The Driving Test

Stafford, England, July 1959.

Sunny day. My mood very good after a hearty breakfast but just to spoil my sense of all well being, Dilip rushes into my room cursing ‘that SOB’, and headed straight for a beer. I said nothing, knowing Dilip wasn’t one to keep quiet for long.

Sure enough, after a few sips of beer Dilip said, “You know - that damned Jennings failed me again in my driving test today and that too for a stupid reason. He has done this to me for the third time!”

I felt sorry for Dilip but knew he must have done something wrong from Jennings’ viewpoint and retorted “Tough luck, Dilip. Not for the same reason as on previous occasions, I guess?”

“No, first time he failed me because when he asked me to reverse the car, the road was narrow and I had to maneuver it back and forth and in that process I hit the kerb stones a few times. He had also asked me to stop at some point and I pulled up without caring for the NO PARKING sign at that point. So he found fault with me for that too. He said I should not have obeyed his foolish instructions!

The next time he asked me to reverse into a lane which we were just passing and when I did so, he found fault with me for not looking left into the lane as I passed it to make sure there was no vehicle parked at the entrance to the lane or if any car was coming down the lane.

Today he asked me to stop the car on a road with steep gradient and then asked me to get going again. He failed me this time because I rolled back a little bit, just a foot or two, before moving forward. I am actually beginning to think that Jennings is racist and that is why he is harassing me”.

“Was that the only reason for him to fail you this time?”

Dilip thought for a while and said “Well, no. Jennings was also not happy with my passing a zebra crossing when there was a pedestrian standing on the sidewalk, waiting to cross the road. He said the pedestrian always has a right of way at zebra crossings and even if he hadn’t actually stepped on to the zebra patch, I should have respected his right and stopped the car till he crossed the road. How silly!”

I did not agree with Dilip at all, but got worried a bit about Dilip’ s failure because I was myself due to take a test the following month. Anyway, I tried to comfort Dilip by telling him that I know of people who have cleared driving tests in their 4th, 5th or even 6th attempt and he may not be fair in accusing Jennings of racism. Don’t you know that Mr. Sen got through last month in only his second attempt?”

Stafford, August 1959, The Big Day.

Contrary to my fears, I cleared my test today in the first attempt. I did not commit any of the mistakes that Dilip did (am I grateful to him for forewarning me!). But Mr. Jennings did cause some worry by repeatedly accusing me of being hard of hearing, when I did not heed a police message, which he said was clearly audible.

The police that day were piloting a 24-double wheel low bed trailer truck carrying a massive transformer and hailing all traffic to get on to the foot path to allow the truck to pass. I did so only belatedly, perhaps after the third message.

I countered Mr. Jennings’ accusation by telling him bluntly that I was not deaf, but certainly nervous and that he too may have acted the way I did if the roles had been reversed. He had merely grunted then, and I thought I had cooked my goose. So it was a pleasant surprise to me when, at the end of the test, he pulled out a pre-printed pink slip from his pocket, signed it and gave it to me saying “You can pick up your licence on Wednesday next”.

I asked him incredulously, “Are you passing me, then?” He looked at me grimly and said, with typical British seriousness, “If you are unhappy, I can fail you even now, you know”. Suddenly he flashed a bright smile, thrust the slip in my hands, and said “Good luck with your driving! Be a careful and considerate driver always” and walked off. Whew! To think I was only the second Indian in Stafford in several years to clear the driving test in the first attempt, after my senior colleague Mr. Natarajan who made it in 1957!

47 years on, Bangalore, November, 2006

Returning home from a wedding and had just turned into Queens Road from M G Road after the cop had waved me on. Suddenly a big thud and my windscreen broke into a million pieces and an old man, his wife, grandchild and a scooter, all lay sprawled on the road.

Fortunately no serious injury to any of them, though a crowd soon gathered around us as is usual and a roughneck from among them demanded that I summon an ambulance, take the two-wheeler-riding-family to a hospital and pick up the tab for their medical treatment.

My protests fell on deaf ears, but fortunately the cop who was witness to the accident intervened and proclaimed that I was not at fault because the old man had jumped the signal. The crowd melted away, but much to my chagrin, I discovered the old man had no driving licence, nor did the scooter have any papers!

For some strange reason, I remembered Dilip and Jennings then and thought to myself “Mr. Jennings, you took so much care to ensure Dilip became a safe driver; where are the ‘Jennings’s’ who will put people like this old man to the grind that Dilip went through?”

Post Script:

Dilip got his licence on his fourth attempt, continued to drive badly (without accidents, though) until he died some 8 years ago. Innumerable have been the times that I lamented the rotten standards of our driving schools, the incompetent RTOs who dish out licences freely to people who are willing to bribe their way, the apathy of the people and the police alike in bringing about disciplined driving. As for me, I ‘forgave’ the old man (who seemed to be penurious) to avoid police formalities and was poorer by some 16 K, the depreciation amount disallowed by the Insurance company.

Oh, Mr. Jennings, why didn’t you check me out also to see if I could dodge the road mongers of Bangalore?!