Passport !!

 

06Apr11, 0845hrs

My passport has less than six months of validity left on it and I need to apply for a new one. This is the first passport I am applying for in India in over 20 years and the experience was to prove interesting.

By the time I get to the Bengal Chemicals building in Prabhadevi, Central Mumbai the queue has already achieved serpentine proportions. There must be at least 100 persons in before me! There was only one line for everything and everybody irrespective whether you had a child in your arms or were a senior citizen or were disabled, you had to be in the line.

Being April, the Sun was already up and shining brightly, this meant the little shop opposite the building did brisk business selling water bottles. The person’s fortunate enough to have chauffer driven A/C cars had them parked out front to catch a respite from the oppressive heat and they only added to the traffic woes outside…until a traffic cop came and got them to move. Once the cop moved on, the cars came back!!

Naïve that I am, I actually was dressed for work as I thought that this would only take an hour or so!! Well was I in for a surprise. Soon my office shirt was drenched in sweat and I could feel beads of perspiration moving down my ass crack ;o)

 

06Apr11, 0930hrs

By now the queue had achieved ‘ Anaconda ‘ proportions and must have been at least 700 feet long. I already felt as though I had been here forever and as there was no shade to be had, the Sun beat down mercilessly. There was still an hour to go before the office commenced work.

 

06Apr11, 0945hrs

The watchmen made their appearance and began letting the lost souls waiting in the queue, into the compound. They were basically forming 3 queues inside the compound. One for fresh applications, one for disputes ( errors in the passport ) and one for miscellaneous other facilities.

 

06Apr11, 1030hrs

Once the office commenced work, a uniformed watchwoman looked closely at each person entering lest someone try and jump queue. I finally entered at 1115hrs, and had some respite from the heat in the air-conditioned environs. The office had 33 counters…and only 5 were in use!! I sometimes wonder how do, these government offices work!

 

06Apr11, 1230hrs

I finally got my turn, the lady at counter, a female babu went through my documents accepted them, cancelled my old passport and told me to line up at the next counter to pay. Here after another 30 minute wait I got my turn and the man in here insisted on exact change even though he had all the change in the world. I finally emerged at 1315hrs, thinking that was done and dusted….little did I know what was in store for me.

 

25Apr11, 2100hrs

I got a frantic call from my Sister–In–Law, who said that a cop had come to verify the address and he says that I do not live there. I told her that I will deal with it tomorrow.

 

26Apr11, 0900hrs

I landed up at the cop station, and cop there says that he knew me and when he saw somebody else at the door of our ancestral house he knew that I did not live there. I told him that the ancestral house was my permanent address, and I had bought my own house where I currently reside, the previous year. He said that as far as the cops were concerned, you had to live at the address. I wondered how do terrorists and criminals get their passports so easily. After an undertaking was taken, I tried to tip him as was normal and he turned around and said, get your passport first….Oh Oh…I thought, this sounds ominous.

 

The chain that leads to a passport is like this, you go into the passport office and submit your application. This application has to be done in triplicate. Two copies go to your local cop station, who in turn come to your residence to verify that you are not a terrorist or anti social element and of course they make some money as well. Once the verification process is complete, one verified copy of your application heads back to the passport office, while stays back at the cop station for their records.

In my case, I had to wait for a summons from the passport office, and  submit an application correction ( in triplicate ). Then go through the verification process again. It just does not matter whether you have had a passport for a zillion bigillion years prior to the current application.

 

20May12

The application process has now been going on for 45 days, and I am back in the old passport office, having taken a day off from work to get this done. This time as I was smarter from my previous experience, I landed up at 0800hrs for a 1030hrs start. I am reasonably to the fore of the queue.

They start letting persons into the office at 1030hrs, it is exactly as I remember it from 20 years ago. The narrow stairway that leads up to the first floor has the same claustrophobic feel, and once inside the office you have the same low ceiling that only adds to the feeling of claustrophobia. The office is packed with people…if you ask me it is a stampede waiting to happen.

You, once again have over 25 counters, and this time only two are open, every person has to go through a mandatory 30 minute wait before they get to the head of the line. On a pillar is board hanging at an awkward angle on one screw, telling you the documents you need for a new passport. The person in front of me has been chasing a passport for almost a year now. His application date read 10Aug10!!

Once the person at the counter checks your application status, he then directs you to one of a row of cabins where an assistant passport officer ( ARPO ) sits. However before that I have to fill up ( in triplicate ) the application correction form affixing my photograph on each.

When this is done, you go to the designated ARPO’s cabin and submit your form, which is given only a cursory glance and dumped into the pile of forms on the desk, and you are told the verification will happen again. This entire process takes at least two hours.

Right there in the middle of the office roams a white cat ( I am convinced this was once a human, but a quest for a passport changed him into a cat!! ).

 

15Jun11

A cop from the Shivaji Nagar police station lands up at home and tells my wife that I need to present myself to the police station.

 

18Jun11, Shivaji Nagar,Police Station

For those of you who do not know, Shivaji Nagar is just one vast slum. Starting in the 1960’s when migrants came to Mumbai, they had no other place to go, so they just encroached on the mangroves. Since it also has proximity to the Deonar dumping ground, there is a huge scrap industry that attracts all kinds of unwanted elements, starting from the rag-pickers to the drug dealers that sell them their drugs. Anger levels which are always simmering just below the surface are ready to spike at a moment’s notice with little or no provocation.

The policemen assigned to this station look at it as a punishment. The station itself is little more than a glorified shanty, the roof is made of asbestos sheets, and the thin brick walls can barely keep the elements out, the windows are all wooden ( for obvious reasons ) and hang on their hinges at awkward angles.

To get to the passport section you have to pass through the station and go up an iron staircase that might as well have been a ladder. Shackled at the bottom of the staircase is a prisoner sleeping!! ( probably got into a drunken or drug induced brawl ).

You climb up the staircase and wait for the officers to come. The work gets done fairly soon and costs INR 200 per each of the two officers. Once the basic verification is done you have to then wait for your second summons to meet the main inspector in the afternoon.

I got there at 1600hrs and let the officers know that I was there, as I waited, I suddenly heard a huge commotion and in a matter of seconds about 300 people had decended on the station and all of them were speaking at the top of their voices. To one side you had about 10 snappily dressed youth all of them having paan stained teeth, and to the other you had a gaggle of men and women. The rest of the 300 people were spectators!!

Looking at my alarm the officer said don’t worry ‘ Yeh, yahan ka har din ki baat hai, ek chutki bajao aur sab bhaag jayenge! ‘ ( this is an everyday occurance here, one snap of your fingers and all of them will disappear ). And the mob did disperse as quickly as it appeared!! ( reminds me of twisters, appearing and disappearing as suddenly as they came ).

The inspector duly checked my papers and signed them off, surprisingly he did not ask for money!

 

05Jul11

I have once again received my summons to appear at the passport office, which duly have. I have so far had to take 4 days of leave to chase this passport down. I once again have to go through process of pulling out my file which takes about 2 hours. The cat that was once upon a time a human is still there and still completely chilled out.

After a patient wait, I am once again up against the ARPO, this time she says that all your papers are in order, and now I have to pay INR5,000 as a penalty for mis-information!! I tell her that I will pay right now, she says that no, you will get another summons and you have to pay then!! She also takes a hand written declaration from me telling that I am OK with paying the penalty…..that is covering their back sides.

 

05Aug11

This has now been going on for four months, the summons has arrived and it says nothing about having to pay INR5,000, it just tells me to show up at the passport office on a particular day.

I have now done that and paid up the amount (I just cannot go on anymore with this ). The receipt only says received INR 5,000…….

 

15Sept11

The passport finally arrives…and guess what, they got my name wrong, my first name is now Rayaprolu ManiKumar and my last name is Sarma……I could not be bothered anymore…..

 

Total lapsed time over 5 and months!!!And 6 days of leave….