For the past god knows how many years now, I'd been wanting to learn to drive. Not that I was tired of the bus-system (Queen of the Road!), but it's frustrating to have to beg people drive you places, especially when people have their own plans. And so, after much nagging, I finally signed up for a course in driving. Mum figured why not teach little sister to drive at the same time, despite her not being old enough for a learners permit.

So here we go. Picked up by auntie in an FX with several other girls on board as well, one of whom is behind the wheel. I figure the girl in the driver's seat is also from the institute, since she'll be driving us to our deserted practice grounds and the middle aged auntie in the back with me and sis is a senior supervisor or something. Ah well, sis and I squeeze in the back seat. Auntie in the passenger's side turns out to be the instructor. Chalo, it's good to know which one will be doing the actual teaching. A minute later, it's blatantly obvious the girl driving is not an instructor but also a girl in the middle of her first lesson. The obvious terror she's feeling at being asked to drive right out into main Seaview road in the middle of on her first lesson adds to my own as we face incoming traffic head on. She drives on, past barbeque tonight, past everything familiar and end up in Bahadurabad.

Some time later (It's hard to tell how much time has passed when you're flinching at each close encounter your car has with every large vehicle from Clifton to Tariq Road and watching your life flash before your eyes each time), the novice driver is dropped off at Tariq Road. "So which one of you will be next?", passenger seat lady inquires. I decide to face the fear head on. Okay, we're nice and snug in the driver's seat, what now? "Drive" "What, into the Tariq Road traffic, just like that?" "Yes, yes, go on, dear, we're running late". *gulp*

Eventually, though, except for passenger seat lady's hands doing most of the steering, with mine on the lower half of the steering wheel for decorative purposes, I'm comfortable driving in full on traffic on my first go. I pass places I didn't even know existed and stop in Azizabad, another place I had never heard of till this very moment, and a new student is picked up and I'm relegated to the back seat while another girl sitting quietly in the back is summoned to the driver's seat.

The new entry, a girl named Sana turns out to be much older than me, despite my first impression being, oh good, someone's my little sister's age for her to talk to. Turns out she also works at the same place my aunt does. My sister takes up my slack at flinching and frowning concernedly at every too-sharp turn and too enthusiastic acceleration, while I make conversation.

The conversation comes to an abrupt halt when the new novice manages to land one of the front wheels squarely in a gutter. Oddly, the novice lives ten feet away from where our car is now stuck, and still did not manage to remember there was an open manhole right in that spot. Eager to get home, I guess.

Ooh and on the way I see something I have not seen in a long time... The street sign which says 'Feroze Nana Street', which I always misread as 'Ferozi (colored) Nana street' and giggled about when I was younger.

Anyhow, getting back to the action, four young men are asked to pull the car out of the manhole, which they are nice enough to do with minimum staring and we are on our way after bidding adieu to the novice behind the wheel. Right after this the instructor summons my sister to drive us out and back to Clifton.

Turns out the passenger side brake for the instructor's been disabled by our unfortunate descent into the gutter and this is discovered only when my sister's driving nearly lands us face first into the side of a large van. ("Beta, brake karain, brake karain! BrakeBrakeBrakeBrakeBrake... Allah ka shukar hai!", the last bit when the car manages to miss the truck. So here we are, exhaling with relief when we notice we're in the middle of the road. On we go, with instructor aunty's nerves severely rattled.

To cut a long story short, it is discovered that the instructor's side of the brakes have failed and so my sister drives us back from the Gora Kabaristan to Clifton, keeping an ever cautious distance from all other vehicles (no small feat when it's rush hour) and a constant foot on the (only) brakes. Also, we get lost in our own backyard (terrible with directions, all of us) and finally arrive home from our four hour driving lesson.

At this rate, in a week you shall all see me prowling the streets of Karachi in my ride, hands defiantly on the upper half of the steering wheel.