The Story of A Driving License

"A simulator? Wow!"

I look at my friend wide eyed as she spells forth her experience of applying for a driving license.
She tells me how she was instructed to drive a perfect 'eight' on the road and was tested for her knowledge of road signs and that she was even made to drive on a simulator.

That is how things work in Bangalore, and in Hyderabad as another friend tells me.

Guess how it works in Ludhiana?

On a chilly winter morning, I accompany my dad to the Mini Secretariat. There is a new Suvidha Centre at the furnished place with a line of window counters. The system is efficient - you get allotted to a window number from outside, you seat yourself on the elegant bench and watch the Plasma TV screen while waiting for your token number to appear on the little red neon board above the window.

Your number appears, you get up and submit your documents, the DTO - probably experienced in the art of physiognomy looks at you and signs on your papers which say ''This person is found fit for driving and has cleared the driving test."

You pose in front of the webcam, you sign on the swanky electronic signature device and there...its done!

And there I got a call from my dad last week, ''We just received your driving license by post!" Just on time - you receive the laminated card.

No tests, no simulators, no screening - probably you'd call it a hassle-free system, but yeah at the end of the day - I miss the simulator.

"Ludhiana roads must be really unsafe then -- with such people driving?", my friend asks me after hearing that little tale.

"Hmmm...not really, I guess - Its the Darwinian survival of the fittest that makes all of us move on the Ludhiana roads..."

Afterthoughts

Probably I can write a blog every day at 9.35 am since this is the time I am flushed with all sorts of emotions - anger, rage, sadness, helplessness and a desire to turn all of them productive. 

                                                          

Ms Poonam Kalra had told us the first day, how this paper - Indian Economic Development since 1947 is a very pessimistic paper. It loads you with all the data and gruesome figures and facts about what all is wrong with Indian economy. Unfortunately, it does not provide any solutions, because YOU are expected to look for the solutions.

Solutions, I don’t have to even attempt to start thinking of them – I’m taught in a way that rouses the rebel in me…and solutions have to be crafted by none other than the youth.

This morning’s lecture was about comparative growth and development analysis of states within India. We set out to identify the reasons why Kerala and a state like Himachal Pradesh outperformed every other state. Two reasons that stood out apart from education was provision of PUBLIC UTILITIES and PUBLIC ACTION as an essential democratic process. Democracy, as I see, is not only about going to Ramlila Grounds and protesting with the crowd. There is much more relevance at the individual rather than collective level. How an individual deals with corruption at his level, when HE is faced with a bribing officer is the real test. Does he protest, does he raise his voice, does he use the public facilities, does he report, does he complain to the police, does he sting the scene or does he passively acquiesce and pay the bribe as a one-time quick fix solution?

What lacks in most states is this ability to protest.

I remember how heavenly excited I was when Mam Kochhar, my political science teacher had introduced in those powerful, soul-stirring words the chapter on RIGHTS in the constitution.

‘I have a RIGHT to something!’ and she had banged the desk and enunciated in a very demanding tone– I had never encountered such a bold description of the Articles 19 to 22.

The fact that people are not aware what to do, when they are faced with injustice lies at the core! The complexity of the procedures, the multiple levels of hierarchy end up making ‘justice seeking’ a time consuming and inefficient process.