Unlike me, our younger child has a birth certificate, but the funny part (for our assorted South Indian relatives) is that it was issued in Haryana state in North India.
If you are not familiar with Indian government department certificates, it is on a dirty-brown paper that may have been manufactured in a special paper mill that collected paper from ‘raddi-wallahs’ (guys who came to your home and bought all your old newspapers for recycling as paper cones for fried peanuts).
It is typed in Hindi, a language that is as alien in the south of the country, as English, the link language of India, is in the ‘Hindi belt’.
“Oh, so he is a ‘bhaiyya’, the relatives joked when they saw the birth certificate. There is such a wide chasm between North and South that many of the relatives were unaware that it is only people from Bihar state who are known as ‘Bhaiyya”, not those from Haryana. (“Bhaiyya incidentally, is a polite term when addressing someone and means ‘big brother’, or, it could mean you are a bumpkin).
By the way, I also have my marriage certificate, but I found out it is not such a very important document as a birth certificate and the marriage certificate was only needed when applying for the wife’s visa, or when applying for a divorce.
The reason we have this certificate from a northern state is because my wife had gone to her parents’ home in Delhi for delivery, and they were living so far out from the capital that they were at the border with Haryana, and that’s where the nearest hospital was.
There was no name on the birth certificate and we were supposed to take it back to the health department for it to be filled in after we had finished fighting over what to name the child, and we got it done after many years had passed.
(Just for your information, common baby names in India are: Aaran, Aamir, Aafren, Ekta, Ananya, Alia, Devesh, Kunal and Mohammed).
Checking out new homes
Initially, there was a lot of explaining to do whether it was the immigration office in the UAE, or in Canada, where we landed to check out our new home, and took along the child with this birth certificate.
By the way, I also have my marriage certificate, but I found out it is not such a very important document as a birth certificate and the marriage certificate was only needed when applying for the wife’s visa, or when applying for a divorce.
The birth certificate has suddenly become an important piece of paper, as Indians have to prove after more than 70 long years since Independence that they are Indians, and people are queuing up in droves at the birth certificate departments.
Officials at one Registrar were startled to see so many elderly people, especially Muslims, standing in line applying for birth certificates.
It would have been funny except for the fact that people are panicking over the recent discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that was pushed through parliament, and over the National Register of Citizens (NRC) that may declare many who do not produce evidence, such as a birth certificate, that they are not Indian citizens.
Or because they fear they will be shunted away to the many scary detention centres across the country, or simply be deported.
Your passport does not count as your citizenship document and even the Aadhar Card, which has an unique identification number for every Indian resident, will also be rejected. The birth certificate has to be issued only by the Registrar of Death and Birth, in the municipal offices. (I think it is near the Marriage Registration office).
Incidentally, the certificates made more than a year after birth will not be accepted.
It costs a little over Dh1 (Rs20) to get a birth certificate, so if you don’t have one, pray and get it now.
— Mahmood Saberi is a storyteller and blogger based in Bengaluru, India. Twitter: @mahmood_saberi
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