How eazy it is to get a passport

Ten years ago any body holding a valid Indian passport meant that he is flying to foreign shores soon or has already retured......i remember at that time it was smthing if u have a passport.....10 yrs down the line Its not a big deal, every one has it or shall i say every one gets it at ease these days without any trouble.
Without any TROUBLE???? Ask me, it took 3 years 7 days and 2 passport applications to finally get a passport, whats left was a dream shattered of gng to US and getting Masters str8 frm college after graduation......
It all began when i was at home in Semester Break in the winter of 2003, i applied for a passport in one of the Regional Passport Office (RPO ) in U.P. submitting all the relevent details and documents...what began after that was a nightmare of numerous visit to the RPO (which is @ 1 hour drive frm my home town).
Every 6 months when i was at home, i had to make 2 to 3 visits to the passport office to inquire abt the status of my application. And the response frm the employess was pathetic...no clear answers, u have to repeat ur questions so many times that u tend to believe the person at the other end is deaf. Thats not all even the ppl with similar causes are as bad as the officers and staff.. there was no sense of First Come First Serve basis, no Queue system. It was (and i think still is) a total choas... A jungle out there.
Frustrated after completing my graduation when i was @ home for 15 days i decided that enuf is enuf and i do not need a damn passport anymore and i went to the Passport office to get my application cancelled . Guess what the same person @ the enquiry counter says when i asked him the procedure to close passport application.... Are Sir kahen ko close kar rahe ho .. aapke hazaar rupye jaayenge (Sir, why are u closing ur file......u will lose ur Rs. 1000 for the application)....i held back the urge saying i will give u another 1000 to close the damn file.....After 5 hrs of running after frm Peon to the Passport officer i got my file closed.
Exactly after a year i decided to apply for a fresh passport (or lets say to try my luck once again), this time in Bangalore where i have been working for two years now.
One a Friday morning 4 months ago i reached Passport Office @ MG road around 8:45 am and got a shock of my life ... there was actually a queue of ppl waiting for the office to open and accept their application. A queue? my gosh this was the first of the many shocks i was gng to bear this particular day.....after 90 min. of wait in a queue.. i entered passport office and a person at the enterance verified my docs and gave me copon number and told me to go str8 and take the second right. This was shcock number 2 -- govt. official telling me the way ( i thought God am i still in India) but what i liked most was the politeness of the staff there.... i got all my paper work done within 30 min and headed str8 to office.
My Police verification was done 3 weeks later and the status changed to "You are Granted a passport" 2 weeks later.... finally i got my passport few weeks back and now i am thinking what shall i do with it now :)