Megyaan

My life has been taking some significant U-Turns since the past month,some good ,some bad.

I am at the cross roads of life ,entering my final semester in Engineering and looking at the future,wondering if things shall be this rosy even later ! While a career is top priority ,there are also some more matters of the heart that I need to pay immediate attention to

Amongst all this mental choas ,I have also been learning to drive .

Joined classes at a local driving school about a week ago with my friend Shruthi.We are learning to drive a Santro Fees is around 3k Including License (The school takes care of all the paperwork involved for getting the license and we must take the test in the Driving school’s car only)

Scenario is thus

Instructor #1 -A grandpa,who is shit scared .Thinks we girls will bang the vehicle into anything on the street.Holds the Steering wheel,Changes gears,Brakes ,does every god damn thing himself and we are just mere puppets not learning anything either .I was quiet for the first two days since we were not taught anything about gears ,it was just plain acceleration,steer and brake when required. But this guy wouldn’t even let us steer independently ! When i would begin to accelerate,he would always tell me to slow down,Frustrating! I had zero confidence to even take a turn/manouever the vehicle. And I was really pissed off since I would wake up at 6 am everyday to take these classes. I don’t even wake up that early during exams unless it is a really serious paper (which is a very rare occurrence indeed !)   “Not happening” ,we decided and went and spoke to the ‘Principal’ of the driving school,”We want a new instructor” ,we declared flatly and promptly a new one was assigned to us .

Instructor #2-A young guy with ample courage. We started driving with him today,I took the driving seat,adjusted my seat,mirrors ,Forgot to wear my seat belt(Oops!) Released the parking Brake,then turned in the key and he said STOP !You didn’t even check if the vehicle was in Neutral or not ?True,Then i came to neutral. Now began my nightmare ,Press the clutch,come to gear 1 and release the clutch very slowly and accelerate. Now these statements made me robotic and i took about 3 microseconds to first analyze and then act ! I pressed the clutch (Not hard enough,he corrected me !) then came to gear 1 ,there began my clutch-hate saga..I released the clutch at one go,A whirring sound,and silence,engine switched off.Damn,Then again i repeated the procedure several times in vain ,but not able to accomplish releasing the clutch only little and begin acceleration smoothly..I finally concentrated very hard and managed to do it. Then we took a U-Turn on a busy street and the instructor pointed out several mistakes during the 30 min class. He taught us to quickly change gears before and after taking a turn,When to brake,when to clutch+brake. I learnt more in today’s 30 min class rather than the previous 2 hr classes !

• I am not showing any signals ,so people driving behind me might end up banging into me very soon.

• I am obviously pathetic at releasing the clutch slowly and accelerating at that very instant with ease!

• I am very stupid while taking decisions on road,I take a full 10 seconds to change gears and release the clutch with finesse

• I am excellent at steering now ,only that when I am changing gears with my left hand ,The right hand makes the wheels of the vehicle move in any whimsical direction

There are several things to look out for while driving .It’s a perfect example of co-coordinating your hands,feet,eyes and requires concentration . I know,this is just day 5 of my driving classes and this might really sound like an exaggerated story to those who have been driving for ages now. But if you look back at the first day you learnt to drive,how would you describe it ?

I still have 15 more classes of 30 minutes each to go in my driving sessions. I need to learn a whole lot of things such as parking ,Reverse and plenty of other stuff Wish me luck !

PS: I have been having the worst “writer’s block” ever and been caught up with so many things that I am finding it difficult to blog ….I hate to take a break from writing but if I write only at this pace then I do not know what my readers would end up doing ? Throw me some gaalis guys,I shall get back to seriousness only then,trust me !

PPS: I have finally crossed the “ELUSIVE” 10,000 hits and currently on 16k hits A big Thank you to all my readers Keep visiting ,I promise to tone down the “gyaan”