You might have read about my previous brushes with vehicles, driving school and the RTO. This is where the curtains fall : the end or rather optimistically, the beginning.
One week before my driving test I decided to go home for the weekend and visit my paternal grandparent's house. First morning I was greeted by incessant rain tapping the windows, damp air laden with smell of fresh soil. Don't ask me what smell of soil is :) It is supposed to be a very subtle and short lived smell that comes just after the first rains at the end of the summer.
So in this damp and decidedly cold atmosphere I decided to learn swimming in one of the three ponds in the house which were all filled to the brim, often becoming one with land during the rains. Me and two of my cousins splashed around in the ice cold water for 2-3 hrs under my father's supervision and in the process managed to catch a severe cold. Nevertheless I learned how to stay afloat in water :D By the time I had to go back I was practically aglow, giving off heat to the air and couldn't even drink lukewarm water.
After one horrible sleepless night in the train I reached my beloved metro Bangalore. I was bedridden for most of the next week and on strong antibiotics, not even able to get out of my room for having food. I was fairly confident about driving a car and was even more confident that I would fail the bike driving test. So I didn't take any bike classes and somehow pulled through the final car lessons. However my car instructor arranged impromptu bike lessons for me on the day before the test. Despite their best efforts I could not ride the bike in the shape of an 8, rather my track looked like squiggles made by a four year old whose strong point is not drawing. However I decided to try my luck.
Next day we arrived at the track for the test with a few other people from the driving school. My friend drove first and he easily passed both two and four wheeler tests. Next in line was me and I had to start with the car. I climbed in, started off and drove, as our luck would have it the day before someone had broken the turn indicators in the car, so we had to resort to hand signals. Until the very end it went nice, however after parking when asked to turn off the car I turned the key in the opposite direction and almost everyone jumped out of their seats hearing the howling noise.
Next came the bike. Everyone, including myself and my instructor probably thought I would fail but they put up a brave face for which I'm deeply thankful. I got on the bike, rode around a bit and thought I would stop before the eight, adjust myself and try to get through. I don't know what came over me, but when I reached the eight I didn't stop, braced myself and somehow rode through and came out in one piece. This was one of the situations where I was rather scared, tense and anxious but in the end somehow managed to calm down.
So Hoorah ! I am legally allowed to drive a car and a bike in one of the largest nations in the world !!
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