Passport Application - The submission

D-day, monday morning, and we were running late. Finally, asked Dad to drop us to the office. We were there by about 8:45am. First, we milled about in the front for about 2-3 minutes before realising we needed a token to get in, and that window was at the back of the building. Rush to the back and 2 lines, one for Tatkal, one for General. We had been advised to take General, but since the Tatkal line looked short, hubby stood there and I stood in General. Then hubby called me to Tatkal and pointed out the reason. On a board was written Token no. 1-30 for Tatkal and 1-100 for General would be given entry at 10am. Ah thats the reason! However, since there were fewer than 30 people in Tatkal in front of us we remained there after some juggling of lines and phone discussion with our agent. Cold winds, about 9am. The counter would open at 9:30am. I realised some of the people in queue had lined up since 7:45am, maybe even earlier!! Gosh! Shivering in the line we all waited for the window to go up.

While waiting, hubby started milling around. Suddenly he came back, whether spurred by something he had seen, or simple recollection - I didn't ask - We've forgotten the covering letter. I sighed. No fresh papers in the packet either...okay that was dumb of me. I always keep blank sheets! Well, sent off hubby to look for paper. He found an enterprising paan-waala selling A4 sheets and returned. I started writing. It was 9:30am now. No windows up. Slight grumbling in the ranks. Kept writing. General window went up. More grumbling in Tatkal line. I kept writing. Soon our window went up. I stopped writing and got my papers ready. At my turn, he looked at my application and gave me a General stamp! Huh? Perhaps he saw it was for damaged passport. Anyway, the number was 48. I was IN the first lot. Thats all that mattered really.

Back to the front, and another queue to get in, with a small side queue lined up outside a photocopier stand at the corner of the complex. I stood at the side and finished my covering letter while hubby kept our place in the line. Finished, I came back into the line. By and by, we went in, got security checked and got into the warm room. Found a place to sit in front of the lost/damaged counter. The counters were not yet open. As I looked through my papers again, suddenly I realised that I needed a copy of the last four pages of my passport booklet...I had only the last two pages! Gosh, would this NEVER end!! I sat hubby at my place with my purse and other documents, clutched my passport, wallet, phone and application form (for re-entry) and went to the photocopy kiosk outside. Took me a while to find the end of the line till the copier pointed out I was standing at his "give back" window, not his "take" window. Luckily, there were only a couple of other people. Feeling chastised, I went to my right place. The copier was fast and I quickly got my copies and went back inside.

As I took my place again, hubby got up and started scouting around. He then suggested we queue up at the lost/damaged counter anyway, coz even when our token no. came up, we'd just be sent to this counter and have to queue again. He stood in line while we waited. As he came closer to the counter and I joined him, the token numbers being called went up. In a strangely weird co-incidence, our token number went up the same the we reached this counter. Since the lady took our application, and we figured it was our turn anyway, all settled down. Or did it?

I kept my originals ready. Everything was in place. She spent a lot of time going through everything, then looked at me and told me it can't be done under Tatkal. What????

Apparently, it seemed my earlier verification had never come in, so this time I would have to go through the whole process. About a couple of months, maybe more because I was from a satellite town, the whole process was through normal post, and everyone takes their own time. I think I completely numbed out. But, but the documents are all there, right? Oh yes, they are fine. It will happen in normal process. But what about the senior govt. officer verification (done with much effort on our part). Well thats not really required, since its for normal Tatkal and you dont qualify. I think I was too much in shock to really say or do anything. My hubby checked was was next. We went to the payment counter, paid and submitted the form and left the place.

All that running around planning, what now? Well, my hubby said, we wait. His colleague actually got it in 3 days really under Tatkal scheme. Yea right...like thats what I needed to hear, not that it really sunk in anyway. I felt hysterically numb and shocked, if such a state is possible..sucked into a really really weird anti-climax. Well, hubby and I discussed, I guess we can take a national holiday then, as we wait for the process to complete. Yea, I guess so. Lots of nice places around. Yea, can do cruises too. Yea, lets check out something. Yea, lets just get home right now. We walked to my parents' place. Packed up our stuff, picked up our dog Nero and his stuff and drove back home. And that is where we stand.

Passport Application - The Preparation

One of my New Year resolutions, and latest endeavor in a self exploration voyage is to restart my writing. So this blog is the starting place for my experiments with writing.

The latest happening in my life is my passport application. My previous passport had got damaged due to water seepage which rendered my photograph into a noseless, 2 black dots for eyes, vaguely outlined face. Not a good thing for a document that is one of the critical ways for photo identification. I had been planning to apply for a new one for a while. This need got excaberated with my marriage, or rather my decision (after much agonizing post marriage) of what to do with my surname. I finally settled on a double barrelled mouthful keeping my maiden name as my middle name. This created a need for my personal documentation to be changed. For any personal documents to be changed, we needed to register our marriage, which we finally did after 5 years of marriage!! That done, I had enough documents to support my name change and could go in for the next level of document changes...those defining my identity in the eyes of the government, official agencies and life at large.

Even then, the bureaucratic procedure, the tedious supporting documents requirements, the application process itself made me keep postponing the inevitable. Till one day we decided, we wanted to go on a nice vacation somewhere. Now I really needed a passport!

Thus began the process of document gathering. Hubby found a person who advised us on the documents to be collected. Armed with that list, I scoured through our vaguely organised and much scattered personal papers. Here is what I needed as enclosures to my form.

1. My birth certificate (of which I only had a copy)
   
2. Proof of address - Phone bill, Bank statement. I later realised (when I was standing in the application submission line!) that only nationalised bank statements work. Luckily, I needed only 1 proof and the phone bill worked. Now the phone bill is a story in itself. We have 3 mobiles and 2 landline numbers for 2 people! Earlier we had the state owned BSNL phone and net. But the net service was dismal. Hubby works for a conglomerate, one of whose main companies is a telecommunications company. So he got their phone and net at a better price. The net connection was far better too. This was after our building society first went for the BSNL option after much deliberation, and after a few months, felt compelled to add the other option due to better service, but I digress. Anyway, so we got the new connection and removed the earlier net connection. We wanted to remove the earlier phone too till I realised it is the ONLY proof I have that is admissible in various government agencies as a valid proof of residence!! The ONLY one! So the connection remained, and with it, my proof that I really DO live here.
   
3. Proof of educational qualifications - 10, 12th, graduation, post grad - marksheet and certificates. Which is when I realised I never collected my graduation certificate and was living with a provisional one. But combined with my marksheet it would work, so I was fine on that.
   
4. Proof of marriage - Marriage certificate, husbands passport copies and a joint affidavit for name change. This was the first of affidavits required and luckily the lawyer who had helped with our registration had already got it done. But this was the only relief. Soon I realised for the next few days, affidavit would be my sole purpose in life!
5. Police complaint (in original) for damaged passport. Another little story within a story. Luckily the police station is right next door, so one balmy afternoon, I loaded up my papers and walked to it requesting a complaint to be lodged against my damaged passport so I could apply for another. The officer looked at my passport, looked at me, contemplated on life for a while, looked back at me, asked me again what was it exactly that I wanted? A police complaint lodged against my damaged passport etc. etc. I produced the passport. Hmm...it looks ok. No sir, the photo is distorted. For a photo identity document, it wouldnt do! Luckily, another customer/ complainant who was standing there supported my claim. Hmm... said the officer, let me check on this. Then he disappeared into the deeper regions of the police station with my passport as I cooled my heels. Suspenseful moments passed. He emerged after a while with my passport. You need an affidavit stating your passport is damaged and requesting for an FIR. Huh? Before I could say anything, the bystander customer (standing with an affidavit of his own) told me how easy it was to get one, just a few rupees, a bit of time, stamp paper, visit to a court, etc. etc. I beat a hasty retreat. Got the affidavit done (another story later in this post) and reached the police station with alacrity a couple of days later. The same officer was there, and he said all was ok. Then he asked another person to write the report. This person hemmed, hawed, came up with a million problems and hesitated with a lot of doubt and stubborness on writing the report. The Investigating Officer has to give the go ahead first, he said. I looked on in perplexed resignation one gets on dealing with official bureaucrats who hold your life purpose in their hands and look for red tape to strangle it with. Luckily, the initial officer (who told me to get the affidavit) took it upon himself to get the job done. I was asked to sit as he disappeared once again into the mysterious regions of the building. More suspense. Some (actually a fair bit) minutes later, he emerged with another person, who turned out to be an investigating officer in plain clothes. He asked me a number of question, how did it get damaged, when, why, why do I need a complaint, who am I, what do I do, what does my husband do etc. etc. After multiple questioning (much of it repetitive) he was satisfied and gave the go ahead for the complaint to be written. The writing official STILL had doubts. What should I write? Who will authorize? Whose name is it against? etc. etc. At this point the Investigating Officer pointed to the affidavit, and told him to get on with it. FINALLY! After a few ponderous moments of writing, trying to find errors of comission and omission in the affidavit, sadly for him finding none, he finished the complaint and gave it to me. I could have collapsed in relief, but I waited till I got home to do so!
6. The Affidavits - Bane of my life. Luckily, hubby had a person who would get them done so all I had to do was provide the drafts. An affidavit for verifying who I am, one for saying my passport is damaged and apologising profusely while accepting any further carelessness can attract legal action, and one for the police to please lodge a complaint. The first two drafts luckily were available in the application form and the passport online site. However, the real pain was figuring out which affidavits were needed, and finding out their requirements at scattered moments of document collection. Hence, multiple visits for affidavit creation were required. Pain, pain, pain!
7. Lastly, a document from a senior government servant verifying who I was etc. etc. in given format, on their letter head, with my photo and a copy of their ID card. Sigh! Luckily, my parents are in the government, and though they could not due to direct relation do the verification, they have enough friends who could. I contacted one of them, and on a visit to my parent's house (on the solemn occasion of the passing away of my grandmother a few days back), I cornered him, settled my hubby on the photocopier and got the documents done. This document is required for passport to be applied under Tatkal scheme, where you get you passport within a speedy 7-10 days of application and the normal police verification is done after issue of passport, based on the verification of the senior government servant.

Phew! All documents in place. After 3 weeks of running around, we felt prepared to apply. We checked with the agent who told us, application would have to be in person. The passport office is walking distance from my parents' place, so we took full use of that convenience and landed up on Sunday, to spend a day there and be ready early morning to queue up for the passport application process. We had been told to queue up by 8:30am so that we got an early number and got the stuff done quickly. Finally, it all seemed to be coming together.

As we prepared to get to my parents' place, I realised I'd made some dumb errors in the application. Why o Why!! Hubby said we'll white-ink and correct it. So we reached my parent place and asked for white ink. Thats precisely what I'm looking for, said Dad. What? Where is it? Somewhere it seemed where it could not be easily found. So, that evening, Dad, hubby, Nero our dog and I all walked to the market to buy some white ink, and provide Nero with some feverish street dog barking and part chasing, I-top-dog-here-who-the-hell-are-you diversions. Back home, I corrected my form, found 2 more mistakes, corrected those too, mentally deskbanged my head and finished the form. Put everything into the envelop and then endeavoured to do something else than this whole consuming obsession of completing my passport form. Tomorrow will be a big day!

Animals Galore!!

For my ypp friends who wanted to know what the monkeys in our locality look like. (They are sitting on the complex boundary wall.



Some more animals, Ray with a camel, and me with Nero!

Biker Babe

I am now officially a Biker babe. I've got a new bike, and I'm a babe in the woods on using it!!

Unlike most kids who learn to tricycle, then cycle/bike, then motorcycle/scooter and then drive a car, I went from tricycle to car jumping all the intermediate stages. Hence, I'm in the small minority of adults who have never ridden a bike. So how did I end up with a bike....well I was conned into it by my hubby!!

It all started with my hubby getting interested in biking and a magazine article that talked about going green and cycling to work. A general interest turned into something serious as my hubby's office planned to shift closer to home and biking to work became quite a feasible idea. Spurred on by the eco-friendliness of the concept and his growing interest, I promised to buy him a bike for his birthday. So he did a lot of research, joined forums, contacted people, dragged me to showrooms etc. etc. You can read all about his research here.

When we landed up in the Merida showroom, the very helpful staff helped him make his choice. Little was I to know, I was going to get conned into buying one too. I've reached the ripe age of 30 without having a pedal at all. Suddenly, everyone around me was gushing how good it was...visions of the happy couple biking around with a dog loping with them entered my head, and in a weak moment I gave in.

So now I'm the tentative owner of Juliet 100-V, with not much clue how to go about it. The showroom guy was really helpful and taught me how to get on and off the bike - a big consideration as given my height (5 feet nothing) this first step itself felt quite daunting. But I mastered the tilt and mount mechanism and felt pretty confident of going ahead.

The bikes came home on Saturday night and Sunday morning saw us at an obscenely early hour at the park, trying out our wheels. After some shaky starts, I did manage to get a rhythm and cycle in a straight line. Not bad for a first day. I seem to have kind of got the balance, keeping the handle bars straight and trying not to wobble is a different story!! And of course my bum hurts...those cycle seats are hell on the butt, specially generously built ones.

But I'm hopeful for the future....and hopeful about losing some weight at the same time.

Arrr Me Mateys...

Puzzle Pirates is a MMORPG that I've been playing since August 2005. I've always loved computer games, but only the strategy kinds. I'm not into the general bashing each other up or driving like a maniac games.

I came across Puzzle Pirates completely by chance. At that time, I hadn't got into mmorpg games, though I had been playing offline rpgs. I never expected to stick so long with one game! It started off as a general distraction and has ended up as an active hobby!

As the name suggests, its a world of pirates, but a complex world involving not just piracy at sea, but economics on land, and social networking with other players. There are different types of puzzles, some which you need to sail your ship (called piracy puzzles), some to produce goods (called crafting puzzles) and some games for entertainment (called parlor games). Its a thriving economy for the pirates, based more on a puzzle mode than actual bashing up of each other with blood and gore galore.

It is rated an Above 13 game. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was playing not just with teenagers, but with active gamers of all ages. The social networking goes beyond piracy and you get to know some of the people really well. It is also very addicting. I find myself logging in almost daily, either to actively play or just to check up on the shops I run, or even to spend some time playing cards with other players (or mates as we pirates call 'em).

This game also helped me during my sabbatical from work. A lot of people wonder what you do sitting at home all day. Well, I used to spend my time on the game and it can be very very absorbing...sometimes too absorbing!! Some activities do require you to be on for long periods of times, others you could just pop on and off. I know some mates just log on and keep doing other work, keeping checking in on ypp as break relief.

As with other mmorpgs, your statistics soon start defining you. You get ratings for each puzzle and these are relative to how well others are playing the game. Based on how you do in the puzzles, you earn piratey money (poe - peices of eight) which you can spend on clothes, houses, furnitures, trinkets and parlor games.

The game is offered in two modes - subscriber and doubloon. There are different servers catering to each, which are completely different worlds (or oceans as we call it) which do not interact. In subscriber mode, you subscribe for a period of time and keep renewing your subscriptions and this opens up the entire game for you. In doubloon mode, you can purchase doubloon, which allow you to play different facets of the game. Though the doubloon mode is more popular, I started with the subscriber mode and am happy to stay there.

The game graphics are more 2-d cartoon based, but the real fun is the interaction with other pirates, on sea piracy, treasure hunting at Atlantis, and playing around with the economy. All said in done, a puzzle pirate's life is a good life ... Yarrr!!!

Confessor

Confessor is the last book in the 'Sword of Truth' Series by Terry Goodkind. It was released around end 2007, but is yet to reach India. I'd been looking on the bookshelves for months but with little success. Then my thoughtful hubby ordered it from firstandsecond.com for me in June. It took 2 months to arrive, but arrive it did yesterday afternoon to my utter surprise (my hubby never told me he had ordered it...in fact he had almost given up on it!)

It had been a long long while since I had read the last book - Phantom. But I remembered the plot and was dying to open Confessor. Took me 6 hours (ended at some 4:30 in the morning) of continuous reading to finish it. Goodkind's books look enormously fat, but are extremely absorbing. Confessor, being the last of the series, and a conclusion for the plot and its many sub-plots was utterly un-put-downable!

It didn't really matter that I had read the earlier books a long time ago. The author manages to recreate main plot elements every time he refers to situations in the earlier books and making the connections to the events happening in this book. I loved the Boxes of Orden plot loop taking you back to the first book in a spiral which completes the plot circle and yet takes it to a much higher, even grandiose level. The Ja'La - Game of Life, is fun, reminiscent of football or rugby knockoffs. The symbolism of Richard playing against the emperor, both in the sports game and in the larger plot is made increasingly obvious, focusing on the use of strategy on Richard's part and brute force on Jagang's part. Actual magic, spellwork and their intricacies are far fewer than the earlier books.

Characterization is Goodkind's strong point. I liked the fact that the seemingly infallible are also human, demonstrated by Zedd and Ann, both humbled by Nicci's reasonings at different points in the book. Richard, the hero, of course, remains infallible; though his love for Kahlan, and struggle to express his love versus maintain a 'sterile field' give a human touch to the character. The revelation of the book is really Nicci, coming through both in her thinking, her devotion and her restraint. Her redemption reminded me of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter books. Her dignity in the face of brutality from Jagang, temptation from Ann and treading the fine line between sorrow and respect for Kahlan, I thought this was dealt with superbly!!

Not so well dealt with were Kahlan, Rachel and the Sisters of Light. I felt all of them got the short shrift, especially the first two. Kahlan's character for me was mostly a spectator throughout the book, despite her central role in the entire plot, especially the climax. How she maintained the sterile field and fell in love with Richard again, was a critical plot component, yet largely left to the imagination of the reader. Not only that, she just meets Richard a handful of times from a distance, never speaks to him directly. Yes there is a connection between , but the book's expectation from the reader to accept seamless-love-at-first-sight-from-a-distance seems a bit too optimistic! Especially when Nicci explains earlier that emotions need to be allowed to grow on their own. That sure was some fast growth!

Rachel, I felt was the most underdeveloped character throughout. She plays an important role here, yet her background is left to a brief few liners in the epilogue. Her importance, though hinted at by the characters, is never full developed. Her character, apart from her skills again is large a void. I thought this was a character, with the potential to start a complete new story arc, but woefully underutilized. Jillian, the other little girl, too was a disappointment. The dream casters vs dreamwalkers I thought was a very interesting sub plot, but very cursorily dealt with.

In this battle of good versus evil, I felt the author was very squeamish in killing off the strong characters. Before he does kill off one good character, we're treated to a long discourse by the character, revealing her mistakes, making us like her a little lesser, and generally not particularly affected when she is bumped off. Others come close to death, but not close enough. The bad guys are generally done with in the end, the Sisters of Dark providing the perfect oppurtunity for Richard to explain how he had grasped it all while others sat expecting doom. This, a recurring event from all books, is a bit exasperating really. There are some clues, but mostly the hero works it all out in his head, and the reader is told the solution in the end of the book, instead of allowing the reader to pick up clues and start building towards a solution in the end, even if the final key may rest in the hero's final speech. This made the novel a bit patronising to me. Not to forget the long ideological essay on life, freedom and other good things which Richard embarks upon after vanquishing the evil. I can't tell you much about it, I skipped the pages (yes pages not one page). It elongated a well-begun climax to the point of nothingness for me.

The final chapters, epilogue really, tells us where everyone is and gives an insight into their lives post all the turmoil. I love epilogues. Its a joy to see your favorite characters in a normal setting, not fleeing for their lives, getting out of trouble, getting into trouble and killing people all the time. For me, this really ties the final knot.

In the end, I do recommend the entire series. The biggest plus is the plot arc, which swoops, swerves and comes a full circle. The characterization is done well, the plots are intricate and in the beginning feel unconnected. But the connection of the plots, the slow emergence of the larger picture, is the high that thinking readers look for. The writing style is crisp except in places where it goes into interminable ideological monologues. There is brutality, but remarkably less actual killing of the strong characters. Denna, keeps coming back from the underworld anyway, so death isn't much of a character stopper here. Some books are more readable than the others. The Confessor works, because it completes the arc, because it connects the dots, because it's Richard's final triumph...and because by the end of the series, we all love Richard.

From Dust to Clouds

Well, my blog about my dog has flourished far better than my blog about myself. So here is something to prop up this one.

Clouds and sky formations fascinate me. I like to take lots of pictures of them. Usually I'm stuck only with the mobile camera so they dont come out all that well. Here are some anyway.

From my recent trip to Ranikhet: I love the layering of clouds here. Blue sky, light white clouds, thick white clouds, dark black clouds, light grey clouds. It was raining on and off and the clouds were simply racing across the sky...it was wonderful to watch!

The clouds completely shrouded the view of the Himalayan Range. But in this one you can see Mt Trishul on the right, partially obscured by the clouds.

In Gurgaon: On one of my evening walks with my dog. I saw this lovely formation of a golden sunburst breaking through the clouds. Absolutely Divine!

From a trip to Pattaya, Thailand: In the first photo, I was struck by the Orange/Black contrast and the lovely reflection on the sun on the sea. One of the rare occasions I had a proper camera.

From the same Pattaya trip as above, in fact just a few minutes after the earlier photograph! A wider angle and a longer zoom brought in more of the sky, more light and more color. Blue and orange seem a garish color combination, but nature makes it work.

From my earlier flat in Mumbai: What can I say, despite the years that have passed, and the poor quality of my mobile camera, that was some view!! Both taken on the same day, same place, just a little variation in time.

And the wide angle: The depth, the space, the colors and the forms of this view make me catch my breath each time I look at it. And I feel truly privileged that I saw this sight with my own two eyes.

And in panaromic version.