A day at the RTO and my first time driving..in INDIA! whoohoo

Yes, I do have a newfound appreciation for the DMV after spending nearly 3 hours at the RTO in Mumbai yesterday though truth be told I was very much content with the fact that the ladies were given special treatment by not having to wait in any of the lines and got all their paperwork processed before the men folk (right on!) lol. This being a drastic change for me since it's all about first come first serve in the States no matter what your gender. The order in which paperwork is completed is simple enough. You first fill out a form that the driving school provides, get it signed by an official at the RTO following which a picture of you is taken for your driver's license. Since the men and women were asked to cue up in separate lines I noticed that not one of the women smiled while their picture was being taken. Each time a picture would be taken I would literally want to scream out to them 'SMILE'!! Why on earth would anyone want to look so morose and down while they were being photographed. Beats me! So we get done with the pics to move onto the last and final leg in our journey to acquiring the learner's permit, the "TEST" portion where they assess your knowledge of the various road signs/alerts etc etc. We're assigned numbers and are then made to enter the "test" centre. You grab your spot based on the number you're given and we were repeatedly told that only 4 mistakes out of 10 were allowed. There's a screen with the test questions in front of us which is hooked up to each of our desks. Questions are answered by pressing either the red, yellow or green button. Amazingly enough the test begins with the proctor giving us the answer to each and every question while each time saying that if any of us fails we'd have to come back the next day. LOL. Sure enough there were loads of snickers and giggles in the test centre. I was so surprised especially since I had actually taken the time out to study for the damn test. In any case I did pass so all's well that ends well!!:-)