Random Thoughts

A trip to the Bangalore Passport Office. Or, in other words you could call it a patience testing (to the maximum possible limit) endeavour to find out something very, very trivial. I went to the passport office (PO, hereafter) on a request by my senior to check on something regarding her visa. My job was to enquire about the status of her visa application. This, in an ideal world shouldn't take more than 5 mins. But, in India, where an overwhelming number of people want to go abroad (mostly for economic reasons), took me about 4 hours. I was warned well in advance that there would be a huge rush of people and so, I should reach the PO by 9:00 a.m. But, me being me, I got up really late, and somehow managed to hail an auto rickshaw, and after paying the auto wallah for his commendable effort in fighting the infamous Bangalore traffic, reached the enquiry counter at about 10:00 a.m. Phew!! 1 hour in the horrendous traffic! The first sight that caught my eye as soon as I reached there