Hunt for a valid passport...

I had a decent run in the morning today, did about 6kms at a brisk pace of little under 34mins. The weather is quite pleasant these days at 6.30 in the morning, I get a feeling that things are improving and the heat wave in western India is finally receding. According to the latest weather reports, we should have winter from first week of November, which means night temperature of 24degree C and day temperature of around 32degree C. Eagerly looking forward to it.

I just realised that I have only three more Sundays to put in the big long runs, so I will need to do 25km this Sunday, followed by 30km and 35km respectively over the next two Sundays. My legs are holding up quite fine after the two punishing runs on Sunday and Monday with 10km and 20km each, I hope to keep them injury free.

The latest update on my passport, I have finally got my renewed passport by post. I was under the impression that this would be the end of the story. But, my friends at the passport office decided to ensure that I visit them regularly. This time they have decided to give me an ECR endorsement instead of ECNR (Emigration clearance not required). What this means is that I need to take the permission of the Indian Emigration authorities each time I visit a developing country (which means anything other than N America, Europe, SAARC countries & Singapore). This is basically meant to protect the unskilled workers from being exploited by touts & brokers, as they get duped & end up working as slave labour (well almost, basically exploited by their sponsors or foreign employers, especially in Gulf and South East Asia). I should have automatically got an ECNR stamp on my new passport as my earlier passport had it, plus I had given complete detailed of my 20years of education!! So I have now registered online for an appointment and plan to give them a piece of my mind tomorrow. There is no way they are going to make me pay the fees again for their mistake (hope I am able to stick to my words!!). I hope to get the ECNR stamp tomorrow itself. The saga continues...