Tales of the Human Kind

The talk at lunch table today was about women drivers. From quoting first hand experiences to discussing e-mail forwards (I am sure almost everyone has received one of these- a car at the mostwierd place and position and a women standing right besides it or sometimes even in it.) everybody hadsomething to say. I being a driver myself was a little indignant about all the baseless(at least that is what i thought) accusations and vehemently tried to oppose all the claims. However, one person's recount of his girl friend's driving testdid succeed in putting a blemish my until-now-strong opinion (now a person would not be subject his girl friend to ignominy of being laughed at by colleagues if it were not true right?). Although i did judge my colleaguea little bit (this is a women's right) for revealing what must be the among the poor girl's best kept secrets, i couldnot refrain from quoting it myself here.
Well if u are a non-indian reading this blog, let me give you a bit of a background first: In India, the carshave the steering wheel on the right side. Now this lady having learnt driving goes for herdriving test in order to obtain her driving license. She demonstrated her driving abilities to the instructor and he was pretty impressed. But just as she was getting her hopes up came the clincher- The instructor asked her how she would indicate a left turn. Pumped up by her driving success she replies ever so confidently "I shall stick out my left hand!"
Needless to say that the entire table dissolved into peals of laughter and I had to defend my driving even harder, from the jovial bantering that came my way, all the men on the table encouraged by the successof the story.

After lunch I have the habit of reading the newspaper(well I know most people read it in the morning but its not like the paper become stale in the afternoon).There was nothing much happening; if anything, things were in fact not happening. The new Bangalore airport was not functioning smoothly, a segment of people called Gujjars were not getting the backwardcaste status they are demanding and a big-shot of Vodafone not being with them anymore. But amidst all these unhappening news, there was somethig that caught my attention. The headline screamed "China Eases 1-child policy for quake hit". The article went on to say that those families who had lost their only child inthe quake could have another child. Bu they stillneeded the of the local government office to have a second child. Now I do respect chinese policies and sincerely sympathize with the quake victims, but I wonder what the application process is like. So do you walk up to the official and say "We want to make a baby, and we need your permission?" I'm really interested to know how THAT conversation would go.