All for a passport!!

Oh my good god, if there is one mistake that I rue (you would too) is not applying for a passport when I was in college. Well I had thought that never would I be required to travel out of India, for educational, business or personal trips (definitely not!!) in the near future and that was why I thought I did not need a passport at this juncture of my life.

But one fine day my lead called me and said we might (the stress was on might) be going to Cambridge for some knowledge transfer sessions during mid or end June for a period of about three to four weeks (what!!!) excuse me I said, I don’t have a passport!!!

The conversation shifted to manager’s room; again I had to say, “I don’t have a passport yet”. I said I could apply it in tatkal, if you want and he said do it right away. There you go May 18 was the planned date, I had already applied leave on that day for attending my friend spmk’s sister’s wedding. Now I have to attend only the reception and apply for passport on 18th.

Immediately I browsed thro the website of Chennai’s passport office and collected some information. Then booked an appointment, which to my horror said the date I should come was June 4th, damn!! Ok anyway there is a chance that I could go at around 8 am (8 am was my initial thought read on to know what would have happened had I gone at 8!! 9.30 am is when the office opens) and try to prepone my appointment stating my urgency.

As it happens, took Xerox of all the required documents and decided to stay in Raghuram’s house. My cousin brother had come to take my grandmother to his house, so asked him to drop me on the way. This is where the drama started, while the car has just moved 10 feet, I remembered that I forgot my cell phone in the Xerox shop(yet again!!). The car turned and stopped opposite side of the shop, I with all the documents in hand rushed to pick my phone.

In the car towards mambalam, was checking my file to see if all the documents where in place. To my horror, the ration card was missing!!! I must have kept in the shop, or it might have fallen down near the shop somewhere, I thought. Called my mother to inform this and you could have imagined her reaction. Tense moments passed by as I reached raghu’s house and searched every page of the stick file just to see if it’s “sticking” somewhere, alas not there.

My mother started heaping praises on me and Raghu arrived home from bessy beach. Put all the papers safely and traveled all the way back to the shop in K K Nagar. Not there!! Suddenly a flash occurred and I looked just opposite to the shop where my brother had stopped the car when I stepped down to take my mobile, there it was lying alongside junk!! Relieved, back to raghu’s home.

Olli prasanna joined us as we watched the IPL match. He had some recent experience in applying a passport for his cousin, so gave my application form for his perusal. Ah! He remarked, the first line of the application read the fee as 1000 Rs whereas it is 2500 for tatkal. He said it should be 2500 else it won’t be accepted and no striking is allowed in the form he proclaimed. Gone, another journey at 12 AM searching for a net centre. Raghu said his friend had a printer at home, so prasanna was to buy dinner at “midnight masala” (a restaurant in arcot road, kodambakkam, open till 2 am) while we checked out at Raghu’s friend. 12.15 AM, repeatedly browsed the website, there was no option to mention whether the applicant is applying thro tatkal stream in the website. So just took print out of an empty application and returned home.

Finished dinner, and were just talking, at that time, it was 2 am, prasanna said once he went at 5.30am to find he was 10th in the passport application queue and for tatkal they accept only DD and not cash (in their website they have mentioned it as cash or DD). That rang an alarm bell in me. Oh man, no DD and its already 2 am and I have to stand in queue at 5.00 am Atleast.

Well what do you have friends for?? Disturbed their sleep also by 4.15AM in the morning and reminded them to bring my DD before I need to pay in the counter. Reached passport office by 5.15AM and I was 15th in the queue!!!. Then at around 6 am a middle-aged passport agent (broker) casually looked at my application. I had mentioned all the three addresses where I lived in the past one year. He said I would never ever get a passport in my lifetime if I were to submit this application. The people nearby also seconded his opinion. Being truthful is not very good always!!

Then he arranged someone to register my details again, well not for free, 350 bucks including the affidavit. I couldn’t help it. Sat in the queue, slept in the queue and had breakfast in “kaiyendhi bhavan” at 8, that’s it that was when I took my last drop of water till 1 pm. By this time the serpentine queue had reached almost the building gate. And the queue for tatkal stream was twice as long as the normal one.

At around 10, the queue started moving and still I haven’t gotten my DD!! And finally they arrived and I had to go to another queue in the 2nd floor to verify my originals and pay the fees at another counter. Yet another blip, as I had re-registered in the morning, the details could be obtained in the database only the next day!! Here I am in the queue from 5.15 AM and discovered that I cannot submit my DD at 12.45 PM. I had to start to hyderabad the same day as I had some unavoidable work at office. I cannot ask Raghu or Pras cos I had already disturbed them enough.

Exhausted, I took the scooty (this was also lent by Raghu) and went to mylapore to meet sasi. She was shocked to see me in that state, completely exhausted not even having strength to drive the scooty. Had lunch at Pizza Hut nearby. She volunteered to hand over my DD. The woman at the counter promised me that I need not stand in queue the following day and all I had to do was to come straight up and hand over the DD to her at the same counter.

Sasi all the more pestered that she ll do the job after hearing this. And finally she along with her colleague Guru did it. But alas, the security didn’t allow them to bypass the queue. So she had to endure the gruesome security guards and grueling queue to hand over my DD. She did it!!

By Saturday my passport was delivered home, but I was not there to collect it. Again I had to start from hyd on Sunday night, received the passport by Monday morning and started back to hyd the same evening.

All the efforts didn’t go waste as the trip to Cambridge is now confirmed and I ll be traveling in the last week of June!! I am ever indebted to Raghu,olli prasanna, sasi and guru for this!!