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I decided to give my TOEFL last Sunday, 28th Sept. I registered six days before the test, paid $25 late fees with the actual $150. Printed my admin card and saw that I needed a valid passport to give the test. This passport clause is for Pakistan, India and Bangladesh only. (See what a good rep we have?)

All of this might seem fine to you but my bloody passport expired 9 months ago! And you can’t renew a passport within six days, it takes at least 15 days.

Well, the Education Testing Service, which conducts the test, has an additional/supplemental IDs section on their website which states that other forms of identification may be used/required to prove that YOU are YOU, so I thought I may as well take my original NIC and Driver’s License.

Now, we do have excellent computerized NICs and Driving Licenses in Pakistan, thanks to Pres. Musharraf, and I took these along to the test center with me.

I even shaved my beard to match the six year old photo in the expired passport with hopes that the expiry date might not be looked at (well, I wanted to do that for a long time as I wanted to look different even though I ended up looking like a چھلا ہوا مرغا, a concern voiced by my Mom, consisting of  this stolen term from my sister, who stole it from me and I, in turn, had stolen it from a friend who named one of our teachers that for getting a haircut.)

But as luck would have had it, the insane middle-aged man sitting at the gate was looking at expiry dates without paying attention to the photo. As soon as he saw the date, he commented that it was expired and my passport was useless.

I produced my NIC, “I have supplemental IDs.”

“We look at passports only. We don’t need NICs.”

“But that’s only for proving I am me!’

“Nahin ji, only valid passport holders are allowed. Let me call someone up.”

He called his supervisor, no answer.

“You will have to go. You won’t be allowed in. We have turned many a students back for not having valid passports. There is a girl, who came at eight with a valid passport, and I let her sit inside.”

He called again. No answer.

“You will have to go. You won’t be allowed in. We have turned many a students back for not having valid passports. There is a girl, who came at eight with a valid passport, and I let her sit inside.”

He called again, someone picked up and they talked for a while.

“You will have to go. You won’t be allowed in. We have turned many a students back for not having valid passports. There is a girl, who came at eight with a valid passport, and I let her sit inside. Someone’s coming.”

After a few moments:

“You will have to go. You won’t be allowed in. We have turned many a students back for not having valid passports. There is a girl, who came at eight with a valid passport, and I let her sit inside.”

I heard the sound of footsteps and a man appeared. He looked at my passport and I showed him my NIC as well. He took it inside.

“Your passport will be photocopied and sent to Malaysia. You will have to go. You won’t be allowed in. We have turned many a students back for not having valid passports. There is a girl, who came at eight with a valid passport, and I let her sit inside.”

Break.

“You will have to go. You won’t be allowed in. We have turned many a students back for not having valid passports. There is a girl, who came at eight with a valid passport, and I let her sit inside.”

Pause.

“You will have to go. You won’t be allowed in. We have turned many a students back for not having valid passports. There is a girl, who came at eight with a valid passport, and I let her sit inside.”

Yes, you’re right, I wanted to break his teeth and shove them up his [beep].

The man returned and informed me that unless I could produce a valid passport in thirty minutes, I wouldn’t be allowed to take the test.

جی ہاں ،میرے ابا جی کی پاسپورٹ کی دکان ہے

ابھی لے کے آیا

I took my passport, called home to inform that the man on the mission had not been allowed to even start the mission and returned home. On the way, I passed by the American Embassy and thought about ramming my car into it like a suicide bomber and blowing myself up. But then I remembered that I didn’t have any explosives and would most probably end up in Guantanamo Bay rather than heaven. So I changed my mind. Live today to blow up tomorrow!

As expected, my mom was ready with all swords and daggers drawn to welcome me. And what a welcome that was!

My father “welcomed” me later at 1 a.m. in the morning.

As is usually the case, if anything goes wrong in the world, I am to blame!

I sent an email to ETS the following morning and it is as below:

Respected Sir/Madam,
I registered for the TOEFL test on Sunday, 28th of September in Karachi, Pakistan, six days before the test date in a hurry. Your website stated that in Pakistan only valid Passports can be used as ID. My passport expired eight months ago and it is impossible to renew it in less than six days. Your website fails to mention that no other form of supplemental ID is acceptable for Pakistan, like a valid National ID card or the Driving License, in the Additional IDs Section and it’s very confusing.
Please correct this as it has led me to waste an entire month of hard work and $ 175, and getting nothing except sore disappointment on not meeting my goals. I believe this might cause problems for other students as well. Thank you.

Best regards,
Ali Wajahat Jafri
ETS ID: XXXXXXXX
Registration Number: XXXXXXXXX

The reply I got:

There is not acceptable supplemental ids. Like u stated, the only acceptable id when testing in Pakistan is a passport. There are no other acceptbale ids. Thanks.

Does this reply look like that of a 15-year old or am I one of the greatest experts of the English language? Certainly doesn’t seem like the latter.

Maybe they should hire people who can actually attempt the TOEFL themselves, bloody [multiple beeps with full care of grammar].

I went to the passport office later in the morning. The whole process there was computerized with the sole exception being the payment of fees to the bank inside which took the most time. Amazingly, I went through the whole process in just 30 minutes, even though I got lost and couldn’t find the appropriate counter for some time. Damn, that’s development. God bless Musharraf!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 7:51 am under Humorous, Me, Pakistan, Rants, World and has been viewed 337 time(s). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.