The police, such as they are, arrive at noon.
Something about the school making the reservation at the Hidden Forest Hotel tripped an alarm (in Delhi, 1000 miles away) such that the owner whispers over breakfast it would be best to stay in the hotel today until this paunchy man in his fifties (he does all the talking) and his younger, silent, sidekick can ask their questions:
Are you here on a tourist visa? Have you been teaching up at the school?
Though “who cares?” and “what difference does it make” might be reasonable responses, it is time to play nice, especially since the owners of the hotel and the people at the school, and the potbellied officer all belong to “old families” or worked for them or know the same powers that be and how they operate in this far-flung state of India.
Everyone understands that the old and reasonable fear a foreigner might pluck a job a local dearly needs must wither, along with everything else on the vine of the only thing that matters now: protocol.
Even if it is a bit chilling to learn I am, “being watched” (and all the way from Delhi it seems), I wonder if their comedy would make room for my jokes: “Arrest me, officers, for befuddling the local teachers or for a lifetime of criminally bad instruction, not a simple visa snafu.”
Before any quips, and after much looking at phones, the well-fed senior man says, with clear pride, that it is “his office” of special branch where one applies for an extension of a tourist visa, implying (or revealing?) that after that is done the corruption and incompetence can return to form, watching over nothing.