Hope things worked out for Sameer.
Given his travel was during early december, advice given here to him (by people who are usually great resource on this board) of "getting new passport" would have been a terrible one. Because then, her 9 year old would have been technically in violation of not getting her OCI card re-issed.
As FFRO office writes confirmatory emails several times a day to so many asking exactly same question about 6 month validity, India which specializes in harrassing people, has no 6 moth passport validity requirement to travel (only for new visa application)
Her daughter being in technical violation with new passport would not have been a big deal all these years as most india immigration officers have always taken a very human approach to this nonsense rules over the years. Except that in October got the TOMATIC database updated. Now onus of enforcement shifted to airline at check-in. One thing to deal with indian immigration officer AFTER traveling to India and totally other to deal with trump voting 10 usd/hour idiot at the check-in counter in US.
The way it turned out that low wage contract employee cudnt handle the arithmatic required and only checked that OCI existed and people were allowed to fly from US/Canada as well as from AUS/NZ. except that indian employees at SIngapore and at Middle East airports we5re able to do the arithmatic and people WERE SENT BACK.
This laste duntil 18th december when under pressure from NRI organizations, babus relented and came up with memo that basically said "it is our rule. sir but we will stop harrassement until June 30, 2020 and then wi.l restart".
So sameer was at high risk if he would have gotten new passpoert during nov/early december timeframe AND had travelled through Middle east or singapore and had run into counter employee who KNEW the idiotic rule AND can do the arithmatic
Hope everything worked ok for him.