First post on this blog. Let me start off this blog by sharing the story of How I got my Grandma's passport.
Some background story..
My maternal grandmother has always been fond of travelling. I could see it on her face when she started watching the discovery channel. Around 40 years ago she had a chance to travel all over India with the lady she was serving. The woman was one of the influential lady of the Sarda family of Nashik where my grandma was working. Initially she worked in the factory, but later she was given a job as a personal maid for the lady of this wealthy family. She was among the numerous other servants in the home of Sardas and her task was to take care of the old lady.
The old lady of the Sardas did pilgrimage once and my grandma got to travel with her. She traveled in Kashmir, Panjab, Rajasthan, UP, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, West Bengal with this lady and these travels became her memories of lifetime. Coming from a modest family, it surely was a luxury for her.
Not until the late stages of her life when my mother started her own career she got the chance to revisit some of these places again. Throughout my childhood, I grew up listening to her tales of those travels and I noticed her forgetting herself in that nostalgia when she fondly recalled those memories while watching the places again on TV whenever she saw it again.
I have this dream of taking my grandmother on Europe tour. I want to see her face when she travels abroad and have similar feelings she might have had when she experienced those strange places in India.
There are couple of factors between that dream and reality. Around 8 years ago, none of our family members had passport. Nobody had traveled abroad. I was just starting my career after bachelors in Engineering and so was my sister. My mother and father never felt the need of having a passport. It started with my passport and then my sister's and finally my mother and father's. Eventually they all traveled abroad for some or the other reason and I got my chance too. That passport and visa story is matter of another post.
My grandma however, never had the passport and hasn't traveled abroad yet. She is old.. so old that no one knows her actual date of birth. She just remembers vaguely that she was very young at the time Mahatma Gandhi died. No documented proof of the birth whatsoever. This was the first problem.
When I first had this idea of getting her a passport I was aware of one way to have her birth document as to go to municipal office and get it done. But no one had the need back then. If the youngsters of the family are not going abroad yet, why would someone ask the old granny?
In 2015, that old bug started carving my mind again. I was in Poland and I thought that let's get at least passport. A step at a time. When I came for summer break, I started the procedure. I asked mother and she said yes. But she was skeptical whether a person as old as my grandma can make it to abroad this age or whether they will ever approve her visa. But I convinced her that we should get her passport first, that's the essential.. everything comes later. My point was backed by my sister too who said that there are so many Patel grannies in New York even older than my grandmother.
From thought to reality.
Stage 1
So, I confirmed by calling the passport office customer service and their detailed website (yes, Passport office of India has a kick-ass service from past few years.[1] But the reminiscence of earlier red tape doesn't fade away so easily.)So according to them, what was needed for my Grandma to have her first ever passport -
1. Birth Date proof.
2. Proof of residence.
3. Photo ID
The Problems -
For 2 - Proof of residence, the problem was that she has been living with her daughter since my grandpa passed away back in 1988 I think.. long time. So, we couldn't just produce electricity bills which have my mother's name. So, I decided to use her bank passbook. Fortunately she has account with nationalized bank where she receives her pension every month. So I checked. It had old address on it.. darn it.
For 3 - Photo ID
We had her Electoral card. So, this was good.
We could also use her bank passbook which was allowed as Photo ID if it is a nationalized bank which is the case for my grandma.
For 1 - Birth date proof
They suggested that they would need only an affidavit stating her date of birth and signature or in her case her thumb impressions. As it turned out, for illiterate applicants who are born before 1988, they can submit a sworn affidavit. So, this was good too. I got this affidavit done just few minutes before the appointment in front of Pune passport office. It was easy. You pay Rs.350 and it's done in 10 minutes.
The solutions -
For 2 - Proof of Residence.
We took her to the Nationalized bank first. Applied for the address change. Attached the electoral card and ration card xerox as proof. Surprisingly, they said that they would give the new passbook at the same time. We waited for a while, and indeed even if the regular working time was over they returned the new passbook with new address and photo of my Grandma. Win for the day.
Anticipating that the passport office might need more than one supporting document, I also started the procedure to get ADHAAR card for my Grandma. It took 7 days, but comparatively it was very easy to get. But still before I knew it was easy, I had to make a couple of trips to the registration office and it was quite frustrating. This should be another post - How I got my Adhar Card.
So, I was ready now. I checked the Passport site. I completed the personal data form which I had saved time to time. Appointments were available in next few days. Another surprise. Just few months ago, if you were to take appointments, you had to wait for at least a month for normal appointment. Tatkal on the other hand gets you next day appointment but it costs almost double. So, I took the appointment of few days later. Just to be safe.
Day of Appointment-
14th September 2015
I got all the documents xeroxed. I had the copy of the appointment confirmation. Went to the affidavit shop (yes it's true) in front of the passport office and got the affidavit for date of birth. The appointment was 10.30 AM. So I went to the gate, the sentry there looked at the appointment confirmation and said that it wasn't that. What they needed was another print with a barcode on it. Duh.. I crossed the road again went to one of the affidavit shop, paid Rs.20 to get the appointment confirmation printed from my account on Passport.gov.
Came back to the gates holding hand of my grandma. The sentry checked the appointment print. He looked convinced. Asked for my ID. For old and illiterates it is allowed for one blood relative to accompany them inside the passport office. He asked who was I as my surname is different than my Grandma. I said I was her grandson.. she is my maternal grandma. He said she should have come with her son.. in a bit agitated voice I said that "she doesn't have one". He nodded his head and let us go inside. The same process again at the office entrance.
The passport office had three layers.
First- pre-check documents.
Second- photograph, fees collection and data entry, documents scan.
Third - Documents check from passport officers.
I asked my grandma to wait at a corner and I stood in the queue. They have many counters to precheck the documents After waiting for 10 minutes, the lady said that I should have brought death certificate of my Grandpa. WHAT? they didn't mention it anywhere on the site.. at least not to my knowledge.. She said it's necessary for a widow. But still she let me pass to the second stage.
The lady there asked me to confirm the details that I had filled online. She took Grandma's photograph in couple of attempts. The bio-metric took a bit long as grandma's palm have too many wrinkles and cracks which made the scanning difficult. She scanned all the documents one by one and asked for the death certificate.. I said that I didn't have and she just chuckled and took the processing fees of Rs.1500. "You should have brought the death certificate" she whispered while we left the booth.
I got this ominous feeling that today is not the day.. but still I was hopeful. I went to third and last counter. The familiar government officer face indifferently said that everything was fine, but they need the death certificate. On one side I was happy that every other document, including the much concerned birth date affidavit worked but on the other hand, the red tape devil still had me.
I asked very politely that my grandpa died more than 20 years ago and we don't have it. I also asked if pension document can do the job.. and he said no. An old lady in front of him expecting her passport didn't move him a single bit. He gave me next appointment date of 15 days later.
I came out frustrated. In this state of the art facility, some things haven't changed yet. I said to myself.
Grandma asked if it was done.. I explained her what we missed. She nodded her head and we came back home.
Stage 2
I called my mother and asked if we have the death certificate. She said yes.. So, there was ray of hope after all.In the evening, I and my mother dug up the old documents. In the pile of rusty old court case papers we searched and searched. As it turned out, she had the xerox copy of the death certificate. It wasn't going to be enough. We found old photographs, old post cards.. my mother turned nostalgic filled with her childhood memories when she read the postcards from her father. Told me the story how she had to fight with her step mother and brothers to get righteous share for my grandma. It's a tale of sorrow, determination and patience.. I am proud of my mother for what she did for her mother.
Pondering on how to complete this task of getting my grandma her passport, she suggested that we could it from the Grampanchayat of the village where my Grandma spent most of her life, where my grandpa died. My mother has her cousins in the village and the next day I called my cousin Vishal, son of my grandma's other daughter. Vishal said that he would get it done. I gave him xerox copy of the death certificate. Thanks to him and my uncles in that village, we got the original one after few days.
Meanwhile, I was leaving to Austria to complete my second semester. So I asked my mother and Rupa to get it done in the second appointment.
On 28th September, Rupa took my grandma again to the passport office and showed the death certificate. Finally they accepted the passport application. Win for the day!
Stage 3
The passport application was processed in few days and the police verification was initiated.Rupa had to handle all those things as she had to go to the Police station 3 times with my grandma.
The police needed the birthday affidavit. Thank god I had taken photographs of it before submitting in the passport office. Otherwise they would have forced us to get it new.
Conclusion -
Today is 7th November. I got confirmation on my mail that the passport has been dispatched by speed post. One more hurdle to cross as sometimes the Postman miss to deliver it on address. As I was completing this post, I got news from home. They received the passport. It took us long, but finally we have done it!
_*_
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