First Driving Experience

I was living in the God’s own country in 1992 after joining a multi-national software company in India setting up a state-of-the-art infrastructure for offshore software development. I was 38 years old at that time. My CEO gave me chauffeur-driven vehicle for my use with instruction that I should learn driving quickly so that I could buy a vehicle of my own choice and drive it. I fixed a driving instructor who had an old Ambassador car with a brake of his own on the front passenger seat. He told me three things as important in learning driving. The first is to learn to shift gears without looking at them while releasing the clutch slowly and accelerating the vehicle. The second is to do all of that without taking my eyes of the road in front of me. Third, how to switch my right leg quickly from accelerator to brake in the event of emergency.

I was under the impression that I was going to live in the beautiful city (can I really call it a city?) of Trivandrum building a state-of-the-art offshore software development facility. Our rented house was located down a road in Vellayambalam and every time the driving instructor asked me to take the vehicle up the road releasing clutch slowly while accelerating and changing gear driving up the road, the vehicle stopped causing considerable panic in my mind. The instructor was saying so many words in Malayalam for me to think whether he is instructing or hurling abuse words at me. At least, 10 times he had to apply brake to bring the vehicle to abrupt stop to save his and my life. Most of the time the roads were empty as we were driving near the Governor’s bungalow, Jawahar Nagar, Vellayambalam, Altara Junction, etc. Slowly, he motivated me to drive around the entire Trivandrum and when we went closer to Anandapadmanabha Swamy Temple, I became a little nervous as there were many cyclists and pedestrians in that area.

After so many days of driving, finally he took me to get the driving license and the driving license was granted to me without much of excitement. I guess, he has made his own arrangement to bribe the office to get me the license quickly. As I had a hired car in Trivandrum, I never experienced much driving after the license was granted. One fine day, my CEO landed in Trivandrum and insisted that he wanted to have dinner with my family. My wife and I accompanied him to the nicest restaurant in town. During the dinner, he said, “I have a good and a bad news for you. Which one you would like to hear first?” Having finished an excellent work of setting up an offshore facility in Trivandrum after obtaining the necessary approvals, I was confident that professionally I was doing well and hence I wanted to hear the bad news first. He said, “You are transferred to the headquarters in SEEPZ, Andheri, Mumbai and you need to move in 4-5 days”. I asked him what about shifting my stuff and family and he said, “We will take care of bringing your family and stuff safely”.

I could not control my curiosity to ask about the good news and he said, “You are promoted and given a much higher salary”. I told him I needed some time to think. He said there was not much time to think about it. After he left, he sent my closest colleague to speak to both of us. My wife was very concerned about moving to Mumbai. This colleague of ours convinced as to move as we would be given a wonderful apartment to live and our own car to go to work. I was very nervous about driving in Mumbai to go to work. Finally, I moved within 4-5 days and my family moved within 15-20 days. We stayed in a hotel for 15 days and moved into our apartment called “Lokhanwala Complex” in Kandivli. Our apartment was in the seventh floor overlooking a beautiful swimming pool down at the ground floor. We were the second family to move into that apartment complex. The elevator was not activated and the workers helped moving things up by lifting everything through the staircase.

Finally, we settled down and was given an air-conditioned car to drive. Luckily, a small stretch of the road approaching the Western express highway was crowded after that, I used to drive in the highway up to Mallard and then enter R.A.Milk Colony by paying Rs.5 each day to reach SEEPZ, Andheri easily. After driving for 3 years in Mumbai, I became an expert driver manipulating any pedestrian crowd. It lasted only for 3 years and then I was transferred to Florida. I had to unlearn all my Mumbai driving skills to learn how to keep my vehicle in one lane at a high speed.

 

Dear Pavithra,

You should learn driving and get the ability to explore places on your own before you child grows up. After that taking him to various classes would become a routine.

Viswa

 

Dear jskls,

Driving in India is very simple if you get a concept of how to drive. It is just like you walk without elbowing anyone. You have to imagin the vehicle as your own body. But now, you should not attempt driving in India as you are so used to driving on the right side of the road.

I tried soon after moving to the US. Automatically, I walked to the left side to get into the driver's seat and started driving the vehicle on the right side. Then, I stopped driving knowing I would kill myself.

Viswa

 

Dear GG,

What can be equal to Ambi? That is a dream vehicle for dummies. One feels the weight of the entire car in two hands in the steering wheel. Those days, all this new sophisticated manufacturing capabilities were non-existent. Now, in my vehicle, when I keep my hands on the steering wheel, I don't even feel whether the engine is on or off.

Viswa

 

Dear Meril,

Thank you for your response. In fact, I have written many travel experiences in my blog in IL including my trip on a cruise around the Mediterranean sea in 2008 for celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary.
Now IL has placed all blogs under one group called "Personal Blogs". But the blogs written up to 2011 are all placed under one group. I started writing only after 2012 and I am not sure where these blogs are. Only IL admin can help find them.

Viswa

Viswa