The passport.......Is it valid, is it?

Scare after scare after scare.. Monday evening, Chandan informs me my passport has been expired for the last 4 yrs. We look totally shocked, kaise, I mean wasn't it issued for 10 yrs? But it clearly states that it's cancelled. Is it? Then..............? Ring Ring Ring... Calling friends & family left, right & centre. Do you know any govt official who can issue me a verification certificate? I need a tatkal passport. Ya, thank heavens, I haven't booked my flight tickets. Oh! You do but he's out of town? Finally my father sends me to his friend, who is director in supplied dept., Indian govt. I feel very blessed to be so well connected, with a dash of cynicism. My father knows this guy, can he be actually helpful?! We get the verification certificate. Run to local office for getting spellings corrected on Voter ID. Need an identification, who am I? Reach the SDMO office, & guess what? It's Shindh New Year, what ever that means. To me it meant, an wasted journey, for the office babus were on holiday. Go back on wednesday, & get my work done with amazing speed, skipping lines & the whole thing. Why? Maybe because I'm a single female, willing to say "please bhaiya" to the right bhaiyas in charge. I totally support discrimination based on sex, & have always benefitted from this disctinction. You see, God bless chivalrous men, & may I not jinx myself. I would say Amen to that, but am really not cool with blasphemy, even in small doses. Wednesday afternoon sees me in Notary office, getting my Annexture I printed on stamp paper, clearly stating my travel will not cause security threat to my nation or the nations that I'm visiting. & I have a totally new self respect for my hidden potential. The Notary office guy thinks it is his duty to charge me 450 INr for what costs 120 INR since I'm single unaccompanied female. See the discrimination based on sex is at work again, but I know I still have the last laugh. Not only the Notary guy does my work at super speed, he is quite sad when I give him INR 450 without much haggling, he could have got more only if he had asked. His crestfallen expression was worth the not bargaining. Go to husband's office, to get all docs scanned, & Husband comes back with query, "So, how much did you spend in terms of money along with sun burnt skin that you got for free?" Me: "roughly 1 K." Husband: "Good, cause I'm saving you remaining money & head ache of applying. Your passport is valid, we just did not flip the pages & note the validity extension stamp." Me: "Oh!................Oh!" We go out for diiner to clelebrate..... spend some more K eating delicious Italian food at Theos. Next day, my husband informs me his US visa will reach him in 5 week's time, which will give us about 2 weeks to plan our trip if at all. & I'm back on the pendulam, I'm going I'm not. I'm going now. I'm going later......... :-)