License to Drive

I am sitting in the waiting area of the DMV office of Tampa, Florida. This is the first time, in all these years, I am actually about to take a driving test on the road. But being born in India, I have had possession of a driver’s license, without having to prove my skills behind the wheels. Ever. Just one of the many reasons why I love my country so. 

But this is the real deal. Here, sitting amongst a swarm of people, counting every minute to my test, I had summoned all the 330 million Gods I have been told since my childhood to have existed. What’s the point, I had asked, if not help me on this crucial day? What’s the point of my Dad being the devoutly religious man that I have always known him to be? Or Mom, who despite her relatively pragmatic approach to religion, has always offered prayers, bending down on her wobbly knees, in our dingy 'goxai ghor' - the size of a full-fledged bedroom of the apartments here? Where idols of Gods in all forms, shapes, and sizes, sit peacefully staring at you and scaring the living daylights every time I stand under the aura of that roof. Not sure whether it is its age or that it rests on a slightly secluded area of our rambling old house, the one where a bunch of Dad’s siblings had lived, and left behind memories. Where vivid memories of my childhood were also being made. I think it’s the intimidating history that this part of my home cradles that overwhelms me each time I step inside it. Memories of pujas, kathas, naam kirtans - so sharp in my memory that it takes a mere nudge down that road for them to come tumbling down over me. 

But today, the patchy black cement floor of that room, which always stays cool, even during the unrelenting hot summer months, is all I can think of for solace. Sitting in the DMV office, typing away on my phone, I am oddly reminded of that house of Gods that had seen me through so many milestones. 

I think of them and beg for a good outcome, feeling the palpitations of my heart every passing minute. I quickly take a picture of me to freeze the moment. And hope that the ‘after’ picture of this event will be a happy one. I send a quick note about it to the brother who is slogging it out at work. Except him, none of the believers in my family know of this day which might be a dog-eared page in my life. I wanted the pressure off me. I couldn’t bear the thought of my dad making a trip to the temple and waiting in anticipation. He had done that for a lifetime. Although I know too well how much he would have liked it. But today, I am on my own, is also what my instructor told me while handing the keys to the car and giving me last few words of advice. Despite myself, I did say a little prayer at that point, although as always, not knowing who I was praying to. Before leaving home, I had bowed down in front of the Buddha idol I had bought as a decor piece from some trip I had made in the past. For the last few months, the Buddha is filling in for the 330 million Hindu deities, since I had been too lazy to take their representatives out of the carton I had packed them in while moving homes. Does my confused agnostic self get worried thinking about how this might amount to blasphemy in my father’s eyes? The answer is yes. But then again, when I close my eyes to pray, I am mostly summoning an inner force, and hardly ever the deities that line the top of his chest of drawers, or the one on his car's dashboard, or the idol of Ganesh stuck with a double-sided tape on top of his desk computer. (Ya, they still exist, those boxes.) The prayers I send out to the universe, in the most fundamentally spiritual way, is the closest I get to God or the idea of him or her. 

While I was lost in such thoughts, a guy in black tee and shorts materialized in front of me. Holding a file that carried my details, and as expected, struggling to read out my name. As usual, I stopped him before he completely and irrevocably ruined my name and invariably called it everything else but how my mom had meant it and had deemed it appropriate for her firstborn. The very reason why it took me as little as Google to come up with a name for my own daughter. Couldn't handle the Yanks slaughtering her name in slow-mo while she grimaced in pain like I do every single time they mispronounce mine. 

We sat inside the car. He made an interesting point about how this test does not expect me to show any tricks. It was a chuckle-worthy moment. Probably he meant it as a joke. Probably he did not. I was too tensed to tell. And he added that he would tell me what needed to be done. And very sweetly asked, if I was nervous. And also that, if at all I was, it was a good thing. I was instantly put at ease. Are the Gods already on my side? I wondered. 

I gently maneuvered the car as instructed, towards the right, then the left, making sure I stop at every signal. And generally, drive safely, and give my anxious nerves a break. At that point, my mind was finally cleared off all the cosmic forces I had invoked for this moment, and it was solely focused on the instructions being given out to me. When he asked me to park the car in between two lines, I might have felt a tiny flutter in my tummy, but I pulled that off somehow. The test of the three-point turn, oddly my most favorite thing during practice sessions, was surprisingly precise too. He read out a few more instructions and keenly observed the movement of my eye. I might have gone for an overkill trying to impress him. He, however, maintained a straight face even if he might have wanted to burst out laughing. The next few minutes were just about reinstating faith I suppose when he asked me to simply drive in and around the office. Realizing that now I was at the fag end of the test, my mind got busy calculating the result. The examiner, however, didn't let the outcome show on his face. I was asked to park the car since the test had come to a finish. This time the parking was near perfect since the performance pressure was lifted off me. My roving eyes couldn’t help but sneak a peek into the papers the examiner had been diligently marking on. At this moment I spotted the most coveted alphabet written down under a circle. I instantly felt my heart do a tiny somersault. But I feigned ignorance, lest he changed his mind seeing my excitement. Pushing back a smile that had crept up on my lips, I waited for him to speak first. Stepping out of the car, my eyes searched for my instructor like how a child looks for his parent to show off his trophy. Had he stood there waiting for me, I could have hugged him, causing a little embarrassment for all of us present there. But he had receded to a cooler area, dodging the Florida sun that had shone the brightest. A sign? Well! A cursory glance at me, and the examiner said flashing a smile, ‘you passed.’