Driving 'shiving'...hai rabba!

Memories of my last driving test are hazy and may need some digital enhancement. I was 18, full of dreams , in a huge dusty Ambassador ( dic: mammoth extinct creature - one of only two brands of cars in India back then) on a dusty road, with a driving 'examiner' beside me just making sure I knew the difference between a cow and a human and didnt rear end either. Passed on both counts - have yellow frayed licence to prove it.

Cut to now....Japan and I am a Born Again Driver after a whole new experience of passing the Japanese drivers licence test. I can say this now with dignity in my voice but last week mention 'menkyo' (licence) and you might have lost my pulse...

This is how the rite of passage goes...

Step 1: (after skipping several micro steps before of paper work,a written exam and so on) Check alamanac and wend your way to 'Samezu' for your driving test - one of those Tokyo areas "that drain your spirit away".A place where wires, railway lines and metal consume you and you feel Doomsday is nigh.

Step 2: Once in the License building you sense it is going to be the Temple of Japanese Bureaucracy (and turns out to be). A buffet of counters and signs in Japanese - nothing in the decor even remotely calming (atleast in Singapore there was 'Mr Bean' on TV screens while you waited in plush carpeted interiors of Govt offices- reassuring you that there are bigger bumbling idiots than you!)

Step 3: Examiner in white and blue uniform gives unintelligible war cry - in Japanese - believed to be a call to herd into Room 1. Ah the comforts of a herd when you have no clue what is being said! FYI- this is an all 'gaijin' (foreigner) herd - there to convert foreign licences. So collective Japanese vocabulary of group, on a good day, equal to - ten or less.

Step 4: More rapid fire commands - that noone understands again but - herd is getting smarter and just follows instinct by now. Collect order number and proceed to a small glass cabin outside overlooking the driving test course.Inside cabin, air redolent with fear, everyone furtively sizing everyone else yet feeling a common bond of 'we are all in it together'....

Step 5: Examiner,long pointer in hand earnestly (and politely of course) explains in loving detail - in pure Japanese- to a bunch of blinking gai-jins all there is to know about the course and its dos and donts. You think - they really want us to pass. Its the thought that counts.You are touched. Turns out that the language of driving is not that evolved and all it needs are basic sounds - hidari(left), migi (right), massugu (straight) and shingo (signal)...

Step 6: Alrighty. Vocabulary in place.One by one warriors take guard and zoom blithely around the deceptively simple course. Just one deadly S curve and a 'clank' ('crank' - 2 L's in a row) to really reckon with. But the way they all return - defeated with uncanny frequency - you wonder. Some who win (pass) yelp with joy and look at the fallen with pity. Some cry - probably not their first or last visit here.

Suffice to say the Japanese test is stringent and expects a tiny bit of perfection in your driving. Technique is paramount - no sloppy turns or chewing gums (yes).Folklore goes that noone passes at first attempt - but my dear husband did and that didnt go down very well with me (who failed).

I did get third time lucky - the first time the devil in white thought I didnt stop long enough at the blinking red 'shingo' and something about wide curves (not mine I'm sure), second time my quaking hands didnt make it past the S curve...

Now a proud owner of a Japanese licence I can tell you I am weighed down by the responsibility of it. I feel humbled.I drive one with the Road and its Rules - in sync with blind spots,yellow lines and deep lefts. The guys at 'Samezu Menkyo Shiken-jo' (Samezu Licence Test Centre) have tamed me and made me realise that there is driving (or 'averting disasters' as we are taught in India) and there is correct driving. They sure talk funny here...

Will think later about how to un-learn all this when back in India....