Driving mad!

Till recent past I was never enamoured of cars. Generally I see them as another mode of transport and always assumed that they come attached with drivers. I never bothered to think about driving one, let alone owning one. All those people who go ga-ga over cars, I couldn't understand them. It was a cultivated hobby, I thought. F1 racing too, I felt (and continue to feel) was mildly disinteresting as there is not much scope in change of fortunes for drivers during the race. Too much depends on 2 seconds wasted in a pit-stop and that's it.Actually I used to think that cars are a criminal waste of precious natural resources. Having a bike which itself has one seat vacant, I harboured no desire for a four-seater.To such a person, me, it dawned suddenly last month that learning car driving might be a good venture. It turned out to be an adventure, later on. First I approached a sidey driving school(!). One old man was the master. He spoke chaste Malwi or Hindi, I couldn't fathom. And my distance from that language, I've already blogged about. It was a frustrating experience for both of us, in his Maruti 800 with more than 800 dents. I couldn't get him. He couldn't make me understand neither the language nor the driving skills. He won't take his hand off the steering wheel, and his leg off the brake pedal on his side. Slowly he started reducing the driving time for each session. When it came to be about a very long 10 minutes I stopped going to him. But I, not being one to let go things that easily, found another guy, a young boy to teach me driving. He managed to convey things in mauled English, things that I should do, if I was not to be hauled up for man-slaughter. But disastrous things continued to happen. When riding a bike, I go through traffic like water going through sand. So I found it difficult to keep the car's bulk in mind. Every day, I'd come dangerously close to hitting a person, nearly always a girl. And I'd get verbal abuse in Hindi. I didn't bother such profanities during my initial stint with the old man, as I could not understand. But this young guy strived to teach me Hindi too. Once somebody'd shout at me, he'd start, "Sir, Do you understand what "Bewakoof" means?" I'd with my teeth clenched would grunt out a "No". He won't stop. He'll rub it in, "Sir!, Bewakoof means Idiot". And wanting to catch the import of it, he'd repeat that two more times. I have learnt a few other words too. Every time on my return home, my flat-mate'd enquire, "Today what kind of abuse did you receive?". My driving master, the young guy'd take the car through bylanes and market thorough-fares where idle people, cows and dogs will stare at me and the crazy car (or the crazy me and the car).Then he began to ask me to drive on the highway too. The Agra-Bombay highway goes through our city and the traffic there is insane, to put it mildly. After some ten or twelve sessions I begged a sabbatical off him. I'm due to continue it from tomorrow. God bless young things venturing out for early morning tuitions. :-)
I dedicate this blog (too much MTV does it) to my friend N, who always talks about cars and driving alone on a highway for a long stretch. That is her dream.