To drive a car

After 15 years of  breaking into a nervous sweat at the thought of driving, one fine day just like that, I could drive. With confidence.

You read that right. It took me 15 years.

Why was I not being able to drive all these years? And what triggered the eventual triumph? I have been thinking about this. I thought it may be useful to list out the possible answers to both questions. 

Why was I not able to drive for so many years?

1) The start: 
The first ever driving school I went to in Adayar, Chennai in 2002. They were no different, I reckon,  from ANY other driving school in this country. Not a single driving school in India cares to teach you. They insincerely sit through a weeks driving lessons and then get you a drivers license irrespective of how you perform. They simply ask you to pay extra to get it if you fail the test. So, I had my licence with just a rudimentary understanding of how to get a vehicle to move.

2) Soon after this I shifted cities:
 I no longer lived with my parents to be able to practice and learn on their car. (lucky them!)

3) A rebuke from my grand dad: 
When my appupa (that what i called him) let me drive his Wagon R while he sat next to me, on my next visit to Trivandrum, I made him very nervous. By the end of that ordeal, he declared, half joking that he was amazed I had got my driver's license. He was right but that statement left a lasting impression. More than was necessary or intended. 

4) I scratched my boyfriend's car:
 About 4 years later, I had a boyfriend who bought a new car. I was pleased that I finally had access to a car now to re-learn driving. The first time I tried taking his car out I reversed it into a pile of pavement blocks or something and scratched it. It was a brand new car. My boyfriend did not shout. Neither was he able to say that it was ok. His silent disappointment  impacted me deeply. Again, more than was necessary. Now, not only was I scared to drive, I was also nervous about driving someone else's car.

5) I scratched my own car: 
Still more years later, when I started to earn enough, I bought a car. Now nothing could stop me. I only had myself to answer in the event of minor mishaps. The first time I reversed this car out of the garage, I scratched one side of it on a protruding beam in the wall. Even though it was my own car, I felt so stupid and worthless, I got internally paralyzed. This was 2010.

6) It became a pattern: 
Every few years I would muster the courage to take the car out but it was always a torturous experience. e.g in the middle of slow moving traffic, the car would move backwards and I wouldn't know how to re-start while making it move forward. Similarly, on a crowded street, once with no sense of space, my car touched people walking on the sides. One of them followed me to my building to yell at me. I was driving very slow and hadn't hurt anyone as such but this one man was understandably offended. Another time, on a narrow lane, I knocked down a parked bike, gently - I drove very slowly (Small mercies!). And then there were the innumerable instances of the engine stopping in slow traffic, when I would get severe performance anxiety just to re-start, which only grew with the sound of all the impatient honking behind me. As if someone was dying!  

7) Insincere, sexist driving teachers: 
I periodically hired driving teachers. About 5-6 spread across all these years. Without exception, they talked to me like they are talking to an idiot. Maybe they sensed that it's what I thought of myself too. Also, the blatant sexism - the expectation that as a girl I would not really get the workings of an automobile. One teacher even acted inappropriate. He casually placed his hand on my thigh to demonstrate the pressure with which I should press the break. I remember I paid him his 500 INR that he charged for each class, at the end of the class before telling him to stop classes. I did not have the courage to confront him about his behavior. This was years before the #metoo empowerment. But the next day I did, over the phone - I shamed him (hopefully). He apologized and said in a mix of hindi and english that he did not mean to hurt me. "Hurt" was in English. Some fantasy! To imagine that a woman struggling to learn to drive would not be "hurt" by his glaring harassment. 

8)This is turning into a list of all my mishaps. But here's another: 
This one time I hit a parked SUV while trying to park next to it  - the owner happened to be looking down his window at the time and shouted out a menacing threat. When I stuck my apologetic head and looked up apologizing and trembling like a leaf, he softened a bit. He said "ok reverse now!!" But I was paralyzed. I requested him to please come down and help. He did. Some people gathered and they all looked at me like a menace to society murmuring things like "why do they take the car out when they can't drive". Some aloud and the rest in their minds. It sure felt like that. 

Then something changed.

It took me another 4 years to try driving my car again. I forgot to mention that in the hope that I WILL start driving it someday, I maintained my car in good condition through all these years. I got is serviced bi-annually and also got the engine revved up every other day. Anyway, this time when I tried driving again, something was different. I didn't know that the metamorphosis I had undergone in the past year was this profound. I realized it only when I started driving - with the confidence and control of any average driver on the road. Which brings us to the second question.

What triggered the eventual triumph? 

1) I achieved self-respect:
Looking back, I can see that i didn't always have it. Whatever I am, I am deserving of respect and permitted to make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Happens to the best of us. And still some people live to start honking relentlessly the minute someone else has erred on the road. No honking jackass can unsettle me anymore. 

2) I learnt to be unfazed by the world:
Very rarely do people mean the things they say and do - even the acts of kindness and love, much less mean, hurtful behavior. Very very rarely do people know what they are talking about. I have started to take everything with a pinch of salt - the compliments and the insults both. 

3) I want to impress no one (except me):
In case you are wondering...no, I am not impressed with me. I am always working to try and impress myself. But no one else. Whether they swoon with appreciation or whether they find me utterly dull. 

4) I have started solving my own problems:
When I need guidance I seek experts in the corresponding fields. If it is emotional/mental - then a psychiatrist. If it is fitness - then a professional trainer. If it is car maintenance, then official automobile journals etc. But I do not let gushing advice from loved ones effect me. Simply because they care for me, does not mean they know everything. 

So, when I decided to give driving one last shot, I didn't tell anyone about it. I spent a day calling various driving schools in my neighborhood - zeroing in on one that seemed to have the right approach and attitude.

This time, instead of putting myself up to the test, I found that I was putting the teacher up to scrutiny. I took care to choose the teacher. And indeed he is the best I have come across. It was adult-adult interaction with mutual respect and commitment. 

He was the first teacher to make me take the car out of the driving spot and to park it back in the end. NO OTHER friend/ pro teacher or relative ever taught me this. I don't see the sense in not bothering with that. It's the MAIN lesson for any student of driving!! 

This teacher seemed to have a syllabus charted out. Each day a new lesson:
1) curvy roads
2) inclines
3) curvy inclines 
3) heavy traffic
4) gear shifts - all the way to top gear and back. 
5) narrow lanes 
6) flyovers  
7) frequent speed bumps 

A few weeks after the classes were over, even after being fully paid off, he called me once simply to check on my progress - to confirm that I had finally become comfortable driving as he had promised I would. If that isn't sincerity, I don't know what is!

But why did it take me 15 years to find a Sanjay sir? Perhaps, it was needed that I learn to drive my life to be able to drive a car.