Driving lessons

I realise that driving has lost its charm for me. The last few days have me driving for over an hour from seven in the morning in order to reach the place where I have been assigned a job related to my regular work. I reach back home at 6 in the evening driving the same route back.

There was a time when bike riding was a passion for me. I loved to glide along the mountain tracks of Meghalaya just for the fun of it. When I shifted to Delhi, riding ceased to be fun. Delhi roads make people mad. There are too many vehicles on the roads and all of them are in a hurry. Many of them are plain crazy too. I never enjoyed the rides in that crazy city of insane drivers and riders though I never became the target of any road rage which was ubiquitous on Delhi’s teeming roads.

I thought a car drive through the roads in Kerala flanked by lush greenery would be fun. No way, as I learnt now. You can never afford to look away from the windshield. You don’t know when a vehicle is going to enter from a side road or a biker is going to overtake you through the little space he manages to discover between your vehicle and the one coming from the opposite direction. Then there are the Kerala State Transport buses which bulldoze through the road with a hubris that is characteristic to the department. When you move out of the main road to the rural ones, potholes welcome you with gaping glees. You have no chance of even enjoying the music played on your system.

I will have to put up with this terror for another seven or eight days more. I’m grateful to my stars that my regular workplace is just 4 km from home. A 5-minute drive can be quite a delight.

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