‘Sir, don’t worry,’ Anwaruddin assured Rajan, ‘My man will pick you up from and drop you at your residence,’ and held forth, ‘Sir, in fifteen days, you’ll forget us and be on your own, driving through the busy roads of Hyderabad!’

Twenty years ago, when Rajan set out to fulfill his long cherished desire of having a car, he was excited about driving to work, visiting the landmarks of the city and going on long drives in the countryside on the weekends. He was a little apprehensive though about having to learn the skill by driving through erratic traffic, potholed roads and narrow lanes in colonies where he had seen children roaming, buffaloes lounging and shepherds passing the roads with herds of goats or flocks of sheep.

Anyway he made up his mind and enrolled himself into a 15-days’ training programme at Alpha Driving School at the Lingampalli market as recommended by his colleagues. The owner of the driving school, Anwaruddin, fixed his daily training schedules, pick-up and drop points at his convenience.

The day arrived a week later when Rajan was to have his first driving session with the trainer. It was a warm afternoon of early summer with the sun fading on the earth and balmy air caressing the leaves of the trees. Rajan came back from the office and was sipping tea along with his wife in the lawn of his residence at the Railway Colony at Lingampalli. A Maruti 800 with the signboard of the training school on its roof came and pulled up in front of his residence and sounded a horn.

The driver got off the car and greeted Rajan with a smile, ‘Hello Sir, I’m Srinu from Alpha Driving School,’ his eyes reflecting a sense of calmness and sincerity for the job in hand. He was clean-shaven and wore blue jeans and a red T-shirt, and his hairs neatly combed.

Rajan finished his cup of tea and shuffled towards the car. Srinu opened the door and gestured Rajan to the driver’s seat. As Rajan hopped in, Srinu sat on the left front seat, handed Rajan the key, and asked him to press the clutch and start the car.

Rajan touched the steering with both hands, put his palms together and mumbled a prayer. Then he inserted the key into the slot and turned it, and the engine whirred to a start. Srinu asked Rajan to slowly release the clutch. The car had a special fixture with which Srinu could operate the brake, the clutch and the accelerator, sitting on the left seat. While he asked Rajan to hold the steering and drive, effectively he retained the control through the extended mechanism and adjusted the steering from time to time lest the car veered off the road.

The car drove from the placid colony of residences through the narrow roads into the marketplace of shops, pushcarts, traffic and crowds. Pushcarts were selling flowers, garlands, bouquets and also fruits. They pulled over in front of a row of pushcarts.

‘Excuse me, Sir. I have to buy a few things,’ Srinu said and strode towards the marketplace. Srinu purchased a bouquet of roses and crossed over to the other side of the road. He went to a biryani joint and bought a packet of biryani as well.

Coming back, he told Rajan, ‘Now let’s go to Tellapur and there we will have clear roads.’ The car headed towards Tellapur village not far from Lingampalli. The smell of biryani came wafting through the air and teased Rajan’s nostrils. Rajan felt distracted for a moment but put his focus back on driving.

Tellapur locality was then sparsely populated with wide open grounds of  undergrowth and plantations between hamlets. Srinu drove to the ground and steered the car into pathways between rows of trees paved by cars training new drivers or villagers taking short walks from one corner to another. With no traffic, it was a perfect place for training in driving and one could learn to accelerate, slow down and take U-turns without the fear of hitting someone. They trained for almost half an hour and then Srinu guided the car to a hamlet and parked it beside a heap of rocks and adjoining bush at the entrance of the colony. He combed his hair, picked up the roses and biryani, put up in a big plastic packet and got off the car. He said, ‘Sorry Sir, I have to give it to my aunt. I’ll take just a few minutes.’
‘OK but come back fast,’ said Rajan, a little annoyed.

The sun was leaning towards the west but it was still a few hours before sunset. Srinu went towards the hamlet with the plastic bag in his hand but did not enter the colony. Instead he walked down the alley by the side of it which took a turn and led to another hamlet. He returned almost after half an hour and drove Rajan to his residence and thus completed his first session with the client.

The next few days, however, Srinu took a different route. He took the car to BHEL township and Ramachandrapuram on the other side of Lingampalli and taught him how to change gears and accelerate, how to use clutch and brake and slow down or how to overtake another car. Ten days of training were rather uneventful as it should be and Rajan became more confident about driving.

On the twelfth day, to Rajan’s utter surprise, Srinu was back to his deeds that marked the first day of training. He stopped the car at Lingampalli market and purchased a bouquet of roses and a packet of biryani and directed the car towards Tellapur. And reenacting the old script, after half an hour of driving, he guided the car towards the nearby hamlet and parked it where he did earlier. He got off the car and said, ‘Sorry, I’m coming,’ and walked away with the plastic bag in his hand without waiting for a yes or no from his client. Rajan did not carry much misgivings about this benevolent service on the earlier occasion, but the replay of old happenings made him suspicious about what the trainer was up to. He followed Srinu from a distance lest he would notice him, looking back suddenly on a whim. Srinu walked about half a kilometer and there in the ground there was a hut made of bricks which was used for overseeing the crops. He opened the door with a key and spent a few minutes there and came out, leaving the plastic bag inside.

When Srinu came back and got into his seat, Rajan felt relieved, thinking it was only a matter of a few days before all this drama would come to an end. He turned the key and started the car. But then all of a sudden, from behind the heap of rocks, came a tall burly man wearing a white shirt, his moustache twirled! He flashed his identity card of a police officer and asked Rajan for the key. Rajan looked towards Srinu, puzzled, and handed the key to the police officer. He was about to ask him the reasons for all this, when two khaki-clad male and one female police officers appeared from behind the car. One of the male police officers opened the left door and held him by his collar. He slapped Srinu just in that instant and asked, ‘Where have you hidden the girl here?’ Srinu cringed, surprised at the suddenness of all this.

‘We know everything. You can’t hide anything from us,’ the stout police officer thundered. Villagers came running, curious to know what was happening, and a commotion ensued. The police team led him towards the hut with a horde of men, women and children following them. They reached the hut, the police got Srinu to unlock the door. A girl wearing a frock was seen standing there in the dark room with light entering only through a small opening at the top. She was tall and of slender build and her eyes dark and deep. She looked calm and poised as if she was expecting all this to happen. The biryani packet was lying there unopened and dried rose sticks and rose petals were strewn across the floor as symbols of love renewed every day. On one side of the room, a single bed was laid for her rest. A policewoman held her hand and let her out of the room.

Srinu wanted to tell her something but was shoved aside by the police officer. When they all returned to the entrance, a police van was waiting for them. The police officers boarded the van, and Srinu and the girl were herded onto it. The  villagers stood there amused, watching the drama unfold before their eyes. The van drove away quickly without making any fuss.

The next day local newspapers carried the news of the arrest. The girl was from the far off Anantapur district. The couple was in love for years, but recently the girl was under pressure from the family to marry someone else, forcing them to elope. The girl’s family lodged a complaint of abduction with the local police station. The police took time to identify the man and patiently tracked his movements to reach the girl. Though the hiding place of the girl was changed several times to avoid the gaze of the police, they ultimately found her. The girl made a statement that she left her home of her own accord, making it difficult for the police to make a case against the boy. They handed over the girl to her family and remanded Srinu to police custody.

Love and life could be thorny like a rose plant and could prickle one badly and even make one bleed at times. One needed to recover quickly from those wounds and make a fresh beginning. Rajan contacted Anwaruddin and got a new trainer for the outstanding few days of his training. He practiced the change of gears, learned traffic signals and concluded the training. Then he purchased a new car and was soon on the roads of Hyderabad.