My first Driving Lesson

The board read, “Full to Final Driving School”. I entered, “Hello Sir”, “You!! I’ve seen you somewhere. Where, I don’t remember. Yes, You are the one, who used to follow our car with your bike, when that, what her name was…”, “Simran??” Oh fish, this reflex action screws me every time. “Yes, when that Simran was taking driving lessons.” Now I was on back foot, “Amm… Sir, that was not me. Actually my grandma used to tell me that, there are seven people with similar faces in this world, you have some misunderstanding.”

“OK!! So you want to learn to drive a car, hmm.” “Yes sir”, I said cheerfully, but I didn’t know that this is for the last time in the day when I am smiling. “Get into the car”, he ordered, I saw here and there and saw a Kandam Maruti 800, ‘so this is what he calls a car’, I thought. The moment I got in it, I started feeling claustrophobic.

He showed me the Steering wheel, (A) Escalator (Accelerator), (B) Birek (Brake), (C) Kiluch (Clutch) and Giyar (Gear). Then he said “Ok, today I’m gonna give you only A and B but, neither C nor Giyar and you have to operate the steering wheel as well.” All of a sudden he seemed to be the bride’s father of a cheap Hindi movie cribbing for the over demanded dowry and saying, “I’ll give you T.V. not fridge, Bed not dressing table, Scooter not Car and bla bla bla…”.

We started off well on that self accelerated vehicle (It seemed to me on first day), “Mod par horan (Horn) bajayengay, mudte samay haath dikhayengay…”, ‘so much emphasize on the gay while ending the sentence hun…??’, I thought.

Well, this real time driving experience in Indore gives you great confidence and judgment of the road which no simulator can teach you, I bet. How?? Through the narrow lanes, when you try to speed up, suddenly a cow which was standing on the footpath comes in front of you and shakes its tail, a dog sleeping in the mid of the road on listening to your horn’s sound stares at you and dozes, some bikers cross you waving with high speeds, some sabzi wala walks in front of you with his thelaagaadi and gives you such a look, and if not anything then the pedestrians walking amidst the lane with mobile phones or an auto rikshaw coming wrong side suddenly forces you to stand up on the brake pedal… and if the luck is on your side and you have an empty road to drive, then though you need to be skilled enough to miss the open man holes (Chambers) and to keep your car on the partial road available.

In between he was continuously telling me not to shake the steering wheel unnecessarily as I had seen actors doing in movies and suddenly he shook it vigorously and the car turned into a roller coaster for a while and a biker in left and a scooterist in right behind us lost their tracks completely. But, I should admit that, the instructor was as cool as an ice cube; coz he wasn’t moved by an inch at instances when I tried to give him heart attacks, such as taking the car so close to the divider or giving the pigs run for their lives and what not. Even once when I pressed the accelerator to an extreme he just gave me a dead cold look and said,"Shoemaker nahi banna hai apne ko.", "You mean Schumacher??", I confirmed.

Well! That was the first day, but after 4 days, now I am one of his quickest learners and so I can say that, “sometimes things are not that tough which you think them of being…”