November 27, 2007
Often there is no need to be jealous of how we spend our days around the world. Today, we trudged through the Bangalore traffic and heat, bear-hugging a big cardboard box. We were trying to find a shipping company to send home pamphlets, books, bits of paper, clothes, a hefty bronze statue of Ganesha and some other souvenirs we've collected recently. First, we tried India Post, but were turned away because they don't accept packages in cardboard boxes. Unbelievably, they only ship international parcels that have been wrapped in a special mailing cloth, which can be purchased anywhere, except, as it turned out, at the two places that were specifically pointed out by a postal employee from in front of his workplace. Oh, (and here is the good part) the cloth must be stitched up by a tailor! (I have no idea how tailors were enlisted as postal inspectors around the country, but there you have it.) Of course, we did ask a tailor to sew up our junk and, while half expecting him to laugh, he calmly informed us that he couldn't and we should go to a tailor somewhere far away. We know it was far away because we tried to walk there, but got lost.
Somewhat bemused and more than slightly amused, we abandoned India Post and went to a shipping company called TNT. After only a little confusion about where we had to go--around the corner, down the street, take a left, look for a building just like this, around the corner again, up the stairs--we arranged to have our cardboard box shipped. Paperwork was filled out and the box was searched. A search which included handing around the bronze statue to each TNT employee, including a supervisor ensconced in a glass office. I was told these were important steps because customs and security officials were demanding and they wanted my box to arrive promptly and without problems. But in the end, why should I worry about problems, I saw our box inspected, sealed and heavily wrapped in tape, on which was prominently written: TNT.
