The first day I went to my driving school’s office I was disappointingly nonchalant. You’d expect at least an ounce of emotion- eagerness, happiness, nervousness- anything at all! I guess I had too much on my mind that day owing to a bad experience with a loser. If I ever harboured any shade of sentiment, it had nothing to do with driving. Little did I know that I’d get so puzzled by the whole clutch, gear, accelerator thing that I wouldn’t have much on my mental agenda than to survive the day and not to kill any unlucky person who comes in my way!
The first few days at the institute were hideously boring, it took me all the effort that I could muster from the depths of my snoozing soul to keep my eyes open in an attempt to seem interested, wait a second, whom am I trying to kid? In an attempt to seem awake- now that’s what is even remotely close to true! Thanks to small mercies that got over in a couple of days... and then came along the simulator days! Yea I know a couple of you might be snorting and wondering out loud, “what in the world is that? Military training?” Take a chill pill people; with the kind of driving talent I possess, a simulator is something sent down by the angels. After two days on the simulator dodging(rarely) and killing(often) virtual people who lived in the screen of my simulator and never missed a chance to suicide by running into my virtual car, my could-have-been driving instructor, Praseena ( or was it Praseetha? ) decided that since there was a power cut and the simulator wasn’t functioning she’d let us drive. DRIVE. Wasn’t she happy with the number of reel people I killed? Did she want to see real people disfigured or worse dead?
I nudged my sis into the driver’s seat. Yea big sisters are always there to save the day! She’d drive, the power would be back and I could get back to smashing virtual folks, right? WRONG! She did a decent job and before I knew it was my turn to grab the steering wheel... dude, was I nervous! Praseena sat there smiling like someone had stuffed a scale into her mouth and said ‘start’, I gave her an even wider sheepish smile... what the hell was I supposed to do?
I asked myself to take it cool. No Lavanya, it is no big deal! All the people on the streets, that nut from your 12th math tuitions, if they can drive, you too can! The key is to relax, remember the key, the key, the key. And before I knew it my left hand turned the key and switched the car on. Now that wasn’t hard, was it Lavanya? In a leap of pride that I can only compare to a parent's whose child just won the final round of the spelling bee comp, I took my legs of the clutch and break, unaware that unlike the simulator the car moved on clutch. That’s when I saw all my ancestors and the 5000 Indian Gods in a flash, the car was moving and it would soon crash into my driving school, how ironic that I would wreck the institute that taught me ( or thought they did) to drive with their very own car. I did I what I thought was most sensible then, I ducked under my steering wheel and screamed ,“AMMAAAAAAAAAAAAA “. God came down in the form of Praseena, the nutter who taught her students zilch and had conveniently ignored the need to let the student know that this car ran on clutch, pressed the break, turned to me and said, “Is there any need to get scared?” Nope, none at alone, I’d crash into the building, ruin the car, kill the tutors and myself. How bad could that be? Naah, nothing to worry about! How bad could the death of around 10 people be? India is an over populated country after all! Frankly I don’t remember what I did after that, but from what I heard from my mum I drove around the building and parked the car in its place.
3 more days in the simulator, 3 more days with us trying to figure how to drive the virtual car by killing just a decent amount of virtual humans while Praseena either flirted with other instructors or whiled her time away, chasing the path of a housefly with her eyes.
And then the big day arrived, since Praseena ‘could’ not ‘teach’ us because of her ‘busy schedule’ we got a new instructor! The new guy actually taught something! Now that we were going to ride on the roads we were in a serious need of a real tutor. My sis drives pretty good, and I haven’t killed anyone yet, touchwood, all thanks to our new instructor.
The first day on the road, I scared a fisherman by driving right at him and stopping just a nanometre away. The power of a smile, I thanked god for making me a girl, if there is one thing that girls can do better than boys it is to smile and stealthily slip out of trouble’s treacherous hands. The fisherman’s expression turned from fear at being almost hit, to anger, to calmess, to delight. Of course he’d forgive the helpless girl who was learning to drive, even if she’d almost squashed him!
The fisherman was followed by a couple of school kids and then a middle aged woman- naah! Smiles don’t work on aunties. Hard luck. Am I the only one who drives backwards without using the reverse gear? I’ve made a lot of embarrassing errors, like getting the engine to switch off in the middle of a(well many) busy junction(s), for starters. But hey, I’m improving! And the next class (9th day) I won’t scare any person off their shoes (hopefully, that is..lol)
After all, tomorrow is another day.
Hahaaa.. Nice experience and funny.. :)
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