometimes you might need birth certificates or marriage certificate, and quite a few more papers are thrown in.

A normal day at the FRRO

Armed with your stacks of papers and a healthy dose of patience, you show up in front of the building at 8:00AM, because they let people in by 8:30AM. Guess what, you were not the only with that bright idea: a dozen people are already standing in line in front of the closed gate.  At 8:30AM sharp, the gate opens and the process starts. The human centipede crawls slowly in, and the first individual is channeled to the first counter on the ground floor. The rest of he centipede moves along and settles in coils in front of the counter. When enough humans have piled up, the flow is stopped at the gate. Wen your turn comes in front of the counter, an official will just leaf through the stacks of paper, and if it looks like you have it all, you are given a token number. Now it is time to find a place to sit, as chairs and benches are available yet in limited numbers. What are we waiting for? We need to wait because the first floor counters open only at 9:00AM!

At 9:00AM, a display above the second counter of the ground floor, calls the lucky winners upstairs, one by one. In our case, a family of 6, the display jumped way forward, right after us... Upstairs, there is some more waiting, as only one family member will be called to one of the 6 counters. When his/her time comes, all the stacks of paper are handed over to the official, along with the original passports. He'll go through them, like Sherlock Holmes looking for clues. He'll try to convince you you are missing documents. He'll ask for documents that were not on the requested list. He'll ask you if this lady in the stack is your wife, and if that young girl is your daughter. Do not attempt any kind of joke, such as "not my wife, it's just somebody I just met"... The officials are just that, official. They are doing an important job, keeping track of those foreigners who want to stay in India, and that is no laughing matter.

In the end, you might prevail and your stacks are accepted. You will be given an amount to pay, and you'd better rush to the nearest approved bank, because everybody else is rushing there.... With the proof of payment, you return to the first floor, smile at everybody as you cut the line, and hand the paper to the official, at the same counter. He'll tell you to come back today, after 3PM. That is your cue to get out.

At 3PM, the process is similar, yet faster. Go directly to the relevant counter on the first floor, and smile. You will receive your stamped passport back, and a nice paper which allows you to remain in Incredible India for one more year.

Or, if you're unlucky, they would have misplaced a passport, or the date in the passport visa bears the wrong year, or your application is rejected altogether because of a typo in your company name or another such technicality. In that case, you're I for a second attempt.