Women Can’t Drive They Said?

  Mom: Beta utho school ka time hogya hai aur bus aane hi waali hogi. Me: Haan maa. Uth rahi hoon na (secretly hoping for my dad to drop me ;) )   Story of my school life. Those were the times when I knew that driving has to be one of the things I have to cross from my bucket list. Coming from a small, male dominated town, women were just looked as a homemaker. But I’m glad that my father didn’t raise me to be stereotyped. But things didn’t go as he planned. The other elders of my house didn’t give me the freedom to choose what’s best for me. My brother would get up early for his driving classes and I would wake up to give him bread and tea. He could sense the anger inside me but there wasn’t much he could do as well. Once I moved out of the city for higher studies to Kolkata, I came across a driving school. But amid the busy schedule and the chaos in the city I still didn’t lose interest in driving. Paying the fees from my pocket money and borrowing from friends I learnt driving, but driving is something you need to keep practising and fortunately I had friend who had her own car and I could practice and sharpen my driving skills. Nobody at home except my brother knew about it. Few months later I went to my hometown for Diwali breaks. Few other aunties were invited for the Diwali function. As they were looking for cabs, to their lucks they couldn’t find any after quite some time. That’s when I took my dad’s car keys and dropped them home. The look on their faces were priceless and I felt really empowered with that steering wheel in my hands.