Gulmohar : Day 3
A couple of days ago, I forgot my wallet at work. I discovered this, thankfully, after a very long, traffic-ridden, but otherwise uneventful 35 mile drive back home. And then I discovered how absolutely stuck I was. I couldn't do groceries. I couldn't go out to eat. Hypothetically, if I needed to, I couldn't get gas (for my car, people). I couldn't do any of these 'cause I didn't have any serious money at home. I couldn't withdraw any money 'cause I didn't have any plastic at home either. Also, hypothetically, if I were to go out with friends and someone offered to order some Sangria for me, I wouldn't be able to drink that either, 'cause my ID was also in my wallet. No can do.
Anyways, it all ended well with me gaining possession of the said wallet pretty efficiently the next day but this did bring up a discussion with a friend today as to how would I be able to withdraw any money from anywhere if I didn't have my cards or my license on me. He suggested that I could go to a branch of my bank, close to home, and show them my passport as a form of identification to withdraw some money.
Show them my passport. Sounds pretty un-ominous. Pretty harmless, doesn't it? But he didn't know the half of it. Thankfully, not more than a handful of people know the half of it.
My passport is special. Rather, my picture on my passport is special. It is more than special. It is significant. In fact, it is epic. On a scale of 1 to 10 of terrible pictures, it wouldn't fit. The graph would need to be logarithmic if 1 is the worst value or exponential if 10 is the worst value. If there ever was an American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance of bad passport pictures, this would go beyond all the rounds of elimination and season finales and qualify as a winner for 10 straight seasons. Trust me, it is bad.
Now, for all this, its origin is pretty unremarkable. It was a very generic 3rd year, undergrad day. I came back home from school, some 8-9 hours after I had left in the morning, with a 30-35 min bus ride and a 15 min walk home. Though it doesn't really look like I did, I vaguely remember washing my face before dashing off to the photo studio to get a passport picture taken (The 4-5 people who have seen the picture will, in fact, swear that it looks like I hadn't washed my face for several days before the picture was taken. Or looked in the mirror for that matter). I was anxious to make it in time so I could get the photo done that evening - so I could pick up the copies the next day and finish my passport application in time to avoid the Dad's Responsibility Spiel. Make it I did and the photographer did his job pretty quickly.
At this point, I should take a minute to elaborate on the passport picture taking mechanisms prevalent in India at that time. For some reason, this was an insane setup. You would be in this tiny room, which was about a 100 degrees (Celcius!) and there would be one or two super huge lights focused on you - guaranteed to cause complete and utter blindness if you kept your eyes open for longer than 30 seconds. And then there was the Photographer. This supercilious guy who would take 10 minutes giving you directions on how to adjust the angle of your face just right and still click this astonishingly bad picture of you. Breathtaking, nay breathstopping picture.
Now that you have the background, you know what happened next. I returned home, little knowing that I had set into motion a sequence of events that were to end in a singularly unfortunate picture. I went back the next day and picked up the pictures. It was a shock. I have never claimed that I am beautiful or even close but this was a jolt. I staggered. I calmed myself down, waited a few seconds and looked again. No, it was real. And then I had to pay him the rest of the amount due (you had to pay an advance when you got the picture taken). Can you imagine the nerve of this guy to actually ask *me* to pay *him* when I was the one to take home the picture and suffer its presence for the rest of my adult life ?? Cold blooded son of Evil.
I honestly don't know how I gathered up the courage and/or foolishness to persevere with this picture and submit my application in person but I did. And for the last 10 years, I have carried it around faithfully, as a burden, every time I have had to cross international borders.
Last August, I had to renew my passport. I was so excited that I would finally be able to right that Wrong. To be able to sleep peacefully with the knowledge that the Ugliness is over. I got a fresh picture done (even though, I had some recent pictures that I had used for some immigration paperwork), filled up all the paperwork and sent in the check, the forms, etc to New York and waited patiently for the sweet release. I got my new passport in the mail, with my new picture. The old passport was both stapled and banded together (with a couple of rubber bands) to my new one. Also, in the package were instructions that said that I should always carry all my old passports along with the new one.
Moral of the story. Horror movies are right - It is *never* over.
Anyways, it all ended well with me gaining possession of the said wallet pretty efficiently the next day but this did bring up a discussion with a friend today as to how would I be able to withdraw any money from anywhere if I didn't have my cards or my license on me. He suggested that I could go to a branch of my bank, close to home, and show them my passport as a form of identification to withdraw some money.
Show them my passport. Sounds pretty un-ominous. Pretty harmless, doesn't it? But he didn't know the half of it. Thankfully, not more than a handful of people know the half of it.
My passport is special. Rather, my picture on my passport is special. It is more than special. It is significant. In fact, it is epic. On a scale of 1 to 10 of terrible pictures, it wouldn't fit. The graph would need to be logarithmic if 1 is the worst value or exponential if 10 is the worst value. If there ever was an American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance of bad passport pictures, this would go beyond all the rounds of elimination and season finales and qualify as a winner for 10 straight seasons. Trust me, it is bad.
Now, for all this, its origin is pretty unremarkable. It was a very generic 3rd year, undergrad day. I came back home from school, some 8-9 hours after I had left in the morning, with a 30-35 min bus ride and a 15 min walk home. Though it doesn't really look like I did, I vaguely remember washing my face before dashing off to the photo studio to get a passport picture taken (The 4-5 people who have seen the picture will, in fact, swear that it looks like I hadn't washed my face for several days before the picture was taken. Or looked in the mirror for that matter). I was anxious to make it in time so I could get the photo done that evening - so I could pick up the copies the next day and finish my passport application in time to avoid the Dad's Responsibility Spiel. Make it I did and the photographer did his job pretty quickly.
At this point, I should take a minute to elaborate on the passport picture taking mechanisms prevalent in India at that time. For some reason, this was an insane setup. You would be in this tiny room, which was about a 100 degrees (Celcius!) and there would be one or two super huge lights focused on you - guaranteed to cause complete and utter blindness if you kept your eyes open for longer than 30 seconds. And then there was the Photographer. This supercilious guy who would take 10 minutes giving you directions on how to adjust the angle of your face just right and still click this astonishingly bad picture of you. Breathtaking, nay breathstopping picture.
Now that you have the background, you know what happened next. I returned home, little knowing that I had set into motion a sequence of events that were to end in a singularly unfortunate picture. I went back the next day and picked up the pictures. It was a shock. I have never claimed that I am beautiful or even close but this was a jolt. I staggered. I calmed myself down, waited a few seconds and looked again. No, it was real. And then I had to pay him the rest of the amount due (you had to pay an advance when you got the picture taken). Can you imagine the nerve of this guy to actually ask *me* to pay *him* when I was the one to take home the picture and suffer its presence for the rest of my adult life ?? Cold blooded son of Evil.
I honestly don't know how I gathered up the courage and/or foolishness to persevere with this picture and submit my application in person but I did. And for the last 10 years, I have carried it around faithfully, as a burden, every time I have had to cross international borders.
Last August, I had to renew my passport. I was so excited that I would finally be able to right that Wrong. To be able to sleep peacefully with the knowledge that the Ugliness is over. I got a fresh picture done (even though, I had some recent pictures that I had used for some immigration paperwork), filled up all the paperwork and sent in the check, the forms, etc to New York and waited patiently for the sweet release. I got my new passport in the mail, with my new picture. The old passport was both stapled and banded together (with a couple of rubber bands) to my new one. Also, in the package were instructions that said that I should always carry all my old passports along with the new one.
Moral of the story. Horror movies are right - It is *never* over.
Comments