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| Illustration by Copilot Designer |
How do you prove to anyone that you’re alive? Go and
stand in front of the person and declare, “I’m Tom, Shyam or Hari”? No, that
won’t work in India. Let me share my personal experience. It’s as absurd as the
plight of Kafka’s protagonist in The Castle. A land surveyor is summoned
for duty, only to be told that the mere fact a land surveyor was summoned does
not prove he is that land surveyor though he has the appointment letter
with him.
I received a mail from the Life
Insurance Corporation of India [LIC] that I should prove my existence in order
to continue receiving my annuity on the sum I had invested with them five years
ago. They’re only paying the interest on the sum I have given them. They’re not
doing me any charity. Yet they want me to prove to them that I am still alive
in order to continue getting the annual amount they are obligated to pay me.
This is India. LIC is a government
undertaking. If I don’t follow their injunction, I will certainly lose my money.
So I take a printout of the “Life Certificate” they sent me and go to the
nearest government school in order to get it attested by the headmaster, as
required by LIC. The headmaster (or any such person whom LIC has listed) has to
certify that “he is fully satisfied about (my) identity.”
This HM refused to sign. “I don’t
know you,” he said. I said I had countless government-issued identity cards
with me: Aadhar, PAN, Passport, Driving License, Ration Card, EPIC… “That won’t
be enough,” the HM insisted. “Either I should know you personally or someone
who knows me here should also know you.”
I said, “You can just Google my name
and you’ll see hundreds of my pictures along with my write-ups in various
places.”
He smirked. “That won’t do.”
He picked up his phone and called the
President of the Parent Teacher Association [PTA]. That man didn’t know me, but
he knew my brother. Mercifully, that was enough. The HM signed the Certificate
which stated that he was fully satisfied about my identity.
My physical existence along with the
countless identity cards issued by my governments (central and state) were all
worthless. One phone call to a man who had never seen or known me in any way satisfied
the HM! Of course, he didn’t forget to write in the top corner of my
certificate that my identity was confirmed by the President of the PTA.
The HM of a school that stood less
than a kilometre from my home didn’t trust me. How do I expect LIC to trust me?
I went to the LIC office with the
certificate which stated that the HM of my neighbourhood school was satisfied
with my identity and found myself in what looked like a Kafkaesque
administrative labyrinth. I approached the first officer there who looked the
least hostile and said, “I received a mail from LIC that I need to provide a
certificate stating that I hadn’t died yet. Where do I submit this?” I held up my
Life Certificate which I hadn’t even folded.
Suddenly there was silence in the
office. Too many faces looked up from their tables. “Did I say anything wrong?”
I asked the lady whom I had approached with my certificate.
She smiled genially and pointed to a
table behind which was written “CLAIMS”, “Submit it there.”
“Up to the age of 70, you have to submit
this certificate once in 5 years,” she said.
“After that?” I asked.
“Every year.”
LIC will be happy if I die at 70, it
appeared.
By the way, the government of India
has been plucking a Life Certificate every year from me right from the time I
turned 60. Looks like my government is eager to see me dead too.
“You don’t have to come personally,”
the LIC officer consoled me. She sounded genuinely concerned. That was a
consolation. “You can get this certificate attested and send it through anyone.”
She sounded more humane than my local headmaster. She also suggested that I
could do it from home through a new App introduced by LIC. My eyes sparkled. I
won’t need any living person to prove to LIC that I am alive; a lifeless tap-toy
could do it. Funny.
Related Post: Identity Crisis
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