there is one thing called as the " Residential Permit " for students studying in India.
all students have to apply for it as soon as they reach this country , registered under Foreigners Registration Officer / FRO of respective Police Station.
Not posessing the document during the stay in India is illegal.
and without it we cannot travel out of India as well.
well , our permit is now expired.
inspite applying for extension since 1 month back through the University Academic Section ,
nothing had been done , except for fake promises. everyday.
"ok" , "teik hai" , "confirm confirm " , " don't worry i will help you " , " we have contacted the Police " ,
"i will send someone today ". " 2 O'clock tomorrow confirmed. you go to Satara Police Station "
tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow.confirm confirm confirm.
and the "tomorrows and confirms" goes on for one month. with expired permit , our stay in India
now is now practically illegal.
and still , the academic section has done nothing.

And the departure date came.
As we all already bought our flight tickets  , we decided to go the airport instead,
without the permit being renewed , and
knowing the risk of not getting clearance from the immigration.
so its a  6 hours trip to Mumbai Airport , with Raya Songs constantly playing
hoping that we can get through the airport and be home with our family and friends for Eid in Malaysia.

Usually , the immigration in Mumbai Airport won't ask for the permit ( in contrast to other airports
that would definitely ask for it ).
and we hope that they won't ask for it as usual.
But , the worst thing happened.
One of the AirAsia in-charge asked one of us the permit.
and we failed to show it , except for one of my senior who her permit is not expired yet.
we begged , and begged , and begged to the person to let us in.
2 hours beging in the airport , but it was worthless.
well actually , it was the AirAsia people who was the pain in the ass.
we can possibly convince the immigration about our problem ( applied permit extension since one month but no action from the University Administration ) ,

but as soon as the AirAsia guy talked to the head of the Immigration ,our hope turned into dust.
he wont listen and consider our situation.
so we missed our flight that night.

Luckily , we met En.Ali , who happened to send his wife at the airport.
En.Ali is a personal assistant to the new Malaysian General Consule based in Mumbai.
we talked to him about his problem and he tried to help us out.
As he has no power over the immigration , there's nothing he can do about the clearance.
He offered us shelter in his house in Bandra West.

At his house , all us 8 students who was stranded had another meeting.
Discussions over discussions , we decided to contact the police directly , not through the
university's academic section which had been proven pointless.
we had to go back to Satara Police Station , and it means 5 hours of travelling.
we hired a car , and as we are now in Mumbai , the rate is double compared to my place.
So 8 of us ,  packed in one car , travelled down to Satara the day after.
It was Sunday , and office was closed. but we managed to convince the Police Officer to stay for us.
we also need our documents e.g visa copy , passport photos ready.
some of my friends didn't have soft copies of passport photo , so i grabbed my DSLR ,
set my friend against a white wall , and snap a photo.
it was just a simple set up. a white wall in En.Ali's House , a 50mm lens and just one speelite to
bounce the flash.
a quick edit in photoshop to turn the photo's background into blue ( as in standard passport photo ) ,
and the photos are ready to be printed.

we headed to Satara. this time , no raya songs playing.all we can do is pray.

After 5 hours of travelling , we reached Satara at 10 p.m . met the police officer and we
told him what happened , in detail.
Luckily the police officer was very co-operative.

Explained our situation , the police then told us what had really happened.
its not the police's fault , it is actually the University Administration.
The police said they had only received the extension application form from the academic
section yesterday ( instead of one month back when we first enrolled the extension application)
to make things worst , the academic section sent the wrong forms and wrong visa copy
to the police.
not forgetting to mention that on of my junior's form is lost , not once , but a few times.

it was late , and the FRO was not in office ( adding to the fact that it was Sunday )
so we headed back to our hostel in Karad , and immediately bought new flight tickets.
had a not-so-pleasant sleep that night , we went back to Satara early in the morning
to catch up with the FRO and finally got our permit done.

this time , we headed to Mumbai airport again , with raya songs on air again. :)

so it took one month for the academic section to apply the permit for us,
(or should I say one whole month of doing nothing ) ,
6 hours to Mumbai ,
hours of traffic jams in Mumbai,
Hours of begging at the immigration,
6 hours down back to Satara  and Karad ,
6 hours back to Mumbai ,
burnt flight tickets,
Rs17000 each for new one-way tickets,
Rs100 + Rs500 each to the Police Officer ( yeah you knoe what is this for ) ,
and Rs1350 summon from the Police for us for the things that are not actually our fault.
yeah.