Taxation without representation

We really should be used to it by now - the illegitimate gouging of our pockets by various Indian police and government officials.

Hamid's visit with the Home Department (as mentioned in the last post) was very, very profitable - for the official. He'd originally quoted us a very specific 200 rupees for processing and receiving the document we need but upon spying the thousands of rupees that Hamid brought forth from which to extract the fee, quite suddenly a thousand was due, and we were sent on our way with instructions to pay the two hundred at a different office.

We've spent the last few days running between there and a number of other places with this or that paper for this or that official, trying to figure out how best to negotiate this ridiculous bureaucratic maze they've set up, but to no avail. We've to play their game and pay ridiculous fees in order to make any progress at all.
So far we've shelled out well over a thousand U.S. dollars to nearly everyone we've had to deal with (on top of the regular fees) just to get them to do the job they are supposed to do in the first place.

At the Police Commissioner's office on Infantry Road there is a sign on the outer wall of the main building requesting any foreigners 'having any problems arising regarding any business with these offices' to contact yet another office to lodge a complaint.
I took the address down as a matter of course, planning to write a very nasty letter upon our departure from India (when we no longer need anything from them) but have a hunch that unless my letter is accompanied by some crisp new bank notes it will make no impact at all other than to add to the piles of garbage adorning Bangalore.