Every culture, every society has over time come to see certain rituals as rites of passage. Call it a baptism, a bar-mitzwah or an Upanayanam (I am a Tam-Brahm after all! :P), these are the true signaling devices that we have devised to announce our arrival. Reliable sources tell me that in some cultures even castration is considered a rite of passage (Ouch! Maybe the final pack . . . er passage :P)
But I digress. The reliable source mentioned above a.k.a. Wikipedia, has, I see, left out one very very important rite of passage. Granted, it does not have history and tradition on its side. It is less than 100 years old. But what it lacks in historical depth, it more than makes up for in its geographical spread. No matter what your sex, caste, creed, race or nationality, you have to undergo this ritual if you want to drive.
And like all rites of passage, this one has a perfect time. Your 18th birthday. If you are an ideal person, this is what you would have done: drunk yourself silly on the last night / first day of your 17th / 18th year and shown up hungover for the driving license test. It shows. Just look at your license photo!:P
Anything less than ideal, you would have given a few days gap between the 18th birthday celebrations and your driving license test. I fall in this category. You see, I gave my driving license test for a motorbike 11 years after my 18th birthday.
Why, you ask? Why now? Because it is only now that the ‘macho’ness of the idea of a sole biker riding his bike across a mountainous terrain overcame my innate and abundant inertia. And so I stood in a line filled with babies. From the next decade. The test itself was fairly simple. Drive a Kinetic Honda for 5 metres and turn back. No sweat there.
At least that is what it was to me. But then I realized that I was thinking from a vantage point of somebody who was 10 years older. For a boy / man or a girl / woman at the cusp of adulthood, this was a fricking big deal.
And so I watched them delicately nurse the Kinetic across the ten metre course. Some were tense, others nonchalant. However, in the end, we had all made it. Or so I thought.
The advantage of maturity is invisible. There is no halo that shines behind your head indicating your ability to navigate the roads of Mumbai. There is no indication that your heart beats normally when the babies’ hearts beat a little faster. In the end, the result is the same. The Kinetic is back safely at the starting point.
The disadvantages of maturity are however easily visible. The glasses. My glasses. My soda-bottle glasses. So when the inspector glanced up from my application form, I believe that he focused not on making eye contact or in confirming my identity, but instead on the oh-so-prominent symbol of maturity that I wore. In his version of Serengeti I was the limping gazelle, masquerading as the preying lion.
It was here that my heart filled with dread. I was going to get rejected on grounds of poor eyesight. At least made to jump through some extra hoops. The inspector could insist on a vision certificate. From a government hospital. From experience, I know that I will never get a clean certificate. My dream of riding a bike to Laddakh was over. Finito. Time to wake up and smell the coffee.
But all was not lost. While maturity has given me the prominent addition to my face, it has also given me the ability to cope with the situation. Long lines in various government offices in multiple countries had given me the ability to instantly put on my appeal-to-your-nobler-side face. An impossible combination of a soulful look with down-cast eyes, it worked very well in immigration lines, ration card lines, passport offices and on one memorable occasion with a cop who had almost written me a ticket for going 20 miles over the speed limit. It was this weapon of last resort that I deployed. . . and . . . incredulity slowly gave way to comprehension and then assent.
He smiled, shook his head and advised me to drive carefully. I nodded and walked out the room. 25 years after I fell in love with motorbikes, 22 years after I learnt to ride a normal bike, 11 years after I should have gotten my license, I've actually gotten my driving license.
The rites of passage are complete. I am a biker now. And I love it.
