Heartbreak City

It is a cruel world, but I know for a fact, this city is more so. Autumn is a bad time to try and get any thing done in Calcutta.

"You certainly have a bad sense of timing, sonny," I said to my son. He came home on the first of October, and will leave on the fifteenth, and that's the time frame we had to acquire a passport for him.

Let me back up a little and fill you in. My son is a student. He was selected to represent his University in the Oxford Union Intervarsity Debate 2006. He was advised to apply for his passport here in Calcutta. His vacation break is a fortnight long. To apply for a passport, get a verification certificate from the police and then change the application to the Tatkal category and collect the same in this period was always going to be tough.

And now consider this. The first of October, apart from being a Sunday, was the penultimate day of the annual idiocy called Durga Puja. The city goes berserk. Everything shuts down. Government machinery grinds to a halt.

The application was duly submitted when normal life resumed. Then I went to our local police station to apply for a certificate of verification, so I could submit that and avail of the facility of Tatkal, issuing a passport on the basis of urgency.

I don't know any Deputy Secretary/ Director/ Joint Secretary/ Add. Secy./ Spl. Secy./ Secy./ Cab. Secy. to Govt. of India; I don't know any Joint Secretary/ Add.Secy./ Spl. Secy./ Secy./ Chief Secy. to a State Govt.; I don't know any Sub Divisional Magistrate/ Additional DM / District Magistrate of the district of residence of the applicant; I don't know any District Supdt. of Police/Range, DIG/IG/DGP of district of residence of the applicant; I don't know any Colonel and above or equivalent rank in the Air Force and the Navy; I don't know any General Manager of a Public Sector Undertaking.

That above litany is a list of people who can provide certificates saying they know the applicant is of blameless character. I don't know such bigwigs.

But I do know that the police are there to help citizens. So I asked them.

A kindly gent at the station told me that I'd have to apply to the DCP(Don't ask me about the alphabet soup of these designations, please.) at Park Street. So I went there and related my story. A large and placid man at the Park Street DCP offices told me that the DCP was on leave, but if I submitted an application for the verification certificate, they'd try to speed it up; but I shouldn't expect much because the next three days were off days, and I could go back to my local station and ask about progress on Monday, certainly.

Lokhkhi Puja and the weekend. If that wasn't enough Monday was a Bandh. A Bandh called by some political parties, endorsed by some others, taken note of by the government which decided that the IT sector should be allowed to function without hindrance but the rest of the populace can like it or lump it. So on Monday, my bank had shutters down. On Monday the police station was nearly deserted as all the officers were on the streets.

I went back today. The 'Process' office was closed at 10:30 in the morning because they all worked hard the day before, thanks to the Bandh. I was told to come back later.

I went back later. The application had been forwarded and an officer assigned, but he hadn't arrived as yet. I waited. He read the application sent over, he looked at the documents I thought would be enough to prove all my claims. He hemmed and he hawed and he said he would visit the address, talk to the neighbours and do the needful.

He has to send that report to the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police, and somebody there has to authorize a certificate, issue it and then inform me before I can collect it and use it to try and obtain a Tatkal passport.

Bureaucracy and red tape and all that; this is a city of heartbreak, I tell you. Who should I seek compensation from when that passport doesn't materialise before my son has to go back to school? The mindlessness of religious festivals? The fact that the police are understaffed and thus cannot deal with events and the routine at the same time? That lady who stole a day from my timetable by calling for a Bandh when it was a totally inappropriate response to the issue?

Who will pay for my heartbreak if my son doesn't get a passport and has to miss his chance to debate in some of the oldest Universities around? Who will compensate for his disappointment?

Say a prayer for me, folks.

Update: 11 PM
The officer assigned came and did the needful, yes, in the evening. His report will go to the offices of the DCP on Wednesday, and he suggested that I go and ask about it in the afternoon. Even if I lay my hands on that certificate the same day, nothing further can be achieved, as the Regional Passport Office doesn't function round the clock.

If and this is a big if, and when that certificate arrives, the next round of worry will start- the Tatkal procedure and the impossible time frame. No light at the end of the tunnel as yet. No way out of the tunnel, either.