Thread by @gauravsabnis

Oh yes, in 2016, I was literally live tweeting a bad experience at a Pune passport office that a friend was having in my & wife's presence. And many replies went "but passport office has become very efficient now, my renewal was so easy".

It's a new WhatsApp university culture.

https://twitter.com/vavasthi/status/1505211335587467265

Didn't used to be like this, the culture. Usually Indians commiserated with each other on the difficulties they had with the gormint or babus.

In the past decade, people act like criticism of any govt entity is a personal slur against their family.

Lemmings!

And of course, the standard response, "he's making it up", tho I literally tagged other people with me who could confirm it. And was live tweeting the whole passport renewal experience.

But every other minute, "no no, passport renewal in India is very easy now"

🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️

The India I left in 2006, we all bashed all politicians. No one was above criticism in our conversations.

I've still not come to terms with this #NewIndia where many people have become unpaid (and also paid) cheerleaders for this Modi fellow who only knows media manipulation.

Btw the absolutely bizarre passport office issues were

1. they did not accept a passport they themselves had issued, with some 5 years of validity still left, as an address proof! Their own unexpired document that had just run out of pages cos friend works in airline industry

Wrap your head around this. A valid passport, which works as address proof almost anywhere in India, is not considered address proof by the passport office, even if it has many years of validity left.

So friend produced his SBI passbook as a second address proof.

2. "But passbook doesn't have your photo"

Friend produced a bunch of other documents he had. Nope, not acceptable.

Babu said only acceptable proof is, put photo on passbook, get your SBI branch manager to stamp it, and then we will move ahead.

So we did. No other choice. Drove 12 km & back.

Here's the kicker. This was December 2016.

Picture an SBI branch in December 2016. Packed with people struggling wanting to get their own hard earned money in wedding season. Jam packed. Overflowing, jostling.

#DeMo

When our turn came, branch manager was so busy, he didn't even look at my friend's face. Just gave a stamp and waved us away.

So much for "verification".

There were some more such Kafkaesque moments but these two demands were the most random and ad hoc.

One more bizarre hurdle

"You have put your permanent address as Pune address, which is good, but you have put temporary address as a foreign address. That's not acceptable."

"But I currently work abroad 😳. That *is* my temporary address."

"Then get the new book from there"

"I tried. The consulate there has no dates for months. So I thought I'll get the extra book during the visit home."

"How did you come here? Cab? Auto?"

"Cab."

"Cab from foreign or Pune?"

"Pune"

"Then temporary address must be Pune."

"Tho I live abroad?"

"Yes"