Driving License – A Privilege. Or, is it?

Road rage is becoming a common issue nowadays. Being trained at words and actions to be used against a person on a road is a “skill” few can master! Being stuck up in a jam is a nightmare. Add to it bearing with fights between vehicle users, OMG! It is another issue of major concern. I sometimes feel that driving through city traffic feels like being a soldier at war. Not like the present-day soldier who zip-zap-zooms with SM-Gs and bazookas, but like the olden-day soldier who wrestles his opponents down with nothing but a sword or a spear, albeit with a shield for extra aid. (Its more dramatic that way )

Ever wondered about a solution for all these dramatic tales? Following lane discipline? Traffic education? Speed monitoring? Heavy fines for offenses? … Naah! Of course, all these are viable options, but are not optimum solutions. Where then has the Lord kept the key to this mystery? Can you hear him say it? No? Read the title of the post again!

Yes! It is the driving license which holds the key in the making of quality drivers. That is because, it is the gate pass through the gateway to heaven (or hell! Whatever! Read : ROAD) for a driver. The pride with which a driver boards his drive is significantly enhanced when the officer in khaki attests his ability to take the traffic by its horns. How truthfully this is done is an open secret though!

Once, a highly placed police officer, in an interview to a news paper, said this – “Having a driving license in India is considered to be right, where as, it should have been a privilege!” I thought about this statement for quite a few days. I sorta analyzed the traffic situation and was reminded about my Optic Fibre Comm Prof saying that “Traffic should flow like axial rays inside an optic fibre. But, we have only traffic which goes like skew rays ” How true it is, I take the liberty of leaving it to the esteemed reader’s imagination.

If only we, as citizens, could suggest strongly to the Govt, the first and the most stringent process of screening drivers should be at the licensing stage itself. It may be quite difficult to check whether a driver is following the rules properly during the test, which is usually done on a short track. But, observe his(/her) habits through a 2-3 km course through traffic, and you’ll know all the finer aspects of his driving skill.

Unfortunately, many complications are present. There are a flood of license applications everyday. The formalities to complete, like application filling etc., take an awful amount of time and confusion. We do not have enough examining officers to take interest in every person’s driving. By sheer luck if we had the number, then the officers would either be in a bad mood because of continuous tests, or on leave due to side-effects of pollution (can also be read as ‘corruption’) . Lastly, it is the slack nature of the general public who want things to happen in a painless way. Ever heard someone saying “No pain, No gain” ? Well, I guess the someone is absconding .

We shall see how the coming times will be. After all, we are supposed to be the watch dogs of the Govt in a democracy. And remain only watch dogs. Never Bark!

Forbiddden Fruit

Whoever devised this phrase, deserves an applause for thinking high. It was a very good foresight on his/her part to have valuable insights into the future generation. I’m grateful to the serpent in the story to have played a very important role and for helping start off a race, which otherwise would have ended up with just two dumb humans. And in today’s world, i believe there are more serpents than one .

By the way, how many of you think that the the Forbidden fruit is actually being considered Forbidden nowadays? By the time a guy or a girl steps into adolescence (much earlier in a few miserable cases), there are close to infinite factors acting as baits for the fresh innocent preys. It is a noteworthy factor that people whom the young ones hold as idols, portray themselves as a bunch of perverts most of the times.

My experiments with myself have been enlightening not just to me, but a few of my close friends too . Seriously speaking, I felt a distinct change in the way I viewed the world, during my late (sweet)16s and early (sexy)17s. The excitement of people telling that I’ve grown up, was dying down and i longed going back to the days when I could play or be with anyone, anytime to my hearts content. (This is reflected in My Blogosphere). Digesting the fact that i can never, ever grow younger, there was no other choice but to have fun, however it may fit in.

It was an illusion of open secret in the society that “fun” in today’s world meant “girls”, if it was not alcohol, smoking and, indecent in common. What made it even more tempting to lay hands upon the forbidden fruit was that everybody were curious – Adam, Eve, Snake and the fruit also, wondering if the old story repeats. As for the answer to this curiosity, the current affairs, movies, media, Internet, email-forwards and sheer imagination should provide interesting answers.

Now, why am I beating up this topic when i too have experienced it? The answer is simple. I strongly feel that people are exposed to the concept of copulation in an unreasonable manner, which makes the very process appear sinful and forbidden to the immature mind. Where as, rationally speaking, it should have been every dutiful parent’s job to make the younger, ignorant generation think logically and understand that everything in life has a proper timing to occur. This probably was the part to be played by the much-disputed ‘Sex Education’. Unfortunately, due to illogical fears of perverting the young minds, the idea met its grave.

Nevertheless, in blogosphere, I suppose we are free to discuss this sensitive matter without bothering about any social hurdle. I wrote this post not to condemn the way this society is, but to look for remedies from my blog-companions, which could solve the problem efficiently and avoid sexual frustration (at least) early in Life. I believe that the remedies-to-be-stated will help anyone who wishes to be a worthy parent.

At Last…!

Finished my Microwave Communication (MC for short) paper today! The first thing that i did on seeing the paper was counting how many marks i can attend to. Finished! Then I had to set the time frame. Finished! Oh i forgot. I prayed to god to help ONLY me to the max. To all others… not as much as me. Now starts the race. The cap is down, nib on paper, answer in mind and imagination to support it. GO! All the time, i was cursing the paper-setter for being so student-unfriendly! At the same time, i wished that the man valuating my script was some old prof fond of students. Can’t help, it happens in engineering.

Midway, I just woke up and realized that I’d wasted one hour on the first question itself! (We are to answer 5Qs of 20 marks each). Now, that’s bad. So i made a small prayer, hoping that evaluators be given with an ‘any handwriting analyzer’ to understand what I’ll be writing for next two hours. The race just got interesting.

Sometime later, i was satisfied with my progress, but had to halt to think about an answer. I thunk, thunk, and thunk about it and finally started off with a song to relax myself. WOW! it was such a soothing experience. It was one of my favorite song and i got engrossed in it. Later, I was able to recollect what all had occurred in the movie after the song too. Cool! I sure have a good memory!

There was some disturbance in front of my eyes (i was open eyed) and realized that someone moved out of their seat. So, was it interval time? I was feeling hungry and was thinking about having a quick snack. WHAM! It struck me then. I was not in a theater after all! The person before me had finished with his paper so fast. I saw my watch. There were only 45 min left and i had more than half of the bloody answer script to complete.

That was too much. I got frustrated. ENTER WAR MODE! I thought of Adolf Hitler for a second, drew some very important inspiration, and started it – THE BLITZKRIEG ATTACK. Word after word, line after line were completed with blinding speed (i wonder if my pen is still alive after withstanding it). Pages rolled by and finally…, there i was spent, tired, partly angry for my trip to the movie, but rejoicing it more, and lastly, felt like being on cloud 9^(9^(9^(9^(9^(9…

PS: Its gonna rain heavily tomorrow. Because I’ve to come down from the clouds and give ITC (not Indian Tobacco Company… its Info Theory n Coding )