My car will be eight years old on December 16th. I call the NTA well ahead for a ?fitness? appointment. Come on the 7th they say between 9am and 2pm. My number is 65. I arrive at Forest Side at mid-day. Nobody told me they are closed for lunch until 12:30. Never mind. I have brought lots of things to read. I queue. For one hour. When I get to the entrance gate, the policeman on duty seems to find it amusing that I don?t know I have to pay the 100-rupee fee before having the test.

Go over there, he says, park your car and queue at the window. But the car-park is absolutely full. I park on a double yellow line near the gate and go tell the policeman so. No problem, he says helpfully. I queue at the window for half an hour and pay my fee.

My next difficulty is how to get back into the queue [of cars] without going all the way to the beginning again? No problem, says my friend the policeman. Get in line behind that bus over there and I will let you in. But when I try to get behind the bus I find a high concrete kerb and a metal barrier separating where I am from where the bus is! Maybe the policeman hasn?t noticed this?

I consider giving up the whole thing and going home but instead double back through the no-entry sign and sneak into the queue. This is where the seriously hair-raising part of the afternoon begins!

I have to drive uphill over a sort of metal obstacle, which is difficult in a car which happens to be low-slung. Coming down with a crash on the other side, I realise that I may actually damage my rather well-preserved car in this ?fitness test?? Then I have to steer the car over an inspection pit with my wheels just millimetres away from the edge, or so it seems to me?

Fortunately a nice young man makes signs to me not to get too close. I ask him if cars ever fall over the edge. Oh yes, very often, he answers cheerfully, this is a very dangerous place (I don?t know if he?s teasing me or not!). Is it your first time? he asks. I answer yes, and the last time too? He finds this very funny.

I sit in the car and wait. For about twenty minutes, until someone comes and smilingly waves me on. But you haven?t even looked at my car, I protest, disbelieving. No problem. The car is fine. [I have in fact washed it before coming so it?s nice and shiny.] I think: Wonderful - I?m going home. But oh no I?m not! That would be much too easy?

They tell me once again to park the car and queue at the window. But which window? There are so many! Helpful members of the public tell you where to go. If they tell you right, you are lucky?

Inside this window some smart young men in khaki uniforms drift around holding bundles of those pink cards known locally as ?horsepower?. A bunch - not a queue - of people is waiting outside. Some push a bit, some smell of drink. [Don?t blame them for this - I could do with a drink myself by this point?]

By now there is not another woman in sight but I am, fortunately or unfortunately, too old for this to matter much? I wonder out loud what we are waiting for and someone tells me they will call out our car numbers. After which presumably something else will happen. Suspense.

It is by now two o?clock. Eventually I get given a piece of paper to take to yet another window. It is collected rather rapidly this time by a young lady who makes a sudden swoop and takes everybody?s bit of paper at once.

Now I must queue for my fitness, she says. Could this actually be my last window? Same procedure, bunching not queueing, but at long last I get close enough to think I can see my own pink horsepower on the top of the pile on the table.

I allow myself to start hoping. And, at ten minutes to three, it happens. I have my fitness! For two years! I can go home!

<B>PH</B>