what’s the easiest and most recommended way to get your passport work done in india?
get hold of a contact who is with the government, and senior enough to push your papers across….so you avoid any hassles. if you don’t have any such messiah, then god bless. i, for instance, got my original passport made in a week’s time, in 2001, when infosys mandated us software engineers to have a passport ready…just because my uncle was a top IT official in delhi….however, 8 years hence, when i wanted to get it edited, so that my baby’s passport could be made, it has already been 4 months, and i am trying to figure out what the government status messages mean..sample these, and let me know if you can relate to this morse code status highlighted in pink:

some of my woes:
1. applied for passport updates etc in december for dad, wife, daughter and myself
2. the government decided to act gentlemanly, and despatched the passports of the 2 ladies within a couple of months
3. dad and i have been waiting and waiting, with weird status messages like service already rendered, passport made, despatch under way etc

i wish the online systems that our beloved ministries so lovingly put in place move out of the hello world and shopping cart mentality, and face the music. i wish to see a politician in charge who outsources all the government websites to companies who understand internet, and not only to those who bid high enough to get the contracts, satisfying the babu bellies in the process, and then do such shoddy work of the sites, that you end up hating the internet in the process…