Driving??… Me??… Crazy!!

Everybody loves to Drive… may be a car or a scooty or may be somebody up the wall.
Well, in my case the last option may be is true but certainly not the first two.
There are reasons for that!! No, not for the first one but the latter one!! 😀

I mean, driving a vehicle and me are like n’er the twain shall meet!

Well, being the first child, you get a very protective environment. And on top of that, if you are shy, studious kinds and a bit introvert, driving never features in your list of things to learn. Or may be I knew my potential and capabilities (P&C) even when I was a kid!!

So, it was the bus from the Dad’s office which picked and dropped me (and my siblings among other kids of the colony) from school and then later in College. And at other times, it was either Dad or 2-3 friends who had Luna or Scooty, would take me around.

Some years later, it was my 2 younger sisters’ turn to do the needful. And they graduated from the bicycle to the Scooty to the car, very soon. While, the time stood still and it froze for me at the bicycle.

Mom and Dad used ‘Saam, Daam Dand Bhed’, regarding pushing convincing me to learn driving a car, well not literally but you know what I mean. (Parents are capable of a lot of things!….That’s experience!) And I was clear, driving is not my cup of tea. Somehow, I knew it without driving ever!

Dad believed that I could do it, so he enrolled me in a nearby driving school. That was the year 1995. I religiously sat behind the wheel for 15 days. I don’t remember, if I did anything other than holding the steering wheel, the Clutch and Brake being in the control of the instructor.

I finished my course and never even dreamt of driving our own car. And never ever sat behind it’s steering wheel. You see, I knew my P&C.
My parents gave up and passed the baton to KG.

KG, very soon understood it loud and clear that driving and me are like cheese and chalk.
How, you may ask. Well, he got ample number of trailers…
Like… Whenever the speed is over 40, I hold the handle on the side door so tight that the day is not far off when there would be cracks appearing on the handle.
Or… Whenever a vehicle passes our car a bit closely from the left, I involuntarily cringe and move to the right, as if that vehicle would not only brush past me but take parts of me along with it!!
And needless to tell how KG feels at all this!!

But, then I sat behind the wheel again in the year 2006, this time again to learn driving from yet another driving school. And the reason for doing so was very profound.
A transfer to a new city + loads of shopping – driver + a busy KG = No work done at home.
So, with determination and a strong resolve, I joined a D-school.

I guess, I learnt some things there.

So, after completing the course, I volunteered one day to drive our car. KG was very very skeptical but he gave me the car keys without a word.
I sat behind the wheel, and I don’t know what I did, but the car made a big, unusual, unheard of, loud Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr noise, which scared the hell out of me as well as our baby. A loud SHILPAAAAAAA from KG and I was out of the car in a second!

And never again I thought/dreamt/wished/ aspired to drive a car.
And drive up the wall?? …you know it!!

Till….

…To Be Continued!

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