Driving ..

Driving on Bangalore roads is at times a dangerous thing to do. What if you are in a car with someone who is just learning to drive ? Well, need I say more ? :-)

I had promised one of my closest friends that I would let her drive my car. The wonders of the Indian driving system has ensured that she already has a valid 4 wheeler driving license, without ever having driven one :)

She was very confident. Perhaps a touch misplaced confidence  ........

It was a thrilling experience to say the least !! The kind of thrill you face when you jump out of the plane and your parachute fails. Or the kind you get when you realize the oncoming headlight which you thought belonged to a bike is really that of a tanker lorry with one light non-functional:-)

After 30 minutes of intense near misses, missed braking points for humps, stalls in mid road and abuses hurled at us by a truck driver , we were done. My cardio-vascular system was responding as if I had just finished running a marathon ( Not that I can run even 42 meters, but a nice comparison to put nonetheless )

Looking back at the half hour from the comfort of my bedroom, I have to admit that it was not all that bad ;-). Just the common mistakes all of us make when we start. I am the co-passenger described below, cop for short, pun intended ;)

• Stalling in first gear while starting, and again and again and again . cop begins to get a touch nervous.
• Popping the clutch too fast after shifting to second gear, resulting in a violent lurch forward. cop gets the impression that he is sitting on a horseback rather than in a modern car
• Not braking for the hump / taking it in the wrong gear, resulting the cop nearly hitting the roof due to the choppy helicopter like vertical lift
• Swerving suddenly to right to avoid vehicles on left rather than slowing down or even stopping causing a near heart fail condition for the cop
• Forgetting to apply full clutch while stopping in gear resulting in stall. Only minor blood pressure increase for cop on this one
• Inability to start the car without going backwards or stalling while on an up-slope. The last one resulting the famous maneuver of cop actually getting out of the passenger seat and into the drivers seat after traffic pile-ups in all directions

Did she really do all of the above or am I just listing the stuff that I did while learning ?? ;-))

Scientifically it has been proven that victims of severe trauma often have a distorted idea of what really happened. I take refuge in that study just in case the above list offends anyone :-). Also as a writer, I am allowed to take a few creative liberties.

Incredibly, I am ready for more . I guess it gives me topics to write about in my blog :-))