How to get driving license in Bangalore ?

Lot of people keep asking me how to go about getting driving license in Bangalore, hence I thought of making a full post of this. So here is the procedure for getting DL in Bangalore without giving BRIBES. And trust me it is not all that difficult. (Though this is relevant to Bangalore, guess should apply to rest of the country as well.)


Step1 -> Filling the Learner License Form,

You have to fill the following form. Along with the form you would need the following.
1. Age Proof (Passport, School Certificate, 10-12th Class certificate)
2. Address Proof (House rent agreement, Ration Card)
3. Three Photographs,

Step2 -> Giving the Learner License Test.

After you have filled the form you will have to go to your nearest RTO office, and give the written test. You can find your nearest office here. Ideally you should go sometime at around 10am.

Do the following,
1. Pay the fees at cash counter (30 rupees)
2. Get your documents verified
3. Give the written test.

Nothing is confusing there, once you go there you will be able to figure out.
Written test is itself very simple, there would be 15 multiple choice questions, and passing marks are 10. I guess anyone who has reasonable head on his shoulders should be able to clear it. But in anycase before you go you should take a look at this.

Once you clear the test you should be able to collect your learning license same day after 4:30

I went at 10am, and was able to finish everything by one. I think I went and collected my license later in the day.
Official website for learner's license is this.


Step3 -> Chill out for 30 days.

Step4 -> Getting the permanent License, filling the form and documents.

Well now you will have to fill the following form.

And whatever vehicle that you are carrying, take the following documents,
1. Vehicle Registration certificate
2. Insurance
3. PUC certificate

Step5 -> The D day, before the test,
1. Reach your nearest RTO office by 11
2. Buy a sticker with a big L, "indicating that you are learner" and put it on your vehicle, put on front and back to be safe. Dont forget this else you will not pass the test. You will easily get this sticker at some shop near RTO for 5-10 rupees.
3. Get your documents verified. There is a queue but it gets over very fast. Take the above mentioned documents you should not have any problem.

Step6 -> Giving the driving test.
1. Once you do above step, you will have to give driving test, there would be inspector down, and you will have to queue along with your vehicle. The traffic inspector will brief you about the rules, like giving indicators, and hand signals. And he will ask you to drive. ( a small circle or something)
Caution: He would not fail you until you drive real bad. But please ensure that you give all the right hand signals, very important, signals for left turn, right turn, for stopping and so on. Especially for the left turn, lot of people tend to ignore it.
Also do note that signal for left turn is not showing left hand, it is showing right hand by rotating the right hand by the wrist. This is the most common mistake that people make :)

Once done he will sign your documents saying PASS/FAIL

Step7 -> If you fail :( : (
Dont worry, sometimes it happens, I also failed the first time. My fame to fail was that I did not give hand signal while taking the right turn. Does not matter come next week to give the test, and you will PASS. But it is very unlikely that people fail, out of 4 of us who had gone for the license, I was the only idiot who failed, and it was fully my mistake :)

Step8 -> Yipeeeeeee :)
You can collect your license on the next day. Relief for twenty years.

Important Notes:
1. Second saturday and forth saturday are holidays for RTO so keep that in mind.
2. Never land up in RTO at 12PM types, because then you would get struck waiting in lunch time, and dont blame RTO employees for having lunch, they need to have lunch as much as we do and they dont have the luxury of having biscuits, coffee at will/ or even AC as we all do in our IT companies.
3. Take a book, it always helps.
4. Patience is the key, Smile works, tone of voice matters a lot. People working there are same as our next door neighbors, nice and good.
5. All the time you would be pestered by people who would claim to give you license if you pay them 1000 bucks, but DONT do that.
6. Carrying a pen, gum, stapler etc helps.

Surya Namaskar

Since last one month or so I have been religious doing Surya Namaskar. Got introduced to it in the Art of Living course that I did. And I love it, I think it is on of the best things that you can do in the morning. One round of surya namaskar hardly takes about 30 seconds, in five minutes you can do ten of those.

I wonder why did they never teach this in my school, and it was not only in my school, I asked couple of colleagues in my office and they also did not learn it in their schools. My school taught all kinds of fancy stuff like Karate and all, but nothing about this.

I know many people consider yoga boring and to some extent even I do. But this is so different, five minutes of surya namaskar, and you would feel so flexible and nice.

Am putting this nice video that I found on You Tube, in this video the lady does it more than once :). Actually surya namaskar has only 12 steps and you may find this useful.

Different prespective

"Before I joined Ananya in 1998, I was just wasting my time. I was in a children's remand home in Bombay, and then in a hostel in Hubli. I ran away and got into smoking and drugs, until one of my friends introduced me to this school. I started studying here. I have stayed here for eight years, I have given my 10th class exam, and now I am working in CAPS IT solutions. I work as an office administrator. I want to thank Ananya, and all the teachers, because whatever I am today is due to them. I want to encourage my other friends who are in Ananya to study", he says

"Dont you want to study more?" I ask him

"No, now I want to work for some more time, I want to get my younger sister married, after that I will study more, I want to learn software uncle, (he calls me uncle, even though I dont like being called uncle)"

"Do you not want to get married?"


"No uncle, I read in paper daily, husband wife fighting, so
I dont want to get married, first I want to study"

This was my excerpt of talking with one of the Ananya students on one of my visits there, I wanted to post this for a long time but never managed to do it.


PS: Ananya is a school for the underprivileged children in Bangalore. It is one of the most wonderful NGO schools that I have seen.

How much do we own?

"
As Alexander wandered around north-west India around the fourth-century BC, he queried a group of Jain monks on why they were not paying him much attention. He got the following reply:

King Alexander, every man can possess only so much of the earth's surface as this we are standing on. You are but human like the rest of us, save that you are always busy and up to no good, travelling so many miles from your home, a nuisance to yourself and to others!... You will soon be dead, and you will own just as much of the earth as will suffice to bury you.

"
I had read this in Prasanna blog long time ago, but this thing has struck on me. This kind of keeps giving me a warning bell, whenever I get angry at someone or I hold a grudge against someone. Because just things in life come and go, people come and go, relationships keep changing, cities keep changing, and what would just remain finally is some photographs, some mails, some gifts, some moments struck in memory. And most always or not, in retrospect, when I think of the above quote, I regret all the grudges/quarrels that I have had, all the times my self esteem has prevented me from telling sorry or making up, and all the times when I just did not care.

How Bangalore came in to existence..

This month for the issue of Sattva, I had to do a brief writeup on History of Bangalore. And it was very good, and interesting, doing the research. Considering that I have stayed over five years in Bangalore I hardly know anything about Bangalore history, and interestingly enough most of the people whom I asked in my office, who have been in Bangalore from quite some time did not know much.

Bangalore dates back its history to over thousand years, but it was a small village, as compared to Hampi and Srirangapatnam, which during their glory days were apparently great cities. I also read at various places that there is a folk lore that Bangalore owes its name to one of the Hoysala Kings, (which was as early as 11th century), who on his hunting expedition, lost its way somewhere here. Tired and hungry he came across a poor woman who fed him boiled beans, and the king named the place “benda kaal-ooru” (which in Kannada means town of boiled Beans), which was eventually colloquialised to “Bengalûru”.

Later Kempagowda who was one of the ministers of Vijaynagar formely found Bangalore, by building a small mud fort, and four watch towers in four corners of city, (they still exists, there is one in Lalbaug in the right picture)

But apparently Bangalore still remained a small settlement, until till about early 19th Century. When British defeated Tipu Sultan and got hold of Srirangapatnam, they set up their settlement there. But apparently it seems that the place was infested with lot of mosquitoes, and after ten years of many malarial deaths, British shifted their settlement to Bangalore, and start developing which we present day call cantonment area.

So Bangalore developed as two distinct settlements, one consisting mainly of British near Cantonment and the other one consisting of local population near the city area (what we call chipeth). Hence all this names of Infantry road, Brigade road, Residency road etc.

In course of doing all this research I also read this interesting book on Bangalore from Peter Colaco. Next time you get jobless in crossword take a look at this book.

I think that in schools you should have a simple chapter on regional history, which I guess is very important. It was not there in my syllabus in my schooldays. I grew up only learning about History in bigger perspective of India as whole.

It is funny now that Bangalore all of sudden has become a all new city to me. Each of the road and building I pass has a different story and meaning for me. Some day when I become more free I will try to pen down other things about Bangalore.