After legally driving car for about eight years, I finally thought I should also possess a driving license to ride a Bike (Motor Cycle with Gears as it is called in RTO). Well ok, most of you would be thinking why after eight years when for most, the bike license comes first. When I turned 18, the only vehicle we had was car so got a license to drive a car (license here means permit from Govt. of India, it took 6 more months to get permit from mom). But recently my long time friend and fellow roommate Kalpak bought a shining new Pulsar 200, so thought I would also go with him to get the license.
Procuring the license is not as simple as passing HSC examination. Well that depends on what way you go about passing both! No comments about passing HSC, but getting a license have two major ways.
1. Fire and Forget: This is quite simple. Go to RTO agent or
2. Get Fried: This method is of toil and hard work! Here you yourself have to go to the RTO to get it done.
We made a choice, we will not grease no palms, we will get our license in the right way, we chose to get fried.
The first step in getting fried in the RTO is getting a Learning License. I call this Shallow fry! Got the form from the “Inquiry” desk. The moment we started filling up the form, a guy came to help us out. RTO, I guess was on the cost cutting spree, because the form was so faintly printed that it took us some time to realize it was in Marathi. The guy was used to filling those forms; he was just pointing at the dotted lines and telling us what to write there. He was fast, we were faster, we would fill up forms faster that his instructions! The form has a place where we had to get a doctor certificate of our health. The guy took us to the doctor just outside the RTO compound. The doctor asked me my name, asked for a birthmark and with no other check up, declared us fit to drive. This was coooool! This Doc was damn good, how did he know we were fit and fine to ride a bike. Must be some super natural power!!! Doc asked for Rs30 each from us and the guy who took us to the Doc vanished! ‘Hmmmm…he was doctors agent after all’ we said to each other. We submitted the form to a Sub Inspector for the learning license test, that’s when we realized that we had filled up the form all wrong. We had written our current permanent license numbers at the field which said “reason for cancellation of earlier license (if any)”, but luckily the SI didn’t realize this.
Once test was done, we were told to go to a room for further proceedings. Here to our surprise, they scanned our finger print and took a digital photograph! Shock of my life! RTO has gone the tech way! Biometrics in RTO!!!! Still discussing about the biometrics in RTO, we paid the license fees and left!
One month after the Learning license issue, we reached there to get our Permanent learning license. All ready with the bike and everything. We both filled up the Permanent License from, in English this time, and went for the test. Gave the test and passed! The SI there told me to give test for a four wheeler too. I told him I am in possession of a LMV (Light Motor Vehicle) driving license since eight years, to which he said I had filled up wrong form. The noble officer told me to fill up the right form and duly signed the same without any problems. It was extremely hot that day, sun in full form. We had been in the sun for last couple of hours but we were not complaining, were happy that we both passed the test and will be going to get new licenses in short time. We were told to go to a window to get a signature from another officer. He signed my form without a word, but asked Kalpak few questions and asked him to come back after an Hour. Once that was done we went to another window to pay the license fees. It’s a law of life, which states, in government office, you have to jump from window to window to get your work done. Proving and verifying the law, we jumped from window to window and finally reached the right window where we paid up the license fees. We submitted the form in the next window.
The lady at the computer tried taking another set of biometric samples of us, which the computer did not allow her to do. She called her senior, who faced the same problem. That’s when we suggested that they could carry on with the samples they took a month before and use the same ones. The Senior Clerk there was amazed at our intelligence and said that’s how it would be done! We successfully submitted the form!
A week later, my mom went to collect the license. That’s when she was told that they had not received the form at all! As per the earlier rule, mom jumped again from window to window to search for the form and finally got it. That’s when a clerk there told her that on of the forms was missing and she has to fill that up. This form was needed because I already had LMV license and the new license would be endorsed with both, LMV and MCWG. Mom promptly filled up the form and submitted it to the right window. After a couple of days, Mom when to collect the license, which to her surprise was given to her without any problem.
Mom triumphantly handed over the new license to me on the next weekend when I went home. Checked the new license, awesome!!! It was a smart card with a microchip embedded in it. My digital image on the card and all. Superb I said! Every trip to the RTO, getting fried in the Sun and jumping from window to window was worth it!
I started reading the license in details and that’s when the hell broke loose.
I could not believe my eyes!
It said “CALSS OF VEHICLE (license to drive): MCWG”
They had forgotten to endorse my LMV license on this new license!!
Sigh!!! Get fried again!!!!!......
2 comments:
Hi
Its good you finally got the license.
Sometimes people leave their hopes and continue with public transport.
Regards
Nitin
Keep up the good work.
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