Do you really want to use this Do It Yourself kit to get a license?

Your experiments with vehicles will start at a relatively older age… you will be in your late single digit years of age. Usually your first drive will be achieved by flicking the key of your dad’s scooter or in better scenarios, your friend’s dad’s scooter. If you are lucky, both will return safely. If you are not, they will anyway find out sooner or later.

With constant persuasion, you will be fully qualified to drive a two wheeler independently with trust by the age of eleven or twelve. You would have completed approximately 2 to 5 minutes of learning, 20 to 120 kilometers of flying, 6 to 10 acts of stolen and returned vehicles and about 2 to 4 injuries requiring stitches; the more experienced ones a broken bone or two for their friends to envy on.

By this time you are a fully qualified and experienced driver who can be certified to take up to 4 people on the scooter and will be permitted to run small errands like getting vegetables and bags of rice or dropping people to the nearest bus stop. Such acts instill faith in your family members and you automatically get their buy-in to ride pillion (or pillions). You can safely assume that by now your whole neighborhood is obliged to ask you for any help that may involve moving people or objects on two-wheelers.

There are some amazing skills that come along with the art of balancing the two wheelers. Your visual range is automatically enhanced to spot the policeman at every corner. You obtain the power of NOX (once restricted to NASCAR racing) to suddenly boost your speed when there is a possibility of being checked for a license. Similarly, girls all of a sudden seem to want a lift and you begin to spend more money on petrol than on cinemas, chai and samosas. Of course with time, these will become regular features.

Depending on how lucky and talented you are, you can manage to drive with this ‘Do It Yourself’ driving license for several years. Of course it’s a different thing that you can get a genuine driving license for a few dollars more through your friendly neighborhood RTA agent. This usually means you will automatically be upgraded to drive a four wheeler as well! It’s so simple – if you can drive two two-wheelers, it’s but normal that you know how to drive a four-wheeler.

There are those unlucky few who believe that honesty is the best policy. They actually take time out to pay several visits to the local RTA and go through endless chains of tests, photographs, practical drives and identification of hieroglyphic geometrical signs (I think they are called road signs), not to mention computerized tests of late. Once they have the learner’s license, they follow all guidelines and learn to drive. Then after several rounds of visits, torture and insomnia, they obtain a precious card that entitles them to drive on the road. It is a lesser known fact that such drivers have very little practical experience and are not ‘community endorsed drivers’. Of course it’s but natural that such people are responsible for all the accidents that happen here… they don’t have the experience – that’s why!

Let me know if you took the Do It Yourself approach or the honest driver approach for your license…

Ah, and if you are still driving without a license, you can mention that too… without you where would we ever be!

PS: Yes, I do have a valid driving license

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While most of us hate acronyms (count me in too), there is something about “DIY” that I could not stop myself from writing about. DIY – Do It Yourself or Do It Your way can always be a zing thing if you like it.

Answer this – How many of us ever tried to do something at home all by ourselves without the need of professionals.  Trimming those

Image Courtesy: Scoutbase.org.uk

bushes in garden,  fixing the garden fence, painting a wall at home, tried to fix a leaking tap etc. I see very few hands raising (or rather very few heads nodding). Even I was very bad at doing that or never thought I can do it by myself.

Most of us don’t think of doing these by ourselves due to myriad of professionals available abundantly in India. We always have a the plumber or the mason around the corner available to fix things at a short notice.

Whilst I was away from home overseas, there were few problems at home and in usual way I was trying to search through yellow pages to find professionals. I found few and missed my heartbeat when I heard of the price they were quoting. This amazed me how the common man in this country is able to afford to such costs. This introduced me to Mr DIY, a common friend to all those common people. Come weekend, it’s a common sight to see people fixing things around or making improvements at home calling it as “DIY”.

I started wondering how good it could be to have such things done in India too..Ok ok I heard some of you saying, India has lot of population and getting such things done by a professional would not cost that much. I cannot agree more than with you all on this. It’s a different story in India, but you could consider it as relaxation therapy. This is just another way to find yourself what else you can do in life. Especially for your BPO and ITO professional, it is a good way to de-stress and make weekends interesting. If you are lucky you might lose a few lbs doing this

Give it a try. Get of those couches at home or your favorite lounge. I am sure you will feel different in a better way!

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