Our bureaucracy is alive and well: part 3

A week after being thwarted at the passport office my friend re-submitted his application with a fresh schedule F stating unequivocally that he had been staying at his present address, as opposed to his permanent address or his previous address, for the past six months. Three days later he received his new passport. But he also received a text message requesting his presence at the neighbourhood police station for post-passport-issue verification; so he went there and handed his passport to the sub-inspector.

“Show me proof of citizenship,” the police officer said.

“It’s in your hand,” my friend replied.

“No, I need your birth certificate or school leaving certificate, preferably CBSE.”

My friend was surprised that the police thought so poorly about the passport’s ability to prove one’s citizenship but since he had carried his thick ‘passport-preparation file’, he did not press the point.

“Take both,” he said.

Instead of showering him with kudos for providing two documents where only one was required, the policeman said, “Also need proof of residence.”

“Again?!” My friend was shocked but also well prepared, ‘proof of residence’ being the biggest obstacle he had had to overcome on the path to passport. “Here’s my employer’s letter showing my address. Using it I transferred my private sector bank account to Mumbai: here’s that passbook stating my address. With this I acquired a public sector bank account: here’s that passbook. Submitting this I got the passport, already with you. That’s four proofs of residence and please note – all carry the same address, exactly.”

The man was not impressed. “Where are you staying?” he asked.

“You can read the address in any of the four documents,” my friend said coldly.

“I need a letter from the housing society stating that you’re staying there.”

My friend walked out of the police station in a dismal mood. He knew that the secretary of his housing society, a resident herself, was a formidable, thickset woman in her fifties whose life’s mission was to enforce every bylaw in the society handbook, while proposing new ones worthy of being added.

The next day my friend visited her with a packet of sweets.

“For the children,” he said, smiling obsequiously. The secretary nodded curtly. My friend bumbled on. “Indian sweets are much better than Chinese ones.” The secretary remained unmoved by this revelation. “Talking of China,” he continued, “my company is sending me there next month. So I got my passport renewed urgently. But for the police verification, I need a small favour from you: a letter stating that I live here.”

“Sorry, cannot give you that without official documentation,” the woman said immediately. “Bylaw 17 subsection 2A says…”

My friend interrupted her. “Here’s a letter from my company and the rental agreement.”

“No. I need your police verification.”

“But the police needs your letter to provide verification!”

The woman would not budge: subsection 2A was very clear on this point.

“Will you come with me to the police station so both letters can be exchanged simultaneously? I’ll take you by taxi.” The woman refused, quoting a bylaw that forbade the secretary from leaving the premises for frivolous activity.

My friend staggered out of the office and called his helpful government friend (provider of schedule F) and poured out his heart.

“In summary I’m flummoxed, flabbergasted and frustrated” said my friend. Extreme emotion often rendered him poetic.

“There’s something called a tenant police verification,” the government official said. “A broker can help you get it.”

So my friend approached a broker and handed over his passport to him. Two days later he received a tenant police verification. When he showed this to the housing society secretary she was “pleased to” issue him an official letter verifying his residency “because this is how it is specified in the by-laws”. He handed this letter to the police station, where the inspector assured him he would “do the needful”.

Three days later my friend received a phone call.

“This is the police, verifying your address, but you are not at home.”

“I am!” said my friend. “I can see myself in the bedroom mirror.”

Apparently the inspector was calling from Delhi, where my friend had stayed before coming to Mumbai.

“I climbed up three floors to verify your previous address and you’re not here,” said the policeman, his tone reproachful.

My friend explained it was impossible for him to be at his previous address at the present time without resorting to time travel, which he had not yet mastered. After some discussion, the policeman agreed on a compromise: if my friend would send him a photocopy of address proof in Delhi, he would ask neighbours to confirm that my friend had indeed stayed there.

Two weeks later, my friend got text messages saying that police verification had been completed both in Mumbai and Delhi.

“Whew! I’m finally the legitimate owner of an Indian passport,” he told me on the phone. “Man, it was tough but it was worth it.”

“Yes it was!” I said. “You have a passport and your story has appeared over three columns in The Hindu!”