Regional Passport Office: Another brush with the govt offices

My experiences with govt offices are far and few, but the experiences they create are enough to last a lifetime. The last time I had this experience was about 3 years ago when we had to visit the FRRO thrice in 3 days. This is already documented in this post ("Do it in 8" and other short stories from the FRRO)".

This time it was the passport office's turn because of the application of passport for my kid. I will document the exact procedure in a later post. But in this post it is sufficient to say that I had done an online registration, read the FAQ on the passport office's website, collected the documents and photocopies as required. I reached at  10 a.m. for my slot at 10:45 a.m. However, it was only at about 11:05 a.m. that I entered the hall. One more hour of wait, and I reached the counter for scrutiny of application and the supporting documents.

The lady at the counter asked me whether my wife had a passport, and I said it had expired. The lady asked me to note the number of my wife's passport, and attach photocopies. I had entered  my passport number on the form, and also attached the photocopies of my passport. I tried to reason saying that the form mentioned  that only valid passport, and besides, the form mentioned that EITHER of the parents'  passport details would do. But no. In India, our people love to have undocumented rules or even if they are documented, then hiding them so that these are difficult to find, and are discovered at run-time. So, I was ordered to  go away and come back with the photocopies of my wife's invalid passport. Another fun and exciting trip is definitely on, and I will post the experiences of day 2 for this passport application.

Just for the record, here's an image capture of the application form that states the parents' passport details. Also  note how the word EITHER is all upper-case and underlined to state its importance. But looks like to our govt officials, the word EITHER means something else. Also, notice how it states clearly that only "Valid Indian Passport" has to be considered.

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I know for sure that in computer science, the  word EITHER means "either one or  the other or both". If it meant both, then most programs would start failing miserably. Imagine changing the meaning of boolean OR to boolean AND...