The Test

To get a certificate issued by any government organization, requires patience, pertinence and most important a very strong will to tide over whatever hurdles come your way. Right from starting with finding the location of the office to finding the officer in charge, one must exhaust all energy to finally hear of some errors or problems in one's case.

I had a similar such experience of wanting to get a certificate for which I had to take my daughter. So off we went together after the school hours and thankfully ! my daughter still had her 2 pony tails in proper condition. The rickshaw took us quickly to an old looking building and an even older looking office with just enough space for the person in charge to sit and handle the applicants' forms through an even smaller window.

Both, mother daughter duo enjoyed the discussion on the location and when our turn came, handed over the application and were expecting the receipt when lo and behold ! out came the error bug and so off we went to solve the problem. The nearest bank to solve the problem proved to be another platform for a new story. We took the elevator to the first floor and I waited for the door to open. But strange, it was taking quite some time. I was suddenly jolted from my concern when my daughter pointed to the open door behind us ! It was an elevator which had doors on the opposite side. What a fool we must have looked with our backs to the door !

On going inside, we found our waiting number was even larger than could be imagined and so we waited patiently to get our things done. As soon as our turn came the lady at the counter closed down for lunch and all that we two could do was have our lunch too ! But hats off to the punctual lady who really did not take more than 12 minutes, was attending to our request and in a jiffy, we were off to do our first work; which hardly took another 15 minutes or so.

The whole experience lasted for 3 hours and by the time we were seated in the rickshaw for the ride home, I was happy that we had managed to overcome the hurdles that were put forth before us by Almighty Himself and jokingly I mentioned to my daughter, "Hey, we finished the test !" This brought a smile on my otherwise tired daughter and who was more excited about the completion of test rather than the procedure of government application.

On and on we went about the whole experience of crossing over all hurdles and finishing the race. God had indeed tested her patience. But once the 'test of patience' had turned to a race, things suddenly looked bright for my daughter, she was more happy to have won the race and come out victorious. This made me wonder 'How nice it is to look at things from another angle altogether ?' This race suddenly made problems in life more easy to deal with. Its not the difficulties that bother you down for another view is that they are the same difficulties that gave you the tide of victory.