Driving

Driving was the best pass time that I indulged in at home. When the only machine you can lay your hands upon is an eight years old Maruti Omni, you don’t really mind the poor pick up or the upper limit on speed as long as you get to drive it.

Dad has finally started trusting me enough to let me take out the vehicle on my own. But I totally hate it when I have to drive with him sitting right next to me. He will tell me what speed to maintain, when to blow horn, when to switch the indicator on, when to slow down for an approaching speed-breaker, and this goes on and on. I am sure anyone who was taught driving by his dad faces the same trauma. At times I just feel like stopping the car, opening the door, and walking off. Walking off till he calls me back and promises that he won’t try to be ‘my eyes’ when I am driving. At times I wish I had the guts to say it to him, on his face; let him know that he was taking far too long to realize that I don’t need any of those instructions any more; that his constant updates on the scenes on the road totally kills the fun of driving; TOTALLY. I keep giving indirect hints each time I am annoyed but I guess he just doesn’t care.

I might have sounded like a horrible son in the above para. Oh I am sure I did. But I so much love this man! My dad! I was totally in love with him on my last day at home before I boarded the train to Howrah. Let me tell you what happened.

The family was going to some mutton party. I was driving. It was night time. I tried taking a U turn on a narrow road. I did not realize that the road was not wide enough for a U turn. So when I had turned enough, I needed to switch to back gear. Now this particular road is the busiest in town (of Deoghar). To top that, the fucking road was not on a plane. It sloped downwards. So the moment I would release the brakes, the vehicle would roll down. The hand-brakes of the car didn’t work. All this meant that I needed to kind of give a jerk backwards as soon as the road would get a li’l clear. As usual, Dad was right there on the front seat besides me. He looked out of the window and when assured that the way was clear asked me to take the vehicle a li’l back. I gave a jerk in the back gear. Bang!

The moment I put the back gear on, the car hit something. Someone fell down. Someone screamed. Man, I was so psyched out. I quickly changed to first gear and finally aligned the car on the road, and parked it. Some heated dispute followed but luckily the fat female who had fallen down from the bike being driven by a younger guy wasn’t very badly hurt.

I left the driver’s seat, taking it for granted that I would not get to drive anymore. Me and my bro went off to get cake for my birthday which I planned to cut once all of us were back from the mutton-party (no, this party had nothing to do with my birth day).

When I came back, I didn’t find dad on the driver’s seat! Amazing! My dad rocks! He just didn’t say anything at all. He was total cool. Oh, I can’t tell you how much I loved him at that moment for showing so much confidence in me, minutes after I had did that ‘bang’ act. I drove there after and the rest of the journey to the party, and later back home was a fun ride.

And yes, I did cut cake. It was almost 12 when we were back and by the time the candles on the cake were arranged, it already was 25th of July.

And here is a stupid max video showing Vatsap driving in Deoghar.