Fast Forward : Passport Application

The last station for the quest which started with the loss of passport was the application for a new one which was the most fierce part. "Why?". You would never ask that question if you have even the slightest idea of how things work in India. 

I asked a number of questions to the officials at Indian Consulate, Sydney, when they issued an emergency certificate to me. He accepted that he was not 100% sure of the process in India after a while. One thing he did tell me, time and again, was to not forget to submit back the EC, which looks identical to a normal passport. I had to submit an affidavit and self declaration regarding the same. 

I have been seeing this since childhood that my father would take a copy of every letter/document he signs, every form he fills/submits etc. for future reference. Having seen this for so many years inculcated the same habit in me. The person at the consulate initially said that they do not normally provide this to anybody. But I asked him a few times. So, he agreed to help me provide that all to pacify me. So, do I have a copy of all the documents I did submit/fill/sign. This one thing surely did help me a lot during the whole process. 

I had no idea of where to start with the complex process of passport issue(in lieu of loss) application(once I reached India). It's much easier when you're a student and if it's a fresh passport application. I remember my first application which hardly required a 10 minutes visit to passport office, Jaipur. 

Apparently, nobody knows the actual process. People(passport agents, concierge service desk & Passport Seva Kendra guys etc.) give you advice based on assumptions, not facts. I reached out to the national call center for assistance a couple of times for information but in vain. A passport agent demanded INR 15,000 to get a new one in 15 days. That was inquisitive and challenging for me. If he could, why can't I.  A well-wisher suggested me to take a week's off to figure out the process and navigate through it. So, did I do. 

I try to be well prepared for anything I take up. So, I looked for information on the web and read almost every single web pade which contains any useful information. I started doing this during my extended stay at Sydney. The information they had put up was contradictory. I decided to not get swayed away with that and only trust the information on the website of Ministry of External Affairs. A few things to keep in mind are:

1. There is no way you may expedite your application processing in case of re-issue in lieu of loss/damage. Only printing and dispatch of the passport can be speeded up. This means only application under normal category is allowed.

2. There is a provision for out-of-turn walk-in for educational, medical, job purposes etc. For this, you need a letter of urgency from employer, doctor etc. 

3. Once you submit your documents at PSK(Passport Seva Kendra), your application would be put "On Hold". This is because application in case of loss/damage, followed by travel on EC falls under complex case category. You would just get a receipt which indicates the need to visit Regional Passport Office. Nobody would ever tell you the reason and you might get worried about the cause.

4. At this time police verification will be triggered but even if it's done your application will stay 'On Hold'. While the online status would say that your passport is being processed, it would not until you visit the Regional Passport Office.

5. Be prepared for dealing with a long & tiring queue there. But it was an enriching experience for me. My experience with the police station had been really good, really nice/helpful people, who did not even expect/ask for any bribe, completed the verification process in less than 2 days. I met a few people who were frustrated about the process. A girl for whom, an adverse police verification report was submitted. A professor from Bangalore University who applied for reissue of passport. He had made an application in 80's about which he did not mention. The RPO guys found this out after webification of all the information. Another person who just submitted an application in 70's but did not remember receiving one ever but his application was stuck too because he missed to put this information in his application form. And many others, with variety of reasons.

6. You would have to run across the multistorey building to fetch the files, get papers uploaded/signed, pay the fees etc. and above all to find the room where each of these things are done.

7. Address proof was a big trouble for every single person I met. I had been fortunate enough in this case. I had applied for electoral's card for my current residence long back, submitted the documents, looked for status a couple of times, lost hope and never checked back. But, it's a matter of sheer luck that I checked back again (since that was the only hope), status was 'Granted' this time. So, I received my  voter's ID card as soon as I reached back home(India).

Moral of the Story: Don't trust assumptions, people will give you many, lots of reason to support them, based on their gut (underline the word gut again, because they are still assumptions, not facts). More than often, they will be proved false on the face of truth. And above all, keep trying, that has helped me every single time, believe it or not.

One Day..!!

One day,

will despair usher comfort

One day,

will pain usher hope

One day,

will silent usher words

One day,

will dumb usher wisdom

One day,

will steady usher motion

One day,

will waves usher shores

One day,

will islet usher clique

One day,

will dusk usher dawn

One day...

Spent it grazing sand,

One day,

Lull was made your brand

One day,

The day you have in hand,

One day,

Again passes by fantasyland

One day,

Hope to make it grand

One day,

Just passes by your stand

One day,

Unviable remand for secondhand

One day,

Meld all bids as moment blends

One day,

Before you lose it bare hand

What Makes You So Courageous/Bold?

Out of all the people, I crossed paths with, quite many ask(ed) me this question? What made me so bold and outspoken? I don't know what made me daring, because I have been this way ever since I can remember. The only thing I can think of, that makes an impact on you as a person is, your family and upbringing. Honest opinion and outspokenness have always been respected and valued at home. My father would tell me to not give up to anything irrational or unjust and to always be upfront, and anything really meant anything. I guess that support system hailed in me this trait. End of the day, you learn what you see!

My mom once told me this story from my childhood. Most kids fight with each other, so did we(me, my brother and cousins) when we were kids. On being spotted, I would outrageously admit that I had beaten somebody(XYZ) up. My cousin(elder to me) used to get slapped further just because he would be so afraid to speak up :-) . Now that I know this, I feel bad for him.

I do remember an instance from school as well. I think I was a second or third grader then, and was a good student, who would religiously complete homework and study hard. But for some reason, I could not complete an assignment once. I even remember the name of the subject :-). On being asked about that in school the next day, I raised my hand saying that I could not do that ( I knew he was not going to check my notebook anyway but I could not help saying the truth). I was punished that very moment, I think for the first time ever during school days. The same teacher handed over a chocolate bar to me 5 mins later. 

So was I in college. This instance popped up in my mind while thinking about it, even when there are so many. As we all know, seniors like to boss around and bully first year students in engineering colleges in India. We had one who cherished the idea of picking up a bunch of us(wherever he would find some) and then giving away free life & career advice, like " You guys should be serious about how you spend your time here and so on..". I got picked the second or the third time. I knew he would repeat same words with utmost confidence and with joy to intimidate us. I could see a bunch of students roaming around the other side of the campus and was curious about what they were up to. I am used to be in "always on" inquisitive mode about most things. I was gazing hard to understand what they were doing. Suddenly this senior year guy stopped saying whatever he was.., and was looking at me with anger. I found this out a few minutes later when I turned around. He furiously asked me if I was not interested. I repeated everything he did say at one go from beginning to end in the exact same words. He was fuming but had nothing to say and just walked away. :-)

I just carried forward that characteristic from childhood, to school, to college, to workplace and all the other facets of life. Only thing that changes with time, from childhood to adulthood is the level of emotional intelligence, the maneuver to put across the same truth in the least painful way.

The Mouse or the Loud Mouth?

While listening to Margaret Heffernan's "Dare to Disagree" TEDTalk a couple of weeks ago, I highly appreciated the example she shared to highlight how people with complementary skills make the best and potentially the most successful duos.

This reminded me of an old school lesson. I neither remember the book nor the author, and no way the year of school. But, I remember the zest of it, golden identifiable traits of a real leader. A good one:

1. Encourages the Mouse : We all know those people, many a times with really cool ideas, with squeaky low voice, who hardly ever manage to build up their confidence and raise their voice. 

2. Keeps a check on the Loud mouth: And then comes another lot, who relish the idea of talking so much that mouses hardly ever would take the pain to put their point across, when they are around.  At times, they prove to have the skills to embellish utter non-sense ideas/vision and even succeed selling them.

There is a third and probably easier(inexpensive) way to solve this problem in certain cases. Team up  a mouse with a loud mouth(now that may not work always, and we may always argue about who gets the attention or the credit, but that's not the point). At least this ensures, that all the ideas are always out there on the table to have a word on. Eventually, they may understand the worth of each other's positive qualities, may be even tips, tricks and techniques for working over the grey areas . 

As they say, one should rather try to play on strengths than fixing up weaknesses. It's good enough to be aware of and manage them, and manage them well!

At Indian Consulate, Sydney!

After the end of a very very Lousy Weekend, it was Monday morning. After all that research, I felt a little prepared for the visit to the consulate. The consulate working hours were 9:30 am to 12:30 pm, and I was ready to go at 8:30 am. I had a feeling that I should handle it all by myself and was not sure if it would offend my colleague if I just informed him and went alone. While I was pondering, at around 8:37 am, I received his call and we agreed upon starting then. 

As soon as we got into the cab, he asked me if I knew where we needed to go, saying that he only remembered it was some 'XYZ'(don't remember the name now, but that was not it) street. I almost already did by heart the name of the street and directions to that place, so could guide the cab driver. 

As soon as we entered the premises, I could see some people waiting for their turn. I went and sat behind one of them. Very soon, it was my turn. I went and explained my situation to the officer. He asked if I had filled the form online. I had done that last night and brought along copies of that, my old passport and annexure 'L'- affidavit for loss of passport . He then told me of the other documents which would be required like photographs(2.5" * 2.5"), police report, plus notary by JP(Justice of Peace) etc. I had a couple of passport size photos of different specifications which I showed to him and it seemed that those might work. I asked him of the expected time it would take to complete the process. He mentioned that consul general takes the call on case to case basis. I could totally understand his standpoint but asked him to give me a ballpark number based on all of his previous experiences. 

He said that it might take anywhere between 7-10 days or less but it's hard to comment then. Suddenly, my colleague said something like, why would it take so much time for a small thing like this. I was surprised by the way he put it across, so I requested him to let me talk. The officer suggested to get the notary done first by a JP(Justice of Peace). Finding a JP itself was a challenge, provided that I had no idea what it meant. We went downstairs and asked the guy in the medical shop, who then gave us a list of places where we could find one. 

After scanning through the list, I thought the best option would be to go to the Supreme Court. My colleague said that we should try some other place since people at Supreme Court(SC) would not be free to do such a small thing. But, I felt it would be easy to find people with that sort of authority in SC. After a brief debate, I agreed to try the other place. As soon as we reached the one of the two JPs at that place, he indicated that they had no authority to sign on a document issued by any other govt. except that of Australia. I inquired if we can find somebody at SC and he confirmed that we would. 

Finally, we reached SC and an extremely helpful lady did it in a couple of mins after having a look at a few of my docs like company ID card, old passport copy etc. We then reached back the consulate and the guy suggested us to handover the police report and the photographs. So, I gave him the events card.  He said that they need a little detailed report than that. I asked him, how much time would it take to get that. He said it might take anywhere between 7-10 days, the reports dept. sends it via courier. I asked him of  the details they look for. He did tell me. I once again asked him of the time it would take once we had that all. He mentioned that usually depends, anywhere around a week or may be less.

Then we went to the police station. The officer I talked to last night was not there. I waited for a few seconds when another officer came in to check the reason of my visit. I told her about the case and she said that they don't have access to the report, Only the reports dept in Parramatta could issue it and they usually send it by post in 7-10 days. She handed over a few phone numbers to check with before visiting the place. We tried all of them a number of times but could not reach anybody. While I was sitting over there, I remembered the lemon story from 'Getting to Yes'. I went back to the counter and same officer came again to speak with me.

I told her of my situation and she could understand the trouble I was in. I asked her if she can issue a letter stating that I lodged a complaint last night about the loss of my passport with details of the complaint, my passport and my personal details like name, date of birth etc. She agreed. She was so kind that she typed the letter right then and got a copy. I was reading it and my passport number was not included in that. I told her about my concern. She was so sensitive and smart that she realized that information would be required. She asked me for the number again and simply inserted it, took another copy, signed it and handed that over to me.

Then started the hunt for a photo studio. We did find one, but the photographer could not get the photos cropped to the required specifications. I remembered seeing one near QVB the previous week during one of the brisk evening walks. We then looked for that one and finally could get it done in another 30-45 mins. We reached the consulate back by around 11:50 am or so. The guy who helped us with the procedure so far was on a call and another person who was discussing something with him a few seconds earlier was waiting. He did look like an officer. So, I showed him all my documents, told him of my situation etc. and asked if there was a way I could go back home asap. He had a look at everything and said "Come back tomorrow morning and collect the EC(emergency certificate)". With amaze, I asked him that the other officer said it may take anywhere around a week to process the application. He said that's fine, I could collect the EC the following day. He then went inside. A few seconds later, the officer put the phone down and I told him about the conversation I just had. He reassured saying that the person who asked me to come back the next day was the consulate general. With his agreement it could be done by tomorrow. I was happy and we then headed back to the hotel, after handing over all the required docs.