D-Day! I hadn't read 'The Secret' at that time or I would have surely asked the Universe to get my work done that day. I wasn't sure what time the Aadhar center opened in the morning so I played it safe and landed there at 9:30am sharp - only to find about 7-8 people already standing in what passes as 'queue' in India. All of them were standing in the stairwell as the door into the floor above was padlocked. We could see that one of the persons in the center was already there but he had chosen to bar us out for reasons best known to him. There wasn't much to do except to open the newspaper I had taken with me - and keep an eye out for those who might try to jump the 'queue'.
After about 10-15 minutes the guy took pity on us and opened the separating gate. We filed inside with the enthusiasm of prisoners who are out for their daily 1-hour stroll. Turned out that we were better off in the stairwell because all the windows outside the room that operated as the center were closed, giving us a feel of what an inside of a furnace must be like. A couple of people wrestled with the windows and managed to open one of them. A gust of wind blew in, bringing with it some relief. There was only one bench outside the room, so naturally, the senior citizens in the queue occupied it. Rest of us went back to the waiting mode.
My experience of queues so far has been that in every queue there usually is someone who assumes that he/she knows everything that is there to know about the work that people in the queue desire to get done. I was proved right in a matter of minutes. There were 2 girls standing behind me. One of them tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I have an appointment. I said I don't. They appeared relieved. Just then a senior citizen, who till then had been instructing his wife, turned to them and proclaimed, loudly and vehemently, that an appointment was necessary - he and his wife was given one the previous day. One of the girls gave me a panicked look. I proclaimed, in matching loud tone, that I was given the form and asked to come today by the person manning the center. The senior citizen glared at me but decided against arguing. I went back to my newspaper.
By 10am another person working at the center arrived and then things started to move, albeit slowly. This gentleman came to check forms and supporting documents of everyone in the queue. Fortunately, for all of us, our documents were in order. Just then, the first person in the queue was called to get his data fed into the system. All of us craned our necks to check out the process. There were 4 steps - first, the person's data was being transcribed from the form into the system and verification of his supporting documents was done. The person could see the details on the screen in front of him so he/she could verify them. I hoped and prayed that everyone had a good legible handwriting because the time taken by this step seemed to be directly proportional to it. In the second stage the applicant's photo was taken. Fingerprints and iris scan completed the third and fourth stages. These stages seemed to get completed quickly.
The senior citizen, who had earlier given completely unsolicited advice, had been, for some time, getting on the nerves of a kid, about 9-10 years of age, who was standing immediately before me in the queue. Apparently, his mom had left him with the documents there in the morning and was now nowhere to be seen. The gentlemen kept asking the kid to call his mom to make sure that she gets her enrolment done. I had seen the kid make calls a few times but he seemed hassled and somewhat embarrassed by the unwanted attention. More than once I felt like telling the gentleman to leave the kid alone but refrained from doing so. I had no desire to get into argument with the person, who, no doubt, would have relished the opportunity.
As the time passed the queue got shorter. Two people who had been given appointments the day before were processed ahead of the others in the queue but still it looked like all of us who were in the queue would be done before lunchtime, 1pm. A few people who came late were asked to return in the afternoon.
Finally it was my turn to get the enrollment done. I handed over my form but as the person started transcribing it, I started dictating the information myself, including the spellings. It was considerably faster that way. That done, I was asked to sit back for the photo. I have this stupid habit of blinking just as the photo is taken so I widened my eyes to guard against that possibility. The end result was that the photo on my Aadhar card will now look as if I have seen a ghost or an extra-terrestrial! If the process of giving finger prints was creepy, the iris scan was decidedly hilarious because at first I ended up holding the device's wrong side in front of my eyes. It felt all the more weird because the remaining 5 members of the queue had by now filed inside the room and were observing the process keenly.
'You are done' said the guy as he handed over the receipt to me. Music to my ears!
P.S. This was less than a month ago. Just 2 days back, I got an SMS that my Aadhar number has been generated and the card is being dispatched to me by post. Mission Accomplished! :-)
After about 10-15 minutes the guy took pity on us and opened the separating gate. We filed inside with the enthusiasm of prisoners who are out for their daily 1-hour stroll. Turned out that we were better off in the stairwell because all the windows outside the room that operated as the center were closed, giving us a feel of what an inside of a furnace must be like. A couple of people wrestled with the windows and managed to open one of them. A gust of wind blew in, bringing with it some relief. There was only one bench outside the room, so naturally, the senior citizens in the queue occupied it. Rest of us went back to the waiting mode.
My experience of queues so far has been that in every queue there usually is someone who assumes that he/she knows everything that is there to know about the work that people in the queue desire to get done. I was proved right in a matter of minutes. There were 2 girls standing behind me. One of them tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I have an appointment. I said I don't. They appeared relieved. Just then a senior citizen, who till then had been instructing his wife, turned to them and proclaimed, loudly and vehemently, that an appointment was necessary - he and his wife was given one the previous day. One of the girls gave me a panicked look. I proclaimed, in matching loud tone, that I was given the form and asked to come today by the person manning the center. The senior citizen glared at me but decided against arguing. I went back to my newspaper.
By 10am another person working at the center arrived and then things started to move, albeit slowly. This gentleman came to check forms and supporting documents of everyone in the queue. Fortunately, for all of us, our documents were in order. Just then, the first person in the queue was called to get his data fed into the system. All of us craned our necks to check out the process. There were 4 steps - first, the person's data was being transcribed from the form into the system and verification of his supporting documents was done. The person could see the details on the screen in front of him so he/she could verify them. I hoped and prayed that everyone had a good legible handwriting because the time taken by this step seemed to be directly proportional to it. In the second stage the applicant's photo was taken. Fingerprints and iris scan completed the third and fourth stages. These stages seemed to get completed quickly.
The senior citizen, who had earlier given completely unsolicited advice, had been, for some time, getting on the nerves of a kid, about 9-10 years of age, who was standing immediately before me in the queue. Apparently, his mom had left him with the documents there in the morning and was now nowhere to be seen. The gentlemen kept asking the kid to call his mom to make sure that she gets her enrolment done. I had seen the kid make calls a few times but he seemed hassled and somewhat embarrassed by the unwanted attention. More than once I felt like telling the gentleman to leave the kid alone but refrained from doing so. I had no desire to get into argument with the person, who, no doubt, would have relished the opportunity.
As the time passed the queue got shorter. Two people who had been given appointments the day before were processed ahead of the others in the queue but still it looked like all of us who were in the queue would be done before lunchtime, 1pm. A few people who came late were asked to return in the afternoon.
Finally it was my turn to get the enrollment done. I handed over my form but as the person started transcribing it, I started dictating the information myself, including the spellings. It was considerably faster that way. That done, I was asked to sit back for the photo. I have this stupid habit of blinking just as the photo is taken so I widened my eyes to guard against that possibility. The end result was that the photo on my Aadhar card will now look as if I have seen a ghost or an extra-terrestrial! If the process of giving finger prints was creepy, the iris scan was decidedly hilarious because at first I ended up holding the device's wrong side in front of my eyes. It felt all the more weird because the remaining 5 members of the queue had by now filed inside the room and were observing the process keenly.
'You are done' said the guy as he handed over the receipt to me. Music to my ears!
P.S. This was less than a month ago. Just 2 days back, I got an SMS that my Aadhar number has been generated and the card is being dispatched to me by post. Mission Accomplished! :-)
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