Great start to the weekend.

It was a regular Friday evening. I was at work when I got a call from home. My grandmother told me that she received a call from the police station and they want me to come there on Saturday morning for something related to my passport.

I was wondering why they were calling me again because my police verification was already completed. I even check the status online and it said: “Passport has been granted and is expected to be dispatched by 06-09-2008. Subject to all documents being in order”. So I thought they needed some more documents or information.

Actually, I had planned to visit my old college with a friend on Saturday morning at around 10 am. After I got to know about the passport thing, I called my friend and rescheduled the time to 12pm assuming that that work will get over soon. Little did I know that there was a lot in store for me.
Saturday morning, I reached the police station at 10:00 am. I spoke to the official over there and he asked me to get 2 witnesses with me. I told him that my police verification was already over but he said that this is a regular procedure. The next thing I did was called my friend and cancelled the college visit.

At around 12:30, I returned to the police station with 2 of my neighbors. They signed a couple of papers and left, I was asked to wait. After about 30 minutes, the guy over there said that they are really busy with some other work and asked me to come at 6:00 pm. I was not in a position to argue with them, so I agreed.
In the evening, I went there again. When I reached the police station there was a long queue and I had to wait for an hour for my turn. I showed them my receipt and they were not able to find my form. They checked the register and told me that my form had already been sent to the passport office. I was like then why the hell did you guys call me here?

So there I was, sitting at the police station wondering what is going on. Then they asked me my home phone number. After a lot of searching, they pulled out a form which had the same number and guess what? It was my brother’s form.
The procedure has changed since the time he applied for his passport and they needed some information for their record. I told them that my brother has gone to the US for studying. They took a statement from me with all the details they needed. It hardly took 5 minutes. All this trouble for such a small piece of work!

When I came back home it was 8pm. An entire day wasted, and I was left think how all this could have been avoided. The reasons behind this entire episode were many - my grandparents, who assumed that the call was for me, the police officials who made me go through all this for nothing, our names (mine and my brother's) which are so long and confusing, and finally me, for going through all without knowing the exact reason.

In the end, I had to accept it as a bad day and move on.