Driving you crazy

Even as a child I was always fascinated by driving. My dad had an infamous Ambassador car made by Hindustan Motors in India. It was one of those sturdy cars, with the bare essentials and a stick shift gear and a manual steering wheel. My dad had this habit of somehow filling this car to its brim, typically twice its prescribed capacity, and all of us would drive off, mostly visiting temples or relatives. In those days the concept of sight seeing was unheard off! Why would you go anywhere, if there is no one you know and no temple to visit!

Anyway, coming back to my fascination, I always wanted to drive and my dad encouraged me quite a bit. Even when I was 5 or 6 years old, he used to make me sit on his lap and hold on to the steering wheel. Of course, you can't imagine doing this in Chennai today, but the Madras of those days had very few cars and especially if you go to remote areas (which meant about 5 kms from the busy parts, which today is bustling with activity) there were decent roads and no car in sight. So much so, I mastered the art of driving even before I turned 14!

Instrumental in this was Pandu. Most of the households in those days had a family Doctor, he knew everybody in your family and not only dished out the usual "mixture", which you take three times a day, but also advice on how you should deal with your family problems. Well, we not only had a family doctor, we had a family mechanic, Pandu. Pandu was a great guy who knew how to take out any part of the car and put it back (to my surprise, he never had any extra parts left and the car worked fine after that), he of course did this, sort of, intutively because all his training had been on the job. Besides this, he was also a man of many talents, he knew how to climb a coconut tree and pluck coconuts and husk them, he knew how to fix various other things like bicycles, and I am sure that now he must be fixing software bugs in Microsoft windows!

Pandu was my "guru" for many things starting with how to ride bicycles. He taught me how to ride motorbikes even before I was tall enough to be able to rest my legs on the ground while sitting on one. He was my legs, he used to sit at the pillion and I used to ride my dad's motorbike , much to the envy of all the kids in the neigbourhood. He was the guy who gave me the confidence to drive my dad's car. Of course, coming to think of it, now I do understand why he did not have any problems letting me drive, while my dad was a little more cautious!

Even the way I got my license was interesting. One day I was taking my dad's car for a joy ride around our street when, my neighbour, a fairly influential businessman, stopped me and asked if I had a license. I was a bit worried but nevertheless I told him the truth that I did not have one. He said "ok, get two passport size photographs and give them to me tomorrow", that is it, a week or so after I gave him that he handed me my license!

There must be something that my dad and Pandu did right because, I turned out to be a good driver, even if I may say so myself. Since then I have moved to Singapore and have been living here for the past two decades. When I first bought a car in Singapore, I had to unlearn a lot of things that I had learnt while driving in India. In India, you always do what is called a defensive driving. You always assume that the guy in the next lane is going to come into your lane anytime without any indication or warning. You never take anything for granted, for example, you should always be ready for a cow or person to stroll on to the main road, fully trusting your reflexes and your brakes. My aunt used to call them "break inspectors"! In Singapore, I slowly learnt the true meaning of right of way, giving way to pedestrians and other etiquette.

Off late though I find that driving in Singapore is not that organised anymore. I am not sure if it is the "Kiasu" nature of Singaporeans (Kiasu, means fear of failure) but standards of driving have dropped here. For example when you are in a slower lane and want to move to the faster right lane and switch on your indicator, the guy who is light years from you, accelerates (as soon as the light from the indicator reaches him) and ensures that you have no space to move in. People do not seem to bother about right of ways and what more, they even show you the finger, when you honk to point out their unruly behaviour. Someone once told me that the soft toys in the rear windows of the cars in Singapore, is to show that the drivers have not "grown up" yet!!

Nevertheless, ever since I have moved to Singapore, I have never got the guts to drive in India when I am visiting. There the traffic light being red is just a suggestion and is not meant to be obeyed always. Everything is relative I guess. This is best demonstrated by those who come from the US. When my friends who come from US spend some time with me on their way to India, they are appalled at the disregard to lanes and other rash driving that they witness in Singapore, but the same guys who spend time here on their way back remark that " it is really nice to be in a place where people follow the traffic rules"!!