I've always had a healthy fear of driving. Don't get me wrong. I am not one of those, back to nature freak shows who believe that all progress is bad and that mankind must revert to the stick and stone age of the past. On the contrary, I enjoy being driven around in the air conditioned comfort of a fine car. I have no problems with that. It is driving that scares the living daylights out of me. So you can imagine what a nightmare my driving lesson was.

Like all college students, I too enrolled in the driving lesson in order to be able to drive my own car. After all, being able to drive was one of the cornerstones of independence and would mean that I had developed my own wings right? Wrong, as I was to discover to my utter disbelief. I had never attempted driving any vehicle before. And I discovered to my horror that the entire driving lesson had turned out to be a total nightmare!

For one thing, when I got into the driver's seat, I totally and completely froze. I have to mention at this point that the instructor allotted to me for the duration of the driving lesson wasn't exactly awe inspiring. In fact, if his looks were anything to go by, he looked positively life threatening himself. Anyways, coming back to the beginning of my very first driving lesson, I totally and utterly froze. I still don't know why or what caused that reaction. But the fact remains that the very first driving lesson of my life did not get off to a good start.

Needless to mention, I failed this driving lesson. After all, they don't really go around giving marks to people just because they look like they can handle driving. In any driving lesson, to the best of my knowledge, you have to actually drive or at the very least get the car to move a couple of millimeters in terms of distance in order to be considered for a pass grade. In my case, nothing moved. Except of course when the instructor pushed me out of the car, screaming abuse!

Ever since, driving lessons have given me a total headache. I think it took me a good seven years after that first, miserable experience with driving lessons till I mustered enough courage to get into an adult driving program. I was fortunately the youngest. But that too was little consolation as the only other people in the room were immigrants or country yokels, both of who had never ever seen a car in the first place!