| Moved to a new city & now I miss driving
Driving was never just about turning the steering wheel and poking my feet around the footwell.
No, driving has always meant a lot lot more than that to me.
Driving is liberation. Driving is to be free of thinking. Driving is not just to get from point A to point B. For me, driving is the journey between point A and point B. Driving is the emotion I feel while sitting behind the wheel, my hands at 9 and 3. Driving is not a chore and will never ever be a chore. Driving is something I do to be free. Actually, did to be free.
Graduation day. January 26th, 2017.
I stumble out of the RTO's office, beaming from side to side, approaching my parents standing down the hallway. I was still decked out in complete formal attire, having left my graduation halfway to make the trip down to the RTO to take my driving test, much to my parents chagrin. Getting a lecture from the officer about accidents and driving safe had only got me more excited about my final independence. Skipping the long monotonous graduation was totally worth it for that one tiny slip of paper in my stubby fingers. Pass.
I knew that look on my parents faces when I walked out. It was a mixture of relief and worry. Relief because it was the end of the days when my dad would refuse to let me take the car out unlicensed even though all my friends would do the same, all the time. Relief, since finally my license wouldn't be all I would nag them about, every night, at the dinner table. Relief, cause now my father had someone to drive him home after a game of golf when he could finally have a beer, lol. It was more worry, however. Even though that little piece of paper in my hands just meant I could legally drive on Indian roads now, they knew that in my mind, in meant that I now thought I was the best driver in the world.
My mind works in very different ways however. I knew they assumed I would be tearing down the streets doing over a 100kph or weaving through traffic on the expressway, like a typical meat-headed teenager would do. Admittedly, I was never the smartest cookie in the jar. Not when it came to driving. This, was my kryptonite. While it wasn't something that made me weak, it was something I always yearned for. Something that I now had the key to do, freely. Genuinely, this was never my plan. I never planned to do the unruly things teenagers usually do when they first get a license. Honestly, all I wanted was the sensation of driving.
I once read the phrase, "There is a butt for every seat." Sure it sounded cool when I first read of it, but I realized what it meant when I first got my first car. The day my dad, after much trial and tribulation, put the keys of our 12 year old City into my hands. The key was for a car, but it signified so much more. It was the key to my freedom. No, not just physical freedom, but mental freedom, psychological freedom. Until the moment I sat in that seat and turned the key, not only did the 1.5 petrol splutter to its smooth, steady and calming idle, profoundly, the same thing happened to me. That day onward, I never turned back.
The drivers seat of that car became my second home. The drivers seat of that car became an extension of my body. The steering wheel became an extension of my hands, the pedals an extension of my feet and the road ahead, an extension of my vision. I'm sure a lot of office goers, including my dad would scoff at the next sentence, but sitting i traffic was not a chore anymore. Shifting between neutral and first gear while ascending Hebbal flyover was not painful, not for me, oh no. Something I only felt while listening to Black Hole Sun in a dark room with my cheap headphones on, I was feeling again. And oh man, isn't that an addictive feeling.
The four months I had with that car, oh man did I milk those four months. Finding absolutely any excuse to leave the house in that car, my parents aware or not. I did absolutely anything and everything in that car. From my first airport run to pick my grand-mom up, to riding deep into the bowels of CBD traffic, to fetch my sister from a restaurant. Not one of those moments behind the wheel did I ever frown. Every second spent behind the wheel, regardless of where I was going or what I was to do, was worth it. My hands seemed to grip the wheel perfectly, every time. A pothole was not an annoyance, but a chance for me to show the car how much I cared, by maneuvering it around carefully. The trips driving with no aim with the boys, listening to music that was way too loud and singing even louder, to those late night dashes around the city with my special someone. Usually, nothing was spoken between the two of us. We had an unspoken happiness. Just us, Ed Sheeran humming on the 12 year old speakers, and the wide empty road ahead of us. When I was behind the wheel, I was unstoppable. My mind was free. My emotions were buzzing. There was nothing going through my mind, nothing. True, unadulterated, elated happiness.
Alas, all good things must come to an end.
College began, and I moved to a different city. An unfamiliar environment. The one thing I could do back home, when faced with something difficult? Sit back in the car past midnight, with the windows up, and Dire Straits on the radio, humming along to Mark Knopfler. But that option existed no more. Gone were the days when I could float down Bellary Road and leave my worries behind. No more, could I pop to the nearby Corner House, to numb my brain with some ice cream.
I miss a lot of things from home now, I really do. Friends, family, home cooked food instead of the grub they serve us here. What I miss the most, is something I hardly got a taste of for a few months.
Something that became a part of me.
This is why, I miss driving.
Last edited by SDP : 15th March 2018 at 07:41.
Reason: minor typo
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14th March 2018, 22:18
