Coexisting with India’s bureaucracy, as every Indian would surely agree, is not an easy thing. For foreigners this is compounded by the country’s paranoia over security issues. This time I have been working with two problems: the online purchase of train tickets and of an Indian SIM card, both of which proved tiresome and ended in failure though I’ve managed many times in the past. Yet from year to year the rules grow more complicated, and procedures that with infinite time and patience could be expected to work ultimately end in failure. For now I have given up on both counts. I am using a SIM from home, and there are other ways to buy train tickets, of course.
