Ooooo Licenciya Aa Aa Licenciya....
Bollywood didn’t inspire me to write this piece,
its the Ooooo’s and Aaaaa’s I experienced, at the licence division office that
made me write it. They need to be credited for this creative outburst in a
Hausfrau like me.
This is how this intriguing story began...
When I got married 15 years back, I had illusions
of driving being a sport for women and a symbol of their independence. Soon
these illusions were struck by the harsh reality. Drive to survive.
Driving is a mandatory skill, not a sport. Your
yoga teacher would not start the class at a time that matches your husband’s
office time, the tennis, swimming, chess classes of your kids also refuse to
adhere to the 9 to 5 slot, not that the husband’s office timing are 9 to 5
anymore, they are more like 5 to 9 now.
The ‘picking up and dropping’ and ‘dropping and
picking up’ of kids, the grocery shopping, the play dates, your coffee time
with friends and of course reaching office on time, for the working women are
making women salves of a mechanical object called the car. And the car is
in turn your slave, it goes through the small Himalayan mountain ranges that
are all over Gurgaon and also stays sandwiched between monster SUV’s when you
are at the mall and finally it is enslaved to a plastic card called the
licence. Your whole life comes to stand still if your licence expires. Stand
still for those, ‘jinhe desh ki phikar hai...’ Unfortunately I am one of those.
So after ransacking all my cupboards and
drawers, I finally found my identity to be attached for a new Licence. A voter
ID, that was simple to locate as it was used a few days back to remind us that
we still have some control over the making our country a better place. Second
were some bank papers and credit card bills. Enough to identify myself.
Armed with all the proof of me being myself, I
walked into the mini secretariat, no, I was not shocked. I am an Indian and
used to seeing people bursting out of all the places, I also make that crowd.
After the long wait in the queue I reached the high and mighty lord of lords,
the clerk across the table who had to verify my details. He scanned through my
papers and was about to keep the file, when he noticed the biggest flaw in my
character, ‘ Yeh toh Jaipur ka licence hai’, a gleam came in his eyes, like a
Hyena who is about to pounce on a fawn. However morally strong the fawn is, it
gets scared of a Hyena. The hound has power. The file was flung back on
my face.
This flaw of mine made me stand in innumerable
lines and answering unfathomable questions. Giving up, I called an agent.
Giving up my morals made me sit up at night and curse the very fact that I had
to drive. In my mind I assured myself that I am giving money to a person who
will stand in the queue for me, do the formalities and make the file for me. I
was not paying bribe to any hyena there.
Once again I was summoned, this time, no queue,
but we circled from one room to another, the agent looked like a bribe himself.
Finally, it was time for me to get a photograph clicked. Hair sticking with
sweat to my face, I was ready to pose. Then the hyena roared...’this licence is
not on the net’. I wondered which site was I supposed to upload it? The shady
agent told me that its an old licence and so its not on the net, ‘so how is it
my fault, if I got a licence when there were no computers used in Government
departments?’ But I guess it is a big fault. I required a ‘no dues certificate’
from the Jaipur transport office.
Once again, after I got the ‘no dues’, I stood
to pose, but the Hyena giggled again, ‘I need the number of the person who made
this no due.’ I called up Dad in Jaipur, who fumbled with his glasses and
directory, found the persons number. ‘Yeh Hai, number,’ I gave it to the
disgruntled clerk. His disappointment was evident. He threw the file and stood
up to go for lunch. The fawn requested him to postpone his lunch by 2 minutes
and click her photo as her kids were coming back from school and she couldn’t
wait. Sai Baba blessed her this time, the photo was clicked.
Days passed into months. I forgot of the horrid
experience that every law abiding ‘general category’ citizen has to go through.
The conscience also allowed me to drive because my papers were legally in the
right hands and under process. But what a process...it took ages. No
licence came. As I offered no money. This was the law of the jungle.
To kill a hyena, a lion is required, so I like a
Hindi film heroine I called up my dad and narrated the ordeal. The Lion called
up his counterpart Lion, who in turn called up ‘so n so’...apparently the lions
and the ‘so n so’s’ don’t really know how much the fawns are troubled by the
Hyenas. Difficult to believe, but true in most cases, the Lions are generally
matter of fact people who don’t bother too much about the Hyena’s daily
routine. If told, they are ready to help.
After the roar from Jaipur, I got approximately
15 phone calls from the licence office, they located my file, requested me to
come for another picture as the earlier one was not ‘clear’, so I went like a
lioness, posed looking fresh and pretty for the hyena, who had converted into a
race horse, as this was his Lion’s guest, who was a genuinely honest person.
The licence was in my hand in flat 15 minutes.
A dull, depressive feeling came over me. What if
I was not acquainted with the Lions? As an Indian citizen, I was a fawn. The
licence held no validity for me now, if a spoilt government officer’s daughter
goes, she gets it on a platter and if a Housewife, who is teaching village
students, is doing more for the society goes, is shunted around. Is this
the country I live in? Is there a way to change this country? Does everybody
require a Lion here?
I wonder if all the officers, ministers,
celebrities and their children stood in that line, could they convert the
hyena into a race horse permanently. What say?
Thank you sir
Regards
Neha Srivastava
With regards,
