Like many of the things you do in your lives, Googling is an art. Getting to the right page that you were looking for, with the right set keywords and clicking the right links, all this seems to be quite random and uncertain, but once you get into the groove, things become natural and predictable. Finding that random song you heard on the street is no big deal, and neither is finding the article that you had read couple of years ago, the only part of which you remember was the author’s last name. Information is growing each day, and having the right set of tools always within you is so much important. Yes, there’s that shiny history feature in you latest Chromium browser with sync, so that you never lose your tracks, but knowing how to find something on a totally random public PC without having to look into your history is very convenient, also cool.

But then, you might ask, what is the point of remembering a whole new set of rules just so that I could type in proper queries on Google’s homepage? Yeah, if you think about it this way, not much. Every other site has a search functionality built into it. But, think. Googling for a computer problem with site:stackoverflow.com and searching the same problem on stackoverlow’s search is somewhat different. Stackoverflow doesn’t invest as much time on search optimization as Google does. That is the case when stackoverflow’s search is one of the best you can find on the Internet. Think about others. Now, every site having its own search has its own small set of advance search syntax. Would you go around memorizing rules from each and every site that you visit? Are you not better off memorizing for just one site and using it to find everything else? In my opinion, yes.

And learning how to google or how to search in general doesn’t just mean memorizing the dorks, although it does certainly help. It generally means asking better questions. What does that mean? Well, in general, the more you research before asking a question, the more are the chances of you getting a proper and to the point answer. That doesn’t just apply to online searches, but also when asking for help to your fellow classmate or colleague. The research helps in a number of ways. Firstly and most importantly, it can spare you the need to ask for help by finding the answer yourself. Secondly, research also helps to properly understand your problem’s causes, such that any similar problem can be solved with the same approach. Thirdly, it creates a psychological difference in the mind of the answerer when he or she reads a “this code doesn’t work” and a “this code throws a undefined variable error on line 42” and a “the ‘name’ variable on line 42 is undefined as the async function on the previous line hasn’t returned yet.”. As you see for yourself, the third problem definition is far more probable to get answered, and the first one is likely to get ignored (or worse, downvoted, if you’re on StackExchange).

I have people who send me program source code files in emails and the only line of text inside of the email being the obvious title that ‘the code doesn’t work’. That is where the problem lies. When all you say is ‘it doesn’t work’, then the only reply that you deserve is ‘congratulations on figuring that out’. It’s that simple. And to understand the importance of it, you need to value the time of others.

So how does one turn from a naive help addict to his or her own problem solver? The answer is simple, know what the problem is and start searching for already answered questions. You always have documentations and manuals at your disposal, but let’s face it, it is not easy to get hold of manuals if you’re new to the subject. And even if you’re well versed with the topic in hand, you can always save time by searching the popular forums first. So what do you do? You search for the exact problem message, or keyword, keeping it as concise as possible. Trust me, the query string is all that matters, because rarely you’ll encounter a problem that somebody else didn’t face and asked somewhere. You want to keep the variable count low, and so if you’re learning A, use popular libraries and operating systems B and C that would keep the entropy factor low. As an example, if I’m not hacking into linux core and simply programming Javascript, I prefer to use Debian and Nodejs stable, just to make sure that when I fall into a ditch, the ditch is a popular one.

In case you still didn’t get a working solution, now start to dig into documents and manuals. It is usually the case when the component that you think is broken, isn’t actually broken. Look out for platform specific notes and details. Troubleshoot your way backwards to the line where your code broke. If you manage to find that out, then you know the problem. Start by making a fresh google search for that error. In most of the cases, a forum thread might have the answer, which you can find easily with [SOLVED] in their titles. There are also many instances when if you are working with an open source dependency, you’ll find the issue raised by somebody on the project issues section of their repository [like github issues page]. Reading those has helped me countless times.

If even then, in the rare (very rare with computer problems) case that you still haven’t found a solution for your problem in the online forums and documentations, start by properly defining the problem. It is time to ask for help. Always, ALWAYS remember, the people you’re asking questions to, are busy people. If you want to have a percent chance of getting your question read by experts, value their time. The essential things that must be included in every help request are,

• Precise problem definition with the problem and the current and expected results.
• Steps to reproduce it. Code snippet that points the line of error (You should never paste 200 lines of code into the question).
• What have you tried yet. List of the things that didn’t work out.
• The platform you’re running, everything relevant to the problem. More the detail, better is the understanding of your situation by the reader.
• A paste of your latest logs relevant to the error. Learn to use pastebin like sites to paste large text files.
• The links to those similar problem-answers that didn’t work for you.

Add or remove things depending upon the situation. It may or may not apply every time. Important thing here is, try to be a problem solver. Don’t be part of the problem, but try to be part of the possible solution. It is okay if no one answers, but hang there for the first 30 minutes at least, in case someone asks for more details that you didn’t provide.

This should really answer your question, and in case not, don’t lose hope. There are hundreds of specialized forums that you can head to, if the problem is that important to you. Back to Googling, what is it that some people better at finding stuff on the Internet than others? Now you know the answer to that. See, this is how it generally works. Most good questions are answered. Now that you know how good questions are asked, you know what is inside them. You can make a pretty educated guess about what an existing question may contain. Now your task is as simple as just using those keywords to find that answer. This works. Trust me.

Concluding it, I hope this post was informative. Ask wise questions. People really appreciate when you ask good questions. They say no question is stupid. That is not an excuse to not trying to search from the existing resources, or being a naive help addict. Keep exploring.

Traveling to college everyday, in a train compartment, sitting on the same seat for about an hour, your entire attention is on your phone of course. Yes, it was surely enjoyable in the early days, but after a while, you don’t get to see anything unusual most of the times. That is the reason if you ever spot me in a train compartment, I would be drowned into some book or my mobile phone.

It was a similar day today, morning 9 am. I was sitting by the window, enjoying the newest mix-tape I downloaded. I was into my phone screen when I noticed a ‘Chikoo’ seller making his way through the boogie. I glanced at him through my peripheral sight and was soon back on the phone screen. I noticed the man sitting on the other side bought some 8 chickoo for Rs. 10, ‘Nice deal’, I thought, ‘but cannot carry them to college’. Just then, the man, who bought those Chikoos, started distributing those in between us, the people sitting next to him. I stared at him for a second, this time a bit carefully. He was a well groomed individual, in around his late 40s. He was the typical man you find in countryside India, and his preference for white outfit depicted that well.

He offered me chikoo, and I took it without any hesitations. It was real sweet. He gave away 7 of the 8 he had to the people around him, relished the one he had left in his hand, and started talking to the people, total strangers. He said that he didn’t have a native place, and that makes him feel every place like his own. He chuckled. The people around him started with their stories and it was fun to hear. There were some five to six of them who were chatting like they were some long lost friends, when in fact, they had just met a few minutes ago. The smiles and the laughter I witnessed were something unforgettable. They spoke for sometime after that, while I, finding no room to add anything in those elderly talks, decided to put the music back on.

It did, however, teach me how important it is to give away, and how much joy it gives to the people who receive it. I learned that I need not have a bucket full of cash to bring a smile on someone’s face. It can be done with some 10 bucks too. Plus what you get are some friends, who have a great first impression of yours in their minds. It is a small price to pay for those many returns.

It is funny how a random incident changes your point of views to that extent. People like these exist in our World, who call the World their home, and the people their very own. The World and Mother Nature are really our very own. It is just that we often forget it in our fast paced lives. Have a great time ahead.

Its 4:07am of 2nd January on my watch and I have started to feel a little sleepy, to be honest. I have been awake this long once before, and coincidently, it was on the same platform, in the same conditions, but for a different reason. This time, it is my train back home that got late. A bit too late.

I am not a night owl, just so that you know. Staying awake beyond 1am is a real deal for me, unlike most of my friends and maybe, you. “Hey, but all computer people work at night. That’s the rule.”. Well, sorry. I am that black sheep. Its been around 7 hours since I arrived on Karwar platform. I had my train at 1:28 am, which was already too late in the first place. I hardly thought I would be able to make it till 1:30, but then, here I am.

You know something amazing? The Earth rotates. And just because of that, you can sit at a place facing east, and have a large portion of the night sky pass slowly right in front of you. Super cool it feels, to watch Venus rise, followed by half Moon and then the red Mars, all surrounded by hundreds of stars, twinkling, right in front of you. The station is far off any junction, and the silence of the night is occassionally disturbed by an ongoing express train, whose whistle you can hear right from when it is kilometers away. Can you imagine the silence. The cold.

I am hardly able to type with my fingers. It is really very cold. My CPUs are at 24 and 26 degree celsius respectively, which pretty much sums up the surrounding temperature. I am wearing my napkin as a mask on my face with my hoodie on my head, to prevent my ears and nose from getting so cold that I fear touching them, seriously. In fact, when I wore the napkin on my face, my nose started to kinda defrost. Shit. That is bad. The soft breeze that comes in once in a while adds to the bone crackling cold. I had tea at 2, and the vapors that came out of the cup felt nice on my cheeks. Warm and real good.

I sometimes wonder, does every stomach makes dinosaur sounds when hungry? Mine does, and to avoid the public embarassment, I grabed some chips from a nearby 24/7 food stall on one side of the platform. Untill 12, I was constantly checking my phone for the live status of the train, covering myself with a sheet of cloth my mom caringly gave to me, trying to accommodate my back on the little wooden bench on the platform, but then I thought to use this rare moment on the platform to make a little note.

The Garibrath Express is just leaving the platform. I am a bit attracted to these fully airconditioned express trains. I want to travel in one too. Look at how magnificiant this one looks, damn! There are some 50 passengers with us on the platform, but what is really worth watching is the night station staff. They are functioning quietly, like an army of ants working without anybody noticing. I just came to know some of their everyday post-mid-night tasks. The respect rose several folds. While we sleep peacefully in the midst of the night inside the cozy compartment of our couch in the Express train, these are the people who make sure the sleep isn’t interrupted, and boy they are working real good.

I am glad I had Misty here with me this time. Last time on this platform, I didn’t have her. I might have experienced an amazing night, but I don’t have any record of that 3 year old event. The trees infront of me some 50 yards away are so quiet, you can actually see their eyes closed. It is a dense forest on the other side, with nothing for kilometers except these trees.

The clock on the platform is the one used by railways around a decade ago, those black and white analog ones. When I was a kid, I always asked Mom why didn’t the platform watch have a seconds hand. I generally don’t ask such questions these days, but I get reminded of them whenever I see those pretty objects. The amazing thing about night is that people become very easy to talk to. Everyone here is going through the same mindset, and exploiting that common linkage to explore the other uncommon corners of human nature is interesting. The station master here is friendly too. He lets me look at his console which has little LED indicator lights that show incoming and outgoing traffic. His alarm bell rings when any train is incoming and he clears the route for it on his console. Pretty neat. His dot matrix printer is making some sound, similar to the one we have in our college labs, but this one here sounds sweeter. Maybe it’s just me. Master also flashes green lights to trains indicating everything is alright. It feels weird to see this human interaction, inspite of the rest of the stuff computerized. The smile that the guard of the passing train gives is yet another treat. Another train is arriving. Can you hear the tracks making that typical squeaking sound. I am yet to find out what that actually is. But that’s the magic of it.

Its 4:52 and I am still writing. There are so many things that demand a mention. The Railway Police Guard standing confidently besides the still train is thinking about something. I wonder what that might be. The best thing about a railway platform is, it feels like a mini democracy. There are people from every section of the society, eating the same sandwich and drinking the same masala tea.

I think it is time for my second cup of tea as well. Thank you for being with me guys, have a great weekend. See you then.

Howdy folks, first of all, wishing you a very happy new year. It has been a long year, in a purely poetic sense. Life went through some major ups and minor downs, but all in all, it was a great year. I would be summarizing few of the great moments that I remember in the following paragraphs.

The year started with a lot of confusion. I was going great with Python, but something felt missing. I missed C. I knew C was not the right thing for me, and C++ looked intimidating. I needed something that would back me well for the code competitions I participated in, so C++ or Java seemed to be the only way out. I choose C++, for it looked similar to things I already knew.

C++ was a great choice. I got going with it quite smoothly. I learnt the fairly advanced concepts in it, and implemented some algorithms and applications using it. But the results of the coding events I participated in didn’t change much. I really sucked at them, sometimes unable to solve even 1 of the 8 problems given to be solved in the 8 to 24 hour time limit. Felt ashamed.

During march, we had our college technical festival, a.k.a. Technitude. All of a sudden, I and my mate Aditya found ourselves handling two of the technical events namely ‘Code Wars’ and ‘Debugging’. The events were just what they sounded like and it went fairly well. I had never before been the responsible person for any such event in the past, and executing it successfully was something I was proud of. I even made great contacts with my seniors at the same time, who later became the people who guided my with many important decisions.

The Technitude was great, and tiresome. The committee members and we, the volunteers, worked hard to make it work. Things concluded with the afterparty, which sadly, I wasn’t a part of. Anyways, things went pretty fast after the technitude. Fourth semester came and went in no time. I cleared it, marginally. C++ was still on, in the background. I bought ‘The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stoustrop’ and started to read it.

In the post-semester holidays, there were a couple of other competitions, which I failed, yet again. The C++ learning wasn’t helping me with the competitions as much as I expected. Probably because algorithms was what I lacked, and not a language.

Around in June, the startup fever took over. More than a startup, it was for refreshing my Python skills, learning a web framework called Django, and creating my first serious RESTful application. It took about a month for me to realize that a social networking backend was not really a one man business, at least not if I wanted to build it up in under a year. I deserted that ship, and started with another application along with my friend, this time entirely in Javascript. That was when the love for Javascript took over. I realized that after all these languages I have learnt, Javascript was something different. It required my to completely empty my brain of existing rules and guidelines, and start afresh. My love for Javascript will take up an entirely new article, so I am leaving it here.

In around late August or September, we had our committee elections. I was elected the Technical head, and then our committee went further to deliver an amazing Engineers’ day. Javascript and my new startup were in the making. Later, we got Rajashree in our team, who looked at the frontend and UI stuff. We got Nikhil, who joined the frontend team. Harshal, a budding lawyer, joined us later in November. We are five now, and while we don’t work as consistently these days, we still call ourselves the Cherrylogs Dev Team, which is nice.

In the first week of October, I got the chance to develop the website of FabIndia’s Cooltobeindian initiative. Although I and Rajashree did all that we could, they were not satisfied, and we did not get paid. Anyways, I will leave that for a separate article as well. That incident taught me a lot of things, especially to say ‘No’. Now, I am much comfortable in saying No to people and things that I know are not going to be worth the efforts. Result? I get much more time for things that actually make me happy, the ones that are worth it, the 20% that matters.

Then there were submissions, practicals and examinations. I got a Laptop in late October, which was generously given to me by Vijutai, my aunt and my mom. The post-semester holidays were spent on Javscript and Cherrylogs. I and Kunal did some work, but not a lot of it. On 23rd December, I left for Murdeshwar, Karnataka. An awesome place to spend a day or two. Then I came back to my native, Karwar, and now I am here writing this post, sitting in the hall room, thinking about the wonderful year that I have just passed.

Wish you all a very happy new year, yet again.

I really took long to write this story. I didn’t feel like it was anything worth the time or the efforts to write one. But I really felt something recently. I got called up by a passed out senior from my college. He wanted me to work on a project he initiated. Although the project was fine, I didn’t actually have the time to do it. I said ‘No, I don’t think I would be able to make it’.

I never responded in negative with people who came to me with any tasks. That is the way I was. I just wanted to get all the experience I could, no matter how inconvenient it was for me. Mom always said, ‘but you must see if you are free before accepting some work’, I would be like, ‘Chill, I am learning’. I continued that way, because maybe, I never actually had to sacrifice anything for this ‘extra work’.

This was to change on 30th September this year. I got a call from a senior at night at around 10. He asked if I was willing to do web development for a company, and those guys were willing to pay too. I replied with a yes, after which I was asked to visit their office the next day, some 80KMs from my house. I even went there, to learn something about the task and quickly went on to make a rough skeleton. Pretty easy it was.

I came home and started working towards the final layouts as shown in the PSD file that I was given, extracting layers and cropping graphics, linking them in the one page application. Things were not as neat as it was expected from us, me and my design partner, Rajashree. The backend was finalized by 3rd October, my birthday. I didn’t enjoy or celebrate a single second on that day, even though I had relatives arrived at my house. It was really stressful time. I was still trying to finish things up by 5th, working from 8am in the morning to 1-2am at night, constantly receiving calls from the guys to improvise, make changes and add features.

By 6th, I was done. Those were really stressful 5 days. I hadn’t looked at myself in those days properly. I had submissions and exams coming up, and I wasn’t a cent prepared. And it was not just about me, I had Rajashree taking up equal or in fact, even more efforts, facing similar situations. Finally, I gave up. Mailed them that I couldn’t keep up any longer. We did not get paid, and that can either be justified or not depending on how you see it. Anyways, it was a great experience.

From a technical perspective, I didn’t learn much. But somewhere I learnt what to value. Myself and my time. It is pointless to try to do everything. You just can’t. No one can. A much better approach would be to give 100% to the few things that matter the most. This was a lesson for a lifetime. Now it is just me and the things that matter. Cheers!

Starting with the update, I finally made myself some money with my first ever bug bounty. It was a simple logical flaw that was rewarded. I was, of course, very happy. I had dinner with my parents in a good restaurant, bought a backpack for my new laptop computer, kept some of the cash and gave rest to my mom and dad, equally.

Bug bounty isn’t new to me. I have been living in a community where it was not uncommon to read some or the other friend getting rewarded a bounty, every other day. As far as I remember, things were not like this in my early days. I started interacting with people in cyber security in early 2011. At that time, there were no bug bounty hunters. Some of us were into defacing websites and getting root of web servers for the fun of it. Others were more into blogging about the same. Blogs written on hacking tutorials, news updates and tool guides were dime a dozen. In fact, that was the only way in which most of the amateur pentesters could make some money out of their knowledge (see Adsense and link exchange).

I miss the old friends, the ‘Killerz Hackerz Zone’ group we had on Facebook, where we had some helpful people, who used to guide everyone when needed, and were excellent people to talk to. A particular friend I remember had the handle ‘Dexter India’. He was virtually my brother. There were others too, teaching and learning from each other. After a while, I was made admin of that group, which was, for me, something extraordinary. I learnt a lot from people there, about what a hacker really is, and most important of all, how to keep digging to get what we want. There was this thing written in the group’s description that read “Don’t be smart, be sincere. Then you’ll become a hacker”. A simple statement, but how true that was. It was from that time on, sincerity towards self that became a goal in my life. Learn, not for family, nor friends, nor in the least for society, but for yourself.

Then there were cyber wars, defacements of thousands of sites which included the top government ones. My group vanished. Friends, whom I knew by their handles, fell off the grid. I never got to hear from them again, till date. At some point in around late 2012, everyone realized at once that these cyberwars ain’t helping anybody. It stopped, and the age of hunting bugs for bounty and hall of fame began. It was something new altogether. Spend your time and skills finding bugs and shortcomings in sites that offer to pay for the bugs you report them. The payouts are usually quite high, and if done consistently, much higher than what the average engineering and business school joe gets as a salary.

This triggered a race between researchers, which for most of them, somehow got converted from finding the deepest flaws to finding the hidden low hanging fruits that make a quick buck and take less time to find. Suddenly, it wasn’t about the skills one had. It was all about who gets it first, that gets the bounty. And when a simple bug gets you around 500 in US$s, critical ones going well over few thousands, there was no reason to not invest time in this new business.

But I didn’t. I simply lacked the guts and determination to test an application thoroughly. Maybe it was the skills that I didn’t have. Whatever it was, I used to always get excited to read about bounties. It was raw money, for your time. I had, at times, tried to test an application, but never succeeded. Maybe that’s why I moved from web security to web development. Right down my alley.

Then later in July this year, my mate Kunal got rewarded for a cross site scripting bug he found in a popular social network. It was a respectable sum of money, which he used to build his own PC. You know the thing with money? You don’t fall for it’s greed until you see the possibilities that arise from having good sum of money in your pocket. No one wants to just have loads of cash. It is the things that you can do with it, makes you want it. Similar was the case with me. I needed funds to fulfill some of my long term materialistic dreams. That was the sole motive behind ‘researching’. No, it wasn’t to learn or anything, or test my skills (giggles), it was just the pure greed, that I have now tasted. Although not an awful lot, it was enough to get me a few things. Now I crave for more. Suddenly, the needs have increased. Branded bag, a prestigious phone, ultrabook. Damn.

The quote is still stuck on my mind. I miss those days badly.

Don’t be smart, be sincere. Then you’ll become a hacker

If you read my recent posts, you know I went to the passport office for the purpose of document verification. It went as smooth as it could, but before all this, before submitting the form, I didn’t have the slightest clue what all I had to do, and I learnt most of the technicalities from various sources on the Internet. So here I am, writing this guide.

There are three parts to this guide, as well as the entire process. Firstly, there is the online form filling part, followed by the onsite documents verification and lastly the police verification. Before you get into the process, make sure you have some documents. Documents that are required vary person to person according to your details (you can use the document advisor on their official website), but you’ll basically need one proof of date of birth, one residential proof and a Non ECR category proof. Ideally, you should keep at least 2 of the former two proofs handy (You’ll know why in a moment). For most of you reading this, the Non ECR would mean SSC (matriculation) certificate. Yes, that is all. In my case, I had my birth certificate as the proof of date of birth, BSNL landline bill as the residential proof and matriculation certificate as the proof of non ECR.

Form Filling

• Handy tip; Since the form is quite large compared to other forms you might have filled and requires your attention, if you happen to take a break while filling in the form, you can click the ‘Save my details’ link at the bottom of the page to save your progress in case of any failure.
• Go to Passport India’s website and click “New User Registration” link. Create an account on the following page. NOTE that this is just an account so the details here are of little value.
• After setting up the account and verifying the email address, go to ‘Applicant’s Home’ and select apply for a fresh passport. You will be presented with options to either download the form or fill it up online. Since you are reading this article on the Internet, you can freely select the ‘fill online’ option.
• Passport Type: You should select the ‘fresh passport’ radio button, since this is your first application. Otherwise, accordingly. The type of application can be any one of ‘normal’ or ‘tatkal’ depending on your need, and so is the option for passport booklet size. It will increase the total cost of the application, if you go for them. I kept it to normal and 36 pages.
• Applicant Details: Add your personal details here. Triple check everything for spellings and numbers. It will save you a lot of headache. Try to enter as much information as possible, and also cross check if the same details are present on your document proofs. Give special attention to spellings in your name.
• Family Details: Fill in your family details. Same instructions as that for applicant details.
• Present Residential Address: Fill in your address, and make sure it matches with the one on your bills and other documents that you are planning to submit at the passport office. You’ll need to provide previous address proof if your current address is newer than 1 year (i.e. you are living in your current residence for less than 1 year)
• Emergency Contact: Person to contact in any case of emergency.
• References:People in your neighbourhood who can confirm your identity and address, like friends, relatives or any neighbours.
• The next few pages should be usual form filling, and doesn’t carry much information weightage, compared to the previous sections. Once done, verify the details of your passport. Verify it again, and ask someone else to do it too.
• Verify the self declaration, and when sure everything is all right, submit the application.
• This will do for now. Your application is filled and ready. Now you can browse to the ‘View Saved/Submitted’ applications and your application should be there. There are some things that you can do from here. First of all, you will have to ‘pay and schedule the appointment’. If you had been following as per the normal procedure, you should have an invoice of INR1500 here. You can either pay online or as a chalan from SBI. I would, of course, recommend you to pay it online, and save yourself the hassle.
• The payment process is similar to any online transaction. No surprises here.
• After the payment, the system will show you available appointment dates and their locations. Select one from those, or you can schedule it later. Select the nearest one and note the exact time. They don’t tolerate latecomers and you would have to reschedule the appointment if you miss it, even by 10 minutes.
• After confirming the appointment date, take a printout of the application, get your documents attested with 2 copies of each.
• You are now ready for the next step, visit to the PSK – Passport Seva Kendra

Passport Seva Kendra

• Depending upon how far you stay from the PSK, try to reach the place at least 30 minutes ahead of reporting time. PSK will have an ATM machine, snacks counter, zerox machine, PCs with Internet access and washroom, in case you were wondering. Make sure you carry the application letter’s copy, document proofs (original and attested zerox), extra documents that you have.
• Keep the documents handy. When it is time, you will first be checked by the security for valid documents and application letter, along with other security stuff. Only the applicant is allowed inside the PSK, unless there is a special exception or your applicant is a minor.
• After you get inside the PSK, you should notice queues, with some marked ‘tatkal’. Get into the non-tatkal queue (of course, if applicable). You will be asked to show your originals and zeroxed documents. The person at the counter should inspect them and put them into a folder marked ‘confidential’. Along with it, you will receive a token slip. Keep it infront of you and note the token number.
• Next up, you will be waiting for your token number to appear on the screen. When it appears, note the associated counter number (like ‘A13’) carefully.
• Counter A: Here, you will have to show your documents. The person at the counter will assess them, ask you to add something if something is missing and point out other errors. It is likely that you will get stuck at this stage if there are any problems with your documents. If not, then you’ll be asked to smile for a photo, and give away your finger and thumb prints. You’ll also be asked if you would like to have SMS alerts for further notifications at INR35. Get it if you need, although not necessary. If all goes well, they’ll ask you to move to the next counter.
• Counter B: Same procedure goes here, only the document verification is done strictly at this stage. Every detail is cross checked line by line, and errors are noted. You’ll be told if you have any errors that need to be taken care of. Otherwise, you are good to go.
• Counter C: Here, the person will check the originals lightly, question you a thing or two if there were any errors at the B or A counter, and if everything goes right, the person will keep your zeroxed documents’ folder and ask you to submit the token slip.
• Submit the token slip at the next counter, and you will receive an acknowledgement stating the status of your application, and the token slip back. Fill in the feedback form on the back of the token slip, and submit it to the exit security.
• If your acknowledgement form reads ‘status: granted‘ then it means all went well. You can return home and wait for the call from your local police station for police verification. In case it doesn’t, then the exact error will be written. Rectify those and visit the PSK on the given appointment date, and get your application granted.

Police Verification

Now that you are done with things from your side, you can wait for a call from the police department of your area. Meanwhile, you can visit your profile and click ‘track application status’ to check on what stage your application currently is. During this time, authorities will inspect your civil/criminal records and stuff like that to make sure you’re a good citizen. It should not be a problem for most of us.

This section will be updated with more details as soon as I go through this phase.

The police verification step for me involved visiting the police station with identity proof, along with two references who came with me to the police station. For me, it was my school friend and other school friend’s dad. Didn’t take much time, a couple of hours and we were done.

Next

Assuming that you are done with the police verification, the police will send the recommendations back to the passport office. It would contain details and depending on those, they’ll further enquire and review your application or they will send the passport to print. If the latter is the case, then you can expect your passport within a month via speed post.

Edit Got the passport via mail in about 15 days after the police verification. All in all, a good experience.

Today, I had an appointment at the passport office for document verification at 10.30 in the morning. To be honest, I was worried, not because I had any problem in any of the documents, but because the thought of visiting a government office makes me nauseatic.

Have you ever visited a Government office, where you spent hours rushing from one counter to other, facing people at every stage who don’t give the tiniest bit of importance to your existence, and you felt like you are in a totally different hostile country altogether? If yes, then you know exactly what I’m talking about here.

But today was something different. Although the reporting time was 10:30, I reached the place by 10, just in case. I was expecting hour long queues and chaos, but to my surprise, it was not that way. There was a queue, but there were hardly 10 people in it. After about 10 minutes of reaching, the security guard, who stood by the entry gate, called upon every one who had the reporting time of 10:30. He looked at our documents at a glance, did the physical security checks and we were in. It was still 10:20 on my watch. I went inside, where there were multiple counters. I stood in one of those. When my turn came, the lady at the counter took all my zeroxed documents and attached them to a file along with the application form. She gave me a form which had a token number on it. I was unsure about what to do next, but a helpful voice again called me and guided me towards the next room.

The next room was a large air conditioned hall, with a canteen, a zerox machine and many such convenience stuff. More importantly, it had three large LCD displays which displayed a table of token numbers and their corresponding counter locations. I sat there for around 10 minutes when I saw “N150 – A7” on the screen. I got up and went to the A7 counter. A lady there read all my documents and asked me to zerox a few more things. I did as she said. Then she captured my photograph, took my finger and thumb prints, and asked me to go ahead. All in all, the entire main hall and ‘A’ section took 30 minutes.

Next up, I was in a waiting room with other people, where there were the same monitors. Here I had to wait around 15 minutes before I saw “N150 – B3”. On this ‘B’ counter, a lady verified every detail line by line, going through each minor issue. After this, she returned my documents and told me to wait for the third counter. I went into the same room as that earlier and waited for the next call. Somewhere around 15 minutes later, I saw “N150 – C7” on the screen. Here, I was greeted by a very pleasant man, who smiled as I entered. He looked at the documents, doing some typing at the same time. After about 30 seconds, he kept the folder, returned me my originals, and said, “You’re done here. Submit the token, and then you may leave”. I smiled and gathered my originals, giving way to the next guy standing behind me. I checked my watch. It was 11:15. I returned the token slip, and went towards the exit. A very polite guard asked me to fill the feedback form, which had all sorts of questions. It should not be surprising that they deserved an ‘excellent’ in almost all questions. I then left the premises, got into a rickshaw and went home, with a totally changed mindset for Government offices. Oh boy, I wish all government offices were like that.

Summarizing my experiences, the entire process was smooth as silk. It was because of the excellent management of the people who worked there. They deserve the entire credits. Not a single person looked like he/she was forced to work there, something you often see in such places (My personal experience with SBI bank). Everyone made me feel good, and my work important. I was treated nicely, even though I didn’t get down from a VIP car at their premises, or had a call from a bureaucrat beforehand. The entire process was way better then what I could have ever imagined.

Lastly, a big thank you on behalf of me and the thousands others who visit these Passport Seva Kendra all over the nation with dreams in their minds. While I was sitting in the initial hall, I noticed a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, that hung down a large poster. I couldn’t photograph it since it was prohibited, but this was the exact quote. I am happy that they didn’t just put it, but were following it on every step. Thank you!

I have a lot to write at this point, so much that I am not even sure where to start. Humans are such wonderful creatures, we make things happen, world spin, or at least believe it to be that way. We have a self-imagined feeling of superiority. We are desperate to feel important, to feel blessed, to feel we have some purpose in life, and no one has to right to point at the way you walk on the face of this planet. We humans are so vulnerable.

Life goes up and down all the time, with just about everyone. We all have bad times, spend some days talking about it, and then everything gets back to normal. Now the interesting part comes when you have a logical mind. I judge myself and the decisions I take. It just turned out, when you’re sad, it is not that the day is a little too gloomy, or that the trees are all looking down, or that the world is a little too quite. It is just that you’re sad. That’s it. Done. No one, other that your little brain in there, feels a damn thing. The world is a pretty large place. The Universe, a little larger. You, me, we are too small. No one cares about you, or your thoughts, let alone the Universe as a whole. You only matter if you can make money, and that is very temporary, only applicable on earth. So basically, you are worth a rock floating in space, even less.

I see people crying over little things, things so little that it almost feels a shame to cry over. You can’t ask people to live according to you, of course not. What you can really ask is to show a little respect to the 3.5 billion years of evolution, that they are at the front of right now. Life wasn’t easy. From the hot geysers, to the half dozen catastrophic disasters that shock everything on our little planet. Life made it through them, and for every specie that you see today, at least 1000 have perished, and then you tell me that this guy is trying to ignore you and you are feeling left out. Come on people, don’t be that weak. We are a race that has been here from quite some time. The end might be near somewhere, in the next 100 or 1000 years, if we stop thinking about our individual existence and our special place in this Universe we might make it out to a few thousand years. And unless we move to some other world before that, there is not much probability that we can save us from ourselves. World would completely reset itself, and your current values would be deep buried inside some fossils down the surface. The sun would expand into a red super giant and eat up the earth’s atmosphere. Our galaxy Milky Way would collide with it’s sister galaxy Andromeda. Artistic fiery show of stars and nebulas it would be, for some other civilization far way just opening their eyes to the Universe. The sun would soon die, and there would only be darkness after that, for eternity. No one, yes, NO ONE, would ever know how much you struggled when you existed for those 60 years in that entire 11 billion years of solar system’s history.

So shall we begin the discussion about your life’s struggles now?