Sudhi Learns to Drive - 1 (Ignition)
Part 1 - Ignition
I've loved Cars since.. forever. Why, Me and Michael Schumacher even share the same initials - M.S. Burning rubber, scorching asphalt and pulling absolute crazy manouveres - believe me, I've done them all. I've been lucky enough to have driven a lot of cars in their prime speed all over the world, and have walked away unhurt. Believe me, Porsche Carrera GT does not handle well on winding and slippery roads. All was fast and well until that fateful day a few years back…. That day, when my brother got so frustrated that he hid his old PlayStation2 somewhere and broke the DVDs of Need for Speed and Burnout Revenge video games, that had almost burnt out. I was devastated. I was prohibited from driving even virtually, the only kind of driving that I knew. Speed was in my blood, nobody could take it away from me.
But they did. And ever since that time, procastination and laziness has kept the task - 'Get a Four Wheeler Driving License' figuring in my New Year Resolutions list permanently. There was a glimmer of hope last year, when a certain friend of mine told me that he could arrange for a 'quick' license within a week. The best part was, I did not even have to drive. As convenient as that sounded, where was the fun in that? Inspite of my driving skills (or perhaps the lack of it), I would have gone ahead and agreed to it (and perhaps gone ahead and got driving licenses for bus, lorry, train, plane, etc…). But thankfully for Chennai and its thousands of motorists, he left for Coimbatore, taking his well laid plans with him. Then things went into a lull for a few days. India won the 20-20 world cup, Tata's Nano was announced, and I saw an old RED FERRARI (Is there anyother kind?) painfully driven on the OMR that whet my appetite on thinking about buying a car soon.
I was debating with my friends, family and bretheren on which car to buy. I ooh-ed and aah-ed on the Skoda's, the CRV's and the Civic's on our roads. I thought about the Santro's, i10's and Swift's as well. But I realized that I was rich enough to buy only a Tata Nano or any other 'new' used-car in installments, that could be squeezed within my budget. Sometime back, when I was debating about the colour of my would-be Car, a friend of mine popped a simple question - "Do you know to drive ?". I shot back immediately - "No dude. Not even if it is pitched on a half-volley. Although, I can hook, pull and cut very well. Hit a guaranteed Sixer. You know I love the way Sachin played that drive in the…". "Daai…" Someone, who had mis-interpreted my innocent and frank answer to be our trademark mokkai, cut me short. "Do you have a license to drive a four wheeler ?"
And that is when I felt as if all the bricks in the Great Wall of China came crashing on my head. I realized only then, that my driving skills had not yet been proven worthy in the real world. And that was indeed a problem in the larger scheme of things. Determined to have it sorted out immediately, me and Shiva, marched onto the nearest driving school in our area on the first available weekend that we were free, which only happened to be last Saturday.
We found, Karthik Driving School in the vicinity and the extremely talkative - Mr.Karthikeyan, within. After having talked about the 10 years that he has been teaching driving, the apalling road behaviour, bad traffic, his children, his neighbour's children, the school they study in, the road leading to that school, and everything else under the sun, we confirmed his tutorship for the next 15 days and we were to start classes from the coming Monday at 6AM in the morning.
Aah 6 o'clock. This was going to be tricky. I hail from Ambattur and hence it may not come as a surprise that I catch my bus at 7:30 in the morning, when the other mortals (and the Sun) would just be rising from deep slumber. I had my alarm set at 5:30 everyday, which a few snoozes later, woke me up at 6 in the morning everyday. Now, for the next 15 days, I had to wake up at mid-night 5 o'clock. But the roar of a car's engine was waiting for me. That was drive enough for me. (pun intended ) I woke at 5.30AM sharp, the next day. :p
At 6 o'clock I was picked up by Shiva in his bike and we drove to the driving school to attend our first ever driving class. Our Guru, Karthik wasn't in yet. Standing next to a big heap of dust, we were about to call him up on his mobile, when a Santro with a BIG 'L' on it pulled up right before us. I was used to the Ferrari's and BMW's and Jaguar's and so a plain old Santro did not seem too exciting. But I was willing to make an exception and was about to pull the door open, when Karthik gestured us to wait while he showed us a mind-boggling magic trick.
He took a piece of cloth from the Santro and started waving wildly on the heap of dust that we were standing next to. A commotion of dust, dirt and mosquitoes bellowed up to the heavens while he circled that heap in a ritualistic towel dance. Magically a faint boxy shape seemed to emerge from that artificial dust screen. And slowly, to my horror, I saw something that I had been dreading. I saw a Maruthi Omni emerge out of the dirt. And from the wide grin on my teacher's face, I knew that this was our text book for this 15 day course. "Vaanga Saar, ukkarunga. Namma vandi dhaan" (Come sir, sit. This is our vehicle). Yeah right. The inside of that box/van, reminded me of the 'Bat-Cave' from the Batman movies, only that this had mosquitoes filling in for the bats. This was going to be a loooong fortnight…
(To be continued…)
I've loved Cars since.. forever. Why, Me and Michael Schumacher even share the same initials - M.S. Burning rubber, scorching asphalt and pulling absolute crazy manouveres - believe me, I've done them all. I've been lucky enough to have driven a lot of cars in their prime speed all over the world, and have walked away unhurt. Believe me, Porsche Carrera GT does not handle well on winding and slippery roads. All was fast and well until that fateful day a few years back…. That day, when my brother got so frustrated that he hid his old PlayStation2 somewhere and broke the DVDs of Need for Speed and Burnout Revenge video games, that had almost burnt out. I was devastated. I was prohibited from driving even virtually, the only kind of driving that I knew. Speed was in my blood, nobody could take it away from me.
But they did. And ever since that time, procastination and laziness has kept the task - 'Get a Four Wheeler Driving License' figuring in my New Year Resolutions list permanently. There was a glimmer of hope last year, when a certain friend of mine told me that he could arrange for a 'quick' license within a week. The best part was, I did not even have to drive. As convenient as that sounded, where was the fun in that? Inspite of my driving skills (or perhaps the lack of it), I would have gone ahead and agreed to it (and perhaps gone ahead and got driving licenses for bus, lorry, train, plane, etc…). But thankfully for Chennai and its thousands of motorists, he left for Coimbatore, taking his well laid plans with him. Then things went into a lull for a few days. India won the 20-20 world cup, Tata's Nano was announced, and I saw an old RED FERRARI (Is there anyother kind?) painfully driven on the OMR that whet my appetite on thinking about buying a car soon.
I was debating with my friends, family and bretheren on which car to buy. I ooh-ed and aah-ed on the Skoda's, the CRV's and the Civic's on our roads. I thought about the Santro's, i10's and Swift's as well. But I realized that I was rich enough to buy only a Tata Nano or any other 'new' used-car in installments, that could be squeezed within my budget. Sometime back, when I was debating about the colour of my would-be Car, a friend of mine popped a simple question - "Do you know to drive ?". I shot back immediately - "No dude. Not even if it is pitched on a half-volley. Although, I can hook, pull and cut very well. Hit a guaranteed Sixer. You know I love the way Sachin played that drive in the…". "Daai…" Someone, who had mis-interpreted my innocent and frank answer to be our trademark mokkai, cut me short. "Do you have a license to drive a four wheeler ?"
And that is when I felt as if all the bricks in the Great Wall of China came crashing on my head. I realized only then, that my driving skills had not yet been proven worthy in the real world. And that was indeed a problem in the larger scheme of things. Determined to have it sorted out immediately, me and Shiva, marched onto the nearest driving school in our area on the first available weekend that we were free, which only happened to be last Saturday.
We found, Karthik Driving School in the vicinity and the extremely talkative - Mr.Karthikeyan, within. After having talked about the 10 years that he has been teaching driving, the apalling road behaviour, bad traffic, his children, his neighbour's children, the school they study in, the road leading to that school, and everything else under the sun, we confirmed his tutorship for the next 15 days and we were to start classes from the coming Monday at 6AM in the morning.
Aah 6 o'clock. This was going to be tricky. I hail from Ambattur and hence it may not come as a surprise that I catch my bus at 7:30 in the morning, when the other mortals (and the Sun) would just be rising from deep slumber. I had my alarm set at 5:30 everyday, which a few snoozes later, woke me up at 6 in the morning everyday. Now, for the next 15 days, I had to wake up at mid-night 5 o'clock. But the roar of a car's engine was waiting for me. That was drive enough for me. (pun intended ) I woke at 5.30AM sharp, the next day. :p
At 6 o'clock I was picked up by Shiva in his bike and we drove to the driving school to attend our first ever driving class. Our Guru, Karthik wasn't in yet. Standing next to a big heap of dust, we were about to call him up on his mobile, when a Santro with a BIG 'L' on it pulled up right before us. I was used to the Ferrari's and BMW's and Jaguar's and so a plain old Santro did not seem too exciting. But I was willing to make an exception and was about to pull the door open, when Karthik gestured us to wait while he showed us a mind-boggling magic trick.
He took a piece of cloth from the Santro and started waving wildly on the heap of dust that we were standing next to. A commotion of dust, dirt and mosquitoes bellowed up to the heavens while he circled that heap in a ritualistic towel dance. Magically a faint boxy shape seemed to emerge from that artificial dust screen. And slowly, to my horror, I saw something that I had been dreading. I saw a Maruthi Omni emerge out of the dirt. And from the wide grin on my teacher's face, I knew that this was our text book for this 15 day course. "Vaanga Saar, ukkarunga. Namma vandi dhaan" (Come sir, sit. This is our vehicle). Yeah right. The inside of that box/van, reminded me of the 'Bat-Cave' from the Batman movies, only that this had mosquitoes filling in for the bats. This was going to be a loooong fortnight…
(To be continued…)
posted by Sudhakar at
9:23 AM
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