HUMAN CHRONICLES 23 If one were to divide the world into countries driving on the right and left sides, then Canada and the USA got it right! Photos and text: Madhav Kochunni continued ... The first time I drove a car was in India. A friend taught me the basics in his father’s 1960 Fiat that had the front doors opening backwards. The road had no markings. The general sense was as long as one stayed on it one was fine. In Dubai, I learned that the road had two sides. One drove on one side of the road and returned the other. The Malayalam speaking instructor, Hamza, introduced me to the concepts of clutch, gear, leg and hand brakes, accelerator, ignition, and the steering wheel. With daily practice I was able to coordinate them all in a couple of months. I passed the stringent UAE test in a manual white Toyota Corolla on the second attempt. For the next two decades or so I drove only automatic cars. Till my wife, in the summer of 2018, hatched a plot to travel across England! Permanent mark Growing up I’ve followed British authors painting the English countryside with colourful words. This left a permanent mark in my bucket list under ‘Driving through the English countryside’. When the UK travel plan took shape, booking the car took most of our time. Renting an automatic car for 15 days was almost double the price of a manual. So we pondered on it and pitched the idea to a few friends who had lived in the UK and driven there extensively. They vehemently shot down driving a manual. The price difference weighed on our minds and seeped into our dreams. We doggedly settled on the manual transmission but decided to rent it outside the city of London. Then it dawned on me: the blind decision to drive manual transmission in a foreign country without any practice amounted to sheer stupidity. A week before the trip I began researching for comments, ideas, and a crash course [very punny!] on driving a manual car [www.shifters.ca]. I found one and managed to fit in an hour-and-a-half session the day before my flight! If one were to divide the world into countries driving on the right and left sides, then Canada and the USA got it right! The UK, on the other hand, is a major upholder of what’s left in doing things the traditional way. Countries like India are a strong proponent of the Non-Aligned Movement and have adopted a general middle-of-the-road approach. When we got the car in Oxford, a Vauxhall Astra in steel grey, my wife had the good sense to go around and
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