The blood relative I call my mother has begun taking driving
lessons. After years of driving everybody around the bend and notorious backseat driving, she has now ventured behind the wheel. I watch the
proceedings with a certain amount of skepticism tinged with amusement.
For years, my mother claimed she was fully capable of
driving. This after learning at the most popular driving school in the hills I
call home.
This school boasts of an ancient Wilys jeep with just a single
gear. There is no ignition. They teach you to start it by rubbing two wires
together. There is no horn. The British probably stole it along with the
Kohinoor. Instead, students must stick their heads out and yell. There are no
wipers. One must stick the old neck out and drive during a downpour. They list
a raincoat as compulsory safety gear in the school’s manual. The instructor has
no dual control. In fact, he has no control. He chooses to nap while the jeep
careens all around town and over the hillside.
So you can imagine that a real driving school car with a
real instructor and real driving came as something of a surprise to my mother. She’s
learnt that cars can have as many gears as she has fingers on a single hand. Keep
the car on the road, not the kerb. “Ooops, sorry!” doesn’t quite cut it when
you nudge an old woman off the kerb. Don your seatbelt and not a raincoat when
you step into the car.
Not too shabby for twenty days of lessons, eh?
And before people begin chastising me for mocking a blood
relative, let me tell you – I have high regard for my mother’s decision to get
behind the wheel when others her age are getting on wheelchairs. Of even more
significance is the fact that my maternal side of the family would not qualify,
by any stretch of the imagination, for excellence in driving awards.
While the younger lot have driven their cars into hedges and
unwittingly parked their luxury sedans atop coffee bushes, my maternal
grandfather earned the dubious title of “The Flying Thatha (grandfather)”.
His cars ran out of clutch plates faster than his
house ran out of milk. He didn’t think it necessary to keep an eye on the road.
Being slightly hard of hearing, he’d twist his head all the way around to
listen to his passengers in the backseat while zooming up the winding roads. He’d
lean out his window and wave – with both arms – at the innumerous people he
knew walking along the road.
However, his moment of fame came when his brakes
failed and he flew off the side of the hill, crash-landing on trees in the
valley a 100 feet below. While the car was a total write-off, he emerged quite
unscathed with just one regret: “I lost my gum boot.”
What else would you expect from anyone who survived a
near-fatal crash?
