Trial by Fire

The other day I was at the SSN office to get a, what else but, Social Security Number. For the benefit of those who don't know what's an SSN number : It basically means that if you want to work in USA, you need to get an identity number-in-dashed-format, which helps you find out, who stole your identity when it's stolen. But in America instead of using two complicated words like 'identity theft', they simply prefer to call it 'phishing'. Now 'phishing' in America is as big an industry as fishermen's strikes in Kerala, kidnapping in Bihar or traveling by Virar local in Bombay. But I promise this time we won't digress. Getting an SSN also means that you pay a certain amount of your earnings to the govt, pretty much like in India we pay towards our PF, PPF, VPF, RPF, SRPF, CRPF and all other Paaltu Funds. Also worth mentioning here is that US is such an advanced nation, that once you phish someone's identity, you can pretty much play hide-and-seek with that person, with his bank, with his creditcard, his wife, his life; and the authorities won't have a clue as to who is real and who is 'phake'. In some cases, even your wife will have a hard time finding who is the real one, and who is 'phooling' around. Finally you'll have to go to JudgeJoeBrown.com and sue that phisher for less than $5000, upon which the case will be settled fair-n-square within 20 mins on Fox7News every morning at 9am with one commercial break, to accomodate ads for academies who impart training in "high-growth" medical industry, Bill Dickason from 1-800-KIA-GUYS(183, Anderson) who has been trying to sell me a Kia Sedona for only $6900 for the last three weeks, and WayneWright lawyers(what funky names!) who has an impressive punchline: "you deserve respect and justice, so we demand it !".

Anyways, now that we have clearly understood the mystery of this cheat, sheet of paper, we will dive straight into how I obtained mine (*splash sound here*). So there I was, at 9am, outside the SSN office. A small queue with four people ahead of me, and the moment I joined, a long queue, all of 11.5 ppl behind me(yes that 0.5 was a malnourished Indian like me). I got such a big ego-boost, for once, being ahead in the queue. But the euphoria immediately went away, as I noticed that most of them were punks, in funky hair-cuts, and wearing something which can be best called as shrouser (noun. an attire which is longer than a short and shorter than a trouser). I had a pretty easy security frisk, during which the uniformed men made me feel comfortable like your average criminal on a parole. After the metal detector had done its job, the officer also gave me a friendly gaze which meant, "Good morning, howdya doin'? Do you really don't have no explosives"? I smiled back in my usual charming manner and looked in his eyes, "In India we can't make out between oxygen and carbon dioxide & I almost failed in Chemistry", upon which he was satisfied, and allowed me in. He was such a nice person, he also returned my shoes and socks and belt, watch, keys, dignity, wallet, shirt, trous....oh, let's forget it.

Once in, I collect a token and while I waited my turn, I started closely observing other people in the room. One good bad good notable thing about being an Indian is that we never run out of fellow desis. Be it the SSN office, airport restrooms, or any place in between. Wherever you go, there is an Indian ahead of you. I think at this rate of growth, we will swamp over half the world in next 20 years, just by our sheer numbers. Naturally I started looking around for desis who could help me in this numbers game. I spotted Mr.Iyer from a distance, whose son has done India proud by sending in so much $orex, that only if he had two sons, they would have bought the entire Karachi stock exchange in partnership. I also met Raju Patel, a new stud in Univ.Of Texas. He tells me he has come to do MS or maybe even PhD. I ask him, "in what field?" He says, he will start with CS courses, and then based on the 'scope of job market' he will decide his thesis. I wish him good luck. I think he will land up in biotechnology or something to do with gene mutations, or cloning, or some sort of modern technology-meets-biology-meets-chemistry gibberish.

I had just finished off with this second customer, and a fire-alarm went off! Seriously. A fire-alarm in SSN office!! However I was very calm, because I was used to all these fire-drills where they have no smoke, no fire(fun intended). Only some noise and a nice good break of 30 mins followed by a lecture on ISO safety norms. Thus I automatically assumed it was just a drill. But I was bemused by other people's reactions who were all so lazy not to run for their lives. So no matter what the NYT or CNN tells you, people in America are not panicky (myth#1 debunked). I have been told, fire response team members of a very famous sunflower-oil-turned-IT company in Bangalore have to literally push their team members out during fire drills. Same happened here. The officer in a beige uniform comes a cool 2-min after the alarm, and literally pleads all of us to go out of the office. People started walking out at a pace which would have done Shankar Dayal Sharma proud.

So a whole 8 mins after the alarm, all of us were out of the building and across the road. I could see security and other officers, hanging around the office, as if waiting for something to happen. After 5 more mins the office staff comes out from the other side of the building looking harassed and molested. Looks like they were all wearing fireproof clothes, so they decided to stand near the office building basking in the knowledge that there is no fire. One security officer in particular, who got his first chance I think, was trying to show off his medals, badges, pistol, baton and other paraphernalia on his 3-inch leather belt, by continously striding to-and-fro, fro-and-to, to-and-fro, fro-and-to. In the meantime there was mild confusion on the streets. Office goers on the roads in their Chevy Silverados and F-150s, never used to 50 people standing near the traffic lights, were quite perplexed. Some of them stopped at the lights, even when it had turned green. Some just went around their usual business. There was sporadic honking as well, because some of them thought we were protesting against probably a foreign policy and they approved of it. One lady in the crowd was giving the latest RSS newsfeeds over her cellphone to her friend. I think she was a blogger too.

Anyways, after a good 20-25 mins, here comes the fire-brigade folks. No signs of hurry, no dousing the flames anywhere. The driver takes 2 mins to park his vehicle in-line with the kerb. Their chief-officer, who I guess, forgot to set a reminder on his Outlook for this fire-drill - which explains the delay- was looking very weary. He was also constantly adjusting his pants as he got down from the vehicle. Three or four others come out, and start roaming around the building as if a team of engineers from UP State Bridge Corporation has just descended on Bommanahalli junction(Bangalore) to do soil inspection for yet another Electronic city flyover. They hang around with the officers for sometime, showing absolutely no signs of even faking to conduct a fire drill. The experience was akin to being forced to watch a movie starring only Tushar Kapoor and Uday Chopra(CD#1 repeatedly) on a bus journey with speakers blasting. Anyways, the firebrigade guys leave and some more 'hanging around' continues. After a nice 45 mins of wasting time, the folks in uniforms give the signal. We start our long historic journey back from across the road to the SSN building. I guess all those who cross the Wagah border on foot, get a similar high. Only to be reminded that there is one more security check again waiting for us, before entering the premises. I go through the same criminal-on-parole routine, this time without the shoes, shirts part. Luckily, for me, this drama also means that this time, I get a seat in the waiting room, and my turn comes earlier, as people who had tokens earlier than mine had still not joined in.

When it's my turn at the counter, I submit my SSN application form. A few simple questions are asked, like Mother's maiden name which is already given on the form(you see, they have to double-check). He then asked for mother's surname before marriage. I shoot back, "Kazi". He gets confused. I explain that my mother's surname before and after marriage was the same. He could not believe that a Kazi girl could marry a Kazi man to become a happy Kazi family. I convince him by translating the popular lines:

"jab miya biwi raazi tau kya karega Kazi",

I also give him some statistics about the Kazis from my native village. He almost faints. After regaining his composure he asked me some more simple questions, like Order of BinarySearch algorithm, probability of an astronaut dying on a spaceship, chances of India taking over Brazil in FIFA rankings (which was pretty easy you know) etc..etcte... I crack all of those in a jiffy. He gives me a receipt, and I am done. Next days local news reports carry how Dept of Safety and Citizen Welfare, Austin City is spending $2 million on enhanced safety and security measures. I agree with them.

Within 10 days my SSN arrives by mail. And for all you know such an important identification proof is given on a paper which is of pretty ordinary quality. It was baffling. Given the obsession with plastic smart-cards, where even the laundry operates through one, I for my life, couldn't make out the reason behind this flimsy piece of paper. It was more surprising than seeing Ganguly bat to reach a whole lot of 13 runs. Anyways, I am not the one to crib much, the next day I drop a message to my finance guys informing them about my SSN number.

After a tiring day at work, I return home and see that I have a voicemail. It's a mysterious message from someone calling himself Suhail Kazi. He says he has my SSN number. I get conphused. He sounds pretty much like me. He also gives the same SSN no. as mine. I start having more phishy thoughts about this other Suhail. Then I check the caller ID. It was my office number. I get even more phissed off. Next, I check the time of the call. This too matches exactly with the time I called up the finance guys and left my SSN on their voicemail. Suddenly a relieving silence grips me and the truth comes to me in a Eureka! moment. I start laughing at my absent-mindedness and stupidity. ..hahaahahaa....(*recedes in the background with a fading guffaw*).