I learnt driving when I was working in the US. While I had a licence from India acquired just before I left for my Masters, I had done no driving. When working at NYNEX in White Plains, I found that travelling around by public transport was quite limiting. And so, I took some driving lessons and got myself a licence. The licence gave me freedom, and I fell in love with driving around in the US. In the two years before returning to India, I must have driven about 10,000 miles. I was stopped only once for speeding. This was in California and when the traffic cop realised I was from out-of-state, he let me go with a warning.
I have some very good memories of driving in the US – mainly the New York area and then California where I had lived for six months. I owned an old Buick when I was in New York – because I knew I had to return to India soon and didn’t want to invest in an expensive car.
I continued driving in Mumbai after I moved back in 1992. The car was a Maruti Suzuki 800. I drove a lot during my early years as an entrepreneur. Traffic was not bad in Mumbai and finding parking was not difficult. And then one night, I had an accident.
I had gone to attend a wedding near Dadar. As I was driving back, I hit a lamp post in the middle of the road. I was momentarily blinded by the sharp headlights of an oncoming vehicle and I didn’t see the pole in the middle of the dimly lit road. The top of the lamp post crashed through my windscreen and shattered it. The broken glass was all over the front seat. Luckily, I was unscathed. After that day, I decided to keep a driver. I realised my mind was constantly whirring and even though driving is mostly reflexive, it was not worth risking one’s life on Mumbai roads. It has now been more than 25 years since that incident. I haven’t driven on my own after that, even though I am confident that I will still be able to drive – it’s not something one ever forgets.
I do miss driving at times, especially when I am travelling with Bhavana and Abhishek on vacations. Not driving limits the number of places one can visit, especially in the US. Of course, there is now Uber but that’s more for short distances. One cannot think of taking an Uber on California’s coastal highway 1 from San Francisco to San Diego!
India’s roads infrastructure has improved dramatically over the past decade. At times, I do think I should start driving again. But then, I also know that road discipline is not as great as in the US and a single mistake by me or by someone else could be quite costly. The memory of my collision with the lamp post is still quite fresh in my mind. And so, I guess driving my own vehicle is not something I will probably ever do. But I am glad for the few years that I did.
