Impromptu Driving Lesson

At the peak of my teenage rage and angst, my mother had dragged me to a family pooja early on a Saturday morning. To make things worse, none of my cousins had showed up and I had no company whatsoever. Tension had been building up for months as I was due to take my driver’s license test soon and no one had helped me practice. As I sat fuming alone, jamming puliyogre into my mouth as if it personally offended me, Prasad Mama sat down and asked me about school, dance, and if I had been paying attention during his lecture. I said yes (which was a lie). He asked why I was so annoyed with Mom, and I proceeded to rant away my grievances about being forced to wake up on a weekend morning, wear an itchy chudidar, and sit through a pooja alone when I should have been practicing driving instead.

“Oh, ashte na?” (oh, that’s it?) he said. “Baa, naan karkondhogthini.” (Come, I’ll take you). Right then and there, Prasad Mama then gave me my first official driving lesson. He sat patiently in the passenger seat of my family SUV as I slammed on the brakes, turned the steering wheel as if I was steering a ship, and nearly crashed multiple times. Even though I was driving like a total maniac, Prasad Mama never once lost his patience with me or indicated that I wasn’t doing a good job, apart from an occasional “solpa nidhaana maadu, ma” (slow down just a little bit). Granted, he was holding on to the roof handle for dear life the whole time. As I sped through this quiet suburban neighborhood with Fast and Furious-level energy, Prasad Mama told anecdotes about how he had taught Geethathe, my dad, and Teju and Raju how to drive. Twenty minutes later when we walked back into the house, I had completely forgotten how angry I’d been all morning.

Arpitha Gorur