by: ixedoc on Jun 3 2005 11:59AM in Personal 1642 Views - Leave a comment | Comments (13)

(reposted)

There she was driving at 120, along the Mysore-Mangalore State Highway. me, a nervous wreck beside her. Feet stamping on make-believe brakes. Hand clutching onto the front seat edges. Agreed, she was a damn good driver, she could swish and slither through the narrowest of sinuous alleys, and calculatedly miss the oncoming truck by the proverbial whisker.

Agreed, she knew her car like the back of her palm. Okay, agreed, she could, if she so desired give Karthikeyan a run for his money - but, I felt my insides jiggle like jelly. This wasn't any deserted road, this corridor of asphalt connected the two busiest cities in the state, and vehicles whizzed this way and that at a fair clip.

But who am I to whine. I had to shut up, and pray. I didn't know driving and she did. The moral of the story is 'what can't be cured, must be endured'.

So I sat mum, while she just chewed a wriggley and bobbed her head up and down, in sync with the number 'Who let the dog's out' being belted out. I, just shook mine sideways, eyes shut. Screech, honk, screech, squish. The smell of burnt rubber assailed my senses. I had to go through this annual ordeal. Part of my commitment to family welfare, you could say.

Zip, zap, zoom in and out of twenty towns at breakneck pace, pit stops for cokes and chips. Some holiday this! But I kind of liked the outing, for once a while the route was through Bandipur or Mudumalai sanctuaries, and I'd give anything to have a look at the magnificent peafowls, the majestic jumbos, and the darting deer herds. Though the visual contact with these faunal specimens was in split seconds only, thanks to the hi-octane streak of the car, it was worth for me. I love jungles.

Somewhere past Hunsur, on a village outskirt I felt the car swerve and re-swerve. Bang bang, rattle rattle, jangle jangle. Strange loud sounds emanated from right under my seat. The car slowed down, with the jangle jangles petering down their staccato racket.

What happened ?

Nothing really, let me see. So she goes out of the car and shakes her head, sideways this time. Uh huh, we have a problem. I get down too, and see the mess. The two left wheels on one side of the car, I distinctly recall had rims that were circular: Now they were heart shaped. She had gone rumble tumble over a huge crater of a pot hole, and the wheel metal had dented.

She looks around. Anyone around. the afternoon heat is at its peak. Just then we spot a few men walking towards us, in fact walking past us, animatedly discussing the damage. One man stops, looks at me, as I sat under the banyan tree with a smoke

Thale sari illava saar, familyna ittkondu heege hutchunaagi drive maduvada?

(off your rocker sir, to drive like a madman, that too with the family in the car?)

I was fuming, but kept shut.The missus winks at me, and gestures through her eyebrows, she can handle them, and needs these to get her car moving. So the men sit down beside the wheel, and remove them, and un-dent the rims. For the next half hour, the missus put on a sad countenance, the import of expression was meant to convey her helplessness in being married to a speed maniac. To add effect she walks up to the car and pats my little five year old daughter's cheek

Alubeda, allabeda magu, ivatthinda appa carna slowagi biddthare anthe...

(Tut tut child, dad's promised to drive slowly from today)

The gall. Grrr. But highway ettiquete demands I keep shut, at least until the sweating men are done with their job.

I hear the men clucking sympathetically, and give me dirty looks. Well the car moves after the repair, and the men were thanked. Then in a final coup de grace, she says to me, loud enough for all the men around to hear.

'Eega naan drive maaduthini ree, neevu swolpa maguna nodikolli'

(Please, I drive from now, you just look after the baby)

Then she slides into the cockpit and inches off from the spot very very slowly. The men watch the car lumber forwards, like a snail, and nod their heads approvingly.

In ten minutes she is doing 120, and as if on cue my head starts involuntarily shaking sideways again.