Great experience at the passport office in Trivandrum

I had the misfortune of going to the passport office in Trivandrum today to submit an application for passport for my 5 month old daughter. I had filled in the online application and taken a print out. I also took along with it my passport, my wife’s passport and my daughter’s birth certificate. Both my wife and I have been previously divorced. My wife had her ex-spouse’s name removed from her passport, but mine still had my ex-spouse’s name in only because my passport is valid until 2018 and I did not want to change the passport to get my wife’s name included instead (my UK permanent residency stamp is in the passport and I do not want to carry 2 passports around when travelling). After we went through the process of taking a token and standing in line to finally reach the counter, the lady there said that my passport had a different name for the spouse than my wife’s. I explained to her that it was because I had gotten divorced and remarried. At this point, the ladies and gentlemen sitting in other counters started passing remarks about my wife and daughter. I told the lady in the counter that I could bring my marriage certificate and divorce certificate if needed. She did not give me a coherent reply to this. Then I asked if I could see the Passport Officer, Mr. BSR Nair. She went to Mr. Nair’s office and eventually asked me to go and meet him. He was courteous in asking my wife and I to sit there; but once I asked why my daughter’s passport could not be processed, he just told us to get out of the office and called the security saying that we had misbehaved. I kept telling him that I will go out if he just tells me why he cannot issue my daughter a passport and he kept asking us to get out. We eventually walked out of the passport office without any solution to our problem – getting a passport for my daughter. I distinctly heard Mr. BSR Nair tell the security guy to note my face and not let me in to the passport office in the future. This is a stark reminder of how bad India is to the common man, especially so if you are divorced and remarried.

The passport office in Trivandrum is a total disservice to the average guy here. Sure, if I were a mover or shaker in this part of the world, I wouldn’t even have had to stand in the queue for my number to be called. I also realize now why Mohanlal and Prithviraj have to take the law into their hands in every movie to get their issues sorted.

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