I have an Indian passport that expired some time last year. I had no plans to travel out of the country and didn’t renew it. Also I’m eligible for the American citizenship so I thought I could skip the hassle. But since it’s taking almost a year for the naturalization process, last week I decided to renew my passport after all. I kept a few hours aside to look up the website, fill the form, send the original passport and be done with it...boy, was I wrong.
From the moment I was redirected to a service provider that has been outsourced this job by the Indian consulate, I knew that one of the last dealings of my life with the Indian passport office was going to be memorable.
The website for the Indian embassy doesn’t clearly state the order of forms to be filled or how many of a certain document they need so after going back and forth online a few times, a phone call solved that problem. The checklist showed that a number of documents needed to be submitted, the absurdity of most of which could be a post in itself. Here’s what they needed from me- the original passport, of course, but also colored photocopies of most pages from that passport. If my passport expired more than six months ago (It had. Don’t judge me.) there is an entire section of punitive measures for such irresponsible Indians. Instead of two copies of one document for the responsible citizens, I needed to provide nine. Each with a photograph on it. There. Try not being current on a legal document again, you idiot. There’s more. I need to tell them why I forgot to renew it, sign an affidavit and get two people to witness the reason for my negligence and notarize it.
This brings me to the word that had me so riled up in the first place-- Notarize. It’s peppered all over the checklist. Colored photocopy of my legally issued green card (Notarized), copy of my marriage certificate (Notarized), copies of the passport (by the way I’m submitting the original...still... Notarized), copy of our lease document for proof of address (Notarized). At $10 a document, this is already turning out to be an expensive process. (I’m doing this for my husband as well. He’s only marginally more responsible. His passport expired two months ago. Hence, the number of documents to be notarized is adding up fast.)
I search online and find a place that notarizes for half the price. On Yelp a bunch of Indian reviewers swear by this place and say the women behind the counter are experts in anything to do with Indian immigration and passport renewals so I could just ask them questions instead of being put on hold for 35 minutes by the outsourced company handling these matters. I get there bright and early the next morning with a folder of 10 documents that I think are way too many to notarize. There’s a couple ahead of me looking harried as they manage two little children while obsessively checking and rechecking a bundle of documents. Too many papers to fit in a file folder like mine. Between snarling at the kids and snapping at each other, they tell me they are there for the mother of all tortures- the OCI. They were applying for an overseas citizen card so they wouldn’t have to apply for a visa every time they visit India on their American passports. Each member of their family needed close to 30 documents notarized. I felt awful for throwing a tantrum for my measly 10. Besides, now I’m annoyed on another level about what I see for myself in the future.
By this time I’m also curious about this notarization process. When it’s my turn, Parminder Kaur looks at my driver’s license, stamps and signs at various places on each document. But aren't my passport and my green card legal to begin with? What’s the point of this redundant, expensive, time consuming exercise? If I’m lying about these documents, is Parminder Kaur going to jail with me?
I had to know. So one morning I drove down to a strip mall in Sunnyvale to a store that had a neon ‘notary’ sign outside. One of many such notary shops in a neighborhood that's heavily populated by Indians. This time it was Varsha Sharma. “We’re like a third person hired by the government,” she told me. “We go through a day of training, take an exam, get fingerprinted and take an oath.” The entire process of becoming a notary costs between $235 -$400, according to Google. But I’m fingerprinted too. Every time my kids change a school (and they’ve changed a few) I get fingerprinted to volunteer in their classrooms. Why does Sharma’s background check count more than mine? If there was even a blip in my history, a passport renewal would be the least of my problems. She said the only way she could be held accountable for false information sent by me to the embassy would be if she didn’t verify my ID.
But Ms. Kaur had earlier notarized all the same documents for my husband in his absence...
P.S.- I’ve changed the names of the notaries in my story because my passport renewal application is somewhere in the system. I'd rather not be asked for a notarized copy of an apology for this post.
