My UAE licence lapsed in 1998 soon after I left Dubai for India. When I returned to the UAE in 2009 I assumed that my old UAE licence could be renewed and that I need not appear again for the notoriously difficult road tests in the UAE.
Much to my horror I was told that since my licence had lapsed more than 10 years ago I would need to appear for a fresh road test. The road test was scheduled to take place at the RTA office located on the campus of the Emirates Driving Institute.
Not wanting to take any chances, I enrolled for 8 classes at the EDI – reckoning that my chances of clearing the road test at EDI would be higher if I took some driving lessons at the EDI.
Despite this, I flunked – or was flunked. The examiner indicated that I need to take another 8 classes at the EDI before I could appear for a re-test.
Fortunately in the re-test carried out a week later I cleared the re-test – and now am a proud holder of a UAE driving licence.
I cannot describe the relief that I felt on clearing the road test. At one point after flunking the 1st test (and I consider myself a pretty experienced driver having driven in different parts of the world), I had lost all semblance of self-confidence.
When a person believes that he is very good at something, and then somebody tells him that he is not good at it, then it does result in a crisis situation. This is true in life - whether in one's career or in simpler aspects such as driving.
All I can say is that I am a lot more humble now after this experience. Humble is good.
Much to my horror I was told that since my licence had lapsed more than 10 years ago I would need to appear for a fresh road test. The road test was scheduled to take place at the RTA office located on the campus of the Emirates Driving Institute.
Not wanting to take any chances, I enrolled for 8 classes at the EDI – reckoning that my chances of clearing the road test at EDI would be higher if I took some driving lessons at the EDI.
Despite this, I flunked – or was flunked. The examiner indicated that I need to take another 8 classes at the EDI before I could appear for a re-test.
Fortunately in the re-test carried out a week later I cleared the re-test – and now am a proud holder of a UAE driving licence.
I cannot describe the relief that I felt on clearing the road test. At one point after flunking the 1st test (and I consider myself a pretty experienced driver having driven in different parts of the world), I had lost all semblance of self-confidence.
When a person believes that he is very good at something, and then somebody tells him that he is not good at it, then it does result in a crisis situation. This is true in life - whether in one's career or in simpler aspects such as driving.
All I can say is that I am a lot more humble now after this experience. Humble is good.
6 comments:
A zig zag driver like me would never pass the test ....
write a blog on ur daily trip from sharjah to dubai for the classes . Sure that too will make an interesting article.
I think that if one is able to drive well and safe, the unruly congested and zigzag Indian roads, he very well deserves to pass out driving tests of any other country where, the roads are all straight, are at right angles to each other (atleast most of them) and are broader and less congested. By the way what daily trips to classes is 'Vandana' talking about.
When you said, "...you feel you are confident and good enough at something and somebody tells, you are not..", it reminded me of one of my recent encounters with one of the Hindi music clubs where they auditioned me and gave a feedback that I had a deep South-Indian accent and I need to improve a lot. Besides, I was confident about my punctuations in my writing ; however, I was disappointed when my current boss remarked that I need to read a lot.
I decided to read your blog to start with!
Thanks Kishore - all of us need some harsh criticism from time to time so that we take a big step towards improvement - otherwise we become complacent and start thinking we are great
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