<p>‘Why don’t you take off your jacket?’ I asked my jet-lagged son. He was paranoid about the very thought of taking off his jacket despite the weather being hot. To give you some context, I need to narrate an incident that happened a year ago. </p>.<p>After 22 hours of sleepless air travel, my son arrived at Bengaluru airport. This was not an end to his travel woes, as we had to immediately start our road trip to Mysuru, which meant another three hours of sitting idle. My poor child was so exhausted that he almost collapsed on the mattress as soon as we got home.</p>.<p>Just before hitting the bed, the only thing he managed to do was to hang his treasure trove (read jacket, which had his passport with a valid visa) on a piece of wooden furniture in our living room. </p>.<p class="bodytext">As expected, he slept through the day and night only to wake up to the most dreaded reality. His jacket was missing from the living room. After a thorough search, he found it in the washing machine with the end button glaring at him. The passport had taken the brunt of the wash, rinse, and <br />dry cycle, as all the pages were stuck to one another. </p>.<p class="bodytext">A quick run through the CCTV recordings revealed our house help had picked up his prized piece of clothing. She later revealed that the jacket, due to its thick texture, helped increase the machine load. With no remorse or regret for her action, it was pointless in admonishing her. </p>.<p class="bodytext">While my temper and frustration gave vent to copious tears, my son was speechless. The thought of permanently losing a student visa sent a shiver down my spine, and I quickly jumped into ‘action’ mode!</p>.<p class="bodytext">I made multiple phone calls to family members, friends, travel agents, and the passport office and parallely browsed the internet to seek an answer to this distressing situation.</p>.<p class="bodytext">From that very day this incident became my favourite narrative. Whenever any topic even slightly close to passport or visa crops up, I would start recounting this incident. On one such occasion, my sister-in-law, who is known for her wit, made this inference: “Akhila, either you sue your washing machine and detergent companies for not providing enough justice, as the passport was not whitewashed, disproving their claim, or you can e-mail a thank you note to the companies providing raw materials like paper and ink to make passports. They are so tough and genuine that instead of getting shredded, they got crumpled.” </p>.<p class="bodytext">I obviously didn’t follow her advice! </p>.<p class="bodytext">We eventually applied for a new passport and visa stamping—the process, of course, made a deep hole in our pockets and left our brains numb! If I have to rephrase an old adage—ours was a case of once washed, ever dry!</p>
<p>‘Why don’t you take off your jacket?’ I asked my jet-lagged son. He was paranoid about the very thought of taking off his jacket despite the weather being hot. To give you some context, I need to narrate an incident that happened a year ago. </p>.<p>After 22 hours of sleepless air travel, my son arrived at Bengaluru airport. This was not an end to his travel woes, as we had to immediately start our road trip to Mysuru, which meant another three hours of sitting idle. My poor child was so exhausted that he almost collapsed on the mattress as soon as we got home.</p>.<p>Just before hitting the bed, the only thing he managed to do was to hang his treasure trove (read jacket, which had his passport with a valid visa) on a piece of wooden furniture in our living room. </p>.<p class="bodytext">As expected, he slept through the day and night only to wake up to the most dreaded reality. His jacket was missing from the living room. After a thorough search, he found it in the washing machine with the end button glaring at him. The passport had taken the brunt of the wash, rinse, and <br />dry cycle, as all the pages were stuck to one another. </p>.<p class="bodytext">A quick run through the CCTV recordings revealed our house help had picked up his prized piece of clothing. She later revealed that the jacket, due to its thick texture, helped increase the machine load. With no remorse or regret for her action, it was pointless in admonishing her. </p>.<p class="bodytext">While my temper and frustration gave vent to copious tears, my son was speechless. The thought of permanently losing a student visa sent a shiver down my spine, and I quickly jumped into ‘action’ mode!</p>.<p class="bodytext">I made multiple phone calls to family members, friends, travel agents, and the passport office and parallely browsed the internet to seek an answer to this distressing situation.</p>.<p class="bodytext">From that very day this incident became my favourite narrative. Whenever any topic even slightly close to passport or visa crops up, I would start recounting this incident. On one such occasion, my sister-in-law, who is known for her wit, made this inference: “Akhila, either you sue your washing machine and detergent companies for not providing enough justice, as the passport was not whitewashed, disproving their claim, or you can e-mail a thank you note to the companies providing raw materials like paper and ink to make passports. They are so tough and genuine that instead of getting shredded, they got crumpled.” </p>.<p class="bodytext">I obviously didn’t follow her advice! </p>.<p class="bodytext">We eventually applied for a new passport and visa stamping—the process, of course, made a deep hole in our pockets and left our brains numb! If I have to rephrase an old adage—ours was a case of once washed, ever dry!</p>
