There is a posh place called Sahyxxri Guest House. One would think is a place for lodging and boarding, situated conveniently near a railway station, for people who have nowhere else to stay during their visit to the city. Well, it is not named well. It is like the name 'Circuit House' which sounds as if it is the electricity supply company's place with transformers and such, when in reality is the place where Ministers and top level government officials stay. Sahyxxri Guest House is a place where top level meetings of Ministers and top level government officials take place, and they can stay there if they have come there from out of state.
The Health University had called a meeting there to educate professors and heads of Pediatrics, PSM and Obstetrics Gynecology on pediatric nutrition. I had to attend the meeting. When I reached there, they asked for my identity proof. I had none, because as a citizen of the biggest democracy in the world, I had thought I would not be required to carry an identity proof anywhere. They do require it at airports if you have an e-ticket, but that is different.
"I have come for university's work. If you won't let me in, I will be too happy to go away. I will just tell them the police at the gate did not let me in."
"They should have told invitees to carry identity cards" the policeman said. But he let me in. Unfortunately the University had cancelled the meeting, without any information to the Guest House, and also to the invitees. So I went back. The next time they called me, I carried an old identity card, because I was afraid I could lose the new one with my biometric data on it.
"Please show your identity card" the policeman at the gate said. He was different from the one I had met the first time.
I showed him the twenty years old card. He did not know my hospital (which I thought everyone in the world knew) though he was a resident of the same city. Then he asked for my letter of invitation. I showed him a poor quality photocopy sent to me by our office. He looked at it for some time. He probably could not read it, either because it was of bad quality, or was in a language he did not know. He let me in. The meeting was uneventful. When I left, the policemen at the gate did not even glance at me.
I read in a newspaper later that the tight security at that place was for protecting the VIPs who went there, and also to protect the building from terrorists. Did they not know that elderly and scholarly looking professors without identity cards were not any danger to the building or the people in it, but smart people who could make authentic looking duplicate identity cards and letters of invitation were. If I could get through with an ancient identity card and unreadable letter of invitation, a terrorist may get in over a red carpet.
