On the Outside Looking Indian

by Rupinder Gill

  “Oh, this is funny…a Sikh man, a Hindu, and a goat go into…”

  It would be at that point that I would drive too close to the yellow line and he would lose his humor and lecture me the whole rest of the way home.

  Despite my desire to finally get behind the wheel again, I heard myself already making excuses. “It’s winter,” I would say to one friend. “Wow, the price of gas is really ruining my driving plans!” I would lie to another. While I was out shopping one day in April with Jen, she asked me if I wanted to pump gas and I shook my head furiously and buckled my seat belt. I don’t know why I am so afraid of all things vehicular. It seemed that as each year passed, I had a little more trepidation. Much like not knowing how to swim, or learning new skills, not having confidence was a thing I wanted to leave behind in childhood memories. I realized how stupid I was being and got out of the car.

  After pumping the gas and realizing a monkey could do it, I decided I would have to take driving in small steps. But I couldn’t allow myself to keep putting it off. Relying on someone to chauffeur me around was not freedom. I wanted to go antiquing, take weekend trips, drive my eventual brood of adorable wide-eyed kids to the zoo, and take road trips across this great continent of ours, and all that was standing in my way was my fear.

  My friend Moira offered to take me driving. Others had offered from time to time but found themselves having to wash their hair when I reminded them of it. In fairness, though, it was a subject that I rarely brought up. I had avoided driving for the past decade, and despite my putting it on the top of my must-do list, old habits were dying hard. So I made a date with Moira and didn’t let myself back out of it, no matter how desperately I wanted to wash my hair.

  My issue was pure and simple: a complete lack of confidence. Had I started driving at sixteen like everyone else I knew, I would have had three years of steady driving experience before heading off to college, but I had resisted. It was the summer after my first year of university that I decided to finally take driving lessons. I was back at home and working two jobs, so I thought I’d add salt to the wounds of my already terrible summer and learn to drive. It was no surprise to me when my parents bypassed the large and reputable companies to sign me up at an Indian driving school.

  The advantage to this was that the school allowed me to skip the in-class lessons, for which I had no time. My instructor was the calmest human I had ever encountered; Gandhi was teaching me how to parallel-park.

  We would drive for an hour a week, and during that hour, he would tell me where to turn and advise me of how far I was over or under the speed limit. During the first few lessons, he would remind me of a fundamental by quietly repeating it, saying, “Mirror, mirror, mirror,” in a steady chant until I got into the habit of checking them all regularly as I drove. Soon he cut out the verbal cues and simply tapped his finger on the mirrors when he thought I was getting lazy. My eyes darted furtively from one mirror to the other with each tap I heard, like a Pavlovian dog with a learner’s permit. The one and only time I drove on the freeway, during my first test, I don’t know how I didn’t create a ten-car pileup, but somehow I passed with flying colors and moved up to the second level.

  My final driving test was scheduled for Thanksgiving weekend and my instructor came to drive me there and offer me a few last-minute tips. When we pulled into the parking lot of the driving test center, he wished me luck and looked in the window to see which test instructors were on duty. “I hope we get the fat one,” he said, having acquainted himself with all the testers. Sure enough, a portly lady sidled up to the side of the car and climbed into the passenger seat.

  She instructed me to pull out, which I managed to do after she pointed out that my hand brake was on. I feared I had blown it right there but had no choice but to continue. Trying to calm my nerves, I attempted small talk.

  “Nice day, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Mm-hmm…” she murmured while furiously scribbling on her notepad.

  “Have you done many tests today?” I said sweetly, hoping my interest in her line of work would help win her favor.

  “Too many bad ones,” she snorted.

  “Oh, ha ha.” I laughed.

  Her tone made me positive that she was already counting mine among them, so I gave up on the pleasantries. I drove where she told me to, turned at her request, and three-point-turned at her heart’s desire.

  When we pulled back into the lot, I saw my dad out of the corner of my eye and anticipated his response to what I was sure was my failure. He had a way of really seeking out the negative in a situation. His idea of being realistic was to keep the glass perpetually half empty, even if he ended up tipping some water out himself. I knew he was going to point out everything he felt I did wrong, like a football coach reviewing the tapes of the team’s losing game, then recount those failures to anyone who would listen. I was aware that I had done badly and didn’t need this extra hammering to my self-esteem to drive that point home.

  “Okay,” the instructor said. “Congratulations.”

  Her tone was so curt that it took a minute for her words to register. I beamed as I joined the ranks of the full-fledged drivers, and not even the drive home, during which I took my usual position in the passenger seat and listened to my father relaying his utter surprise that I hadn’t failed, was going to bring me down.

  Ten years later, standing on the porch waiting for Moira, I hoped to recapture that triumphant feeling, but realized that I had not driven in at least five years. And I had never driven in Toronto, city of blaring horns and drivers with loose interpretations of stop signs. Climbing into the passenger seat, I wondered what I was thinking. Not only was I unprepared, but Moira had only received her full license a year prior. In that time, she bought herself a Volkswagen and commuted to work daily and even once drove into Manhattan from Hartford, Connecticut. I admired her confidence, but I also recalled driving with her, my hand gripping the dashboard while she slammed on her brakes at stop signs or sped through the city at ungodly speeds. She wasn’t a bad driver, but she sometimes drove like a teenager, complete with Britney Spears sound track and desire to answer every text message she heard ding, in case it was from a cute boy.

  Perhaps I should have waited for a veteran who could help me maneuver out of a ditch or plan my best escape route after sideswiping the mirrors off a row of parked cars. But at the rate I was going, that would schedule my return to the road to coincide with my retirement. So I decided to seize the opportunity and give it a shot.

  We drove up to a nearby quiet area, which also happened to be one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city. It offered a new driver the comfort of little traffic mixed with the anxiety of driving past rows of luxury cars. Behind the wheel, I didn’t feel as nervous as I thought I would but couldn’t say the same for Moira.

  Moira rarely frowned. When she was awake, she was all smiles. I mention the disclaimer of wakefulness because her claim to fame was her ability to fall asleep anywhere and everywhere. It was like making plans with Rip Van Winkle. After fifteen minutes of waiting impatiently on a street corner, you would call her for an explanation and hear, “I don’t know what happened, I fell asleep!” Making dinner plans often involved working around her nap schedule, and one memorable day, she called to cancel our dinner date because she had eaten some gnocchi at lunch that had induced a pasta coma. On this day she managed to stay awake while I was driving, but her trademark smile was soon replaced with a look similar to the one on Mia Farrow’s face during the majority of Rosemary’s Baby.

  “How am I doing?” I asked Moira as I slowly pulled out of a cul-de-sac.

  “Um, you might want to move over,” she said through terror-clenched teeth. “You’re pretty close to that Mercedes.”

  “Oh, sorry.” I giggled. Still, daredevil that she is, she let me continue. “Am I going too fast?” I asked.

  Looking at the speed-limit sign, she said, “No, you’re ten under.”

  “Better to be caut
ious,” I said, hands locked at ten and two. “I don’t want to scratch up your car or injure any trophy wives.” With the exception of nearly missing one stop sign, I was just as good a driver as any sixteen-year-old out there. I even executed a fairly impressive three-point turn and drove for a full minute on a major thoroughfare. Then Moira, visions of fiery collisions no doubt in her mind, told me to go back to the other neighborhood, where it was quieter.

  She instructed me to take a shortcut and I found myself going through a narrow alley, just an inch of space to spare on each side of the car. Stay cool, I told myself. Slow and steady, slow and steady. I pulled my foot off the gas and concentrated on coasting through.

  As we emerged on the other side, Moira said, “That was great, you made it over that pothole smoothly.”

  I was confused and looked in my rearview mirror, where I spotted a pothole almost the width of a car, waiting for its tire prey. I didn’t feel the need to tell Moira that I had been unaware of the pothole and that sheer luck had gotten us over it. Letting her think I was an adept driver was better for both of us.

  I circled through the streets for another hour, conscious of both the cars on my side and the rich soccer moms impatiently trailing me in their SUVs.

  “Go around me!” I would motion, but they never did. Now that Moira felt comfortable, I was worried that she would be lulled to sleep, so we decided to head home. When Moira dropped me off, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I know that driving is not brain surgery, but since I was sixteen, I had let a mountain be created from a molehill and now I was finally on my way to climbing it. It was a great feeling and I visualized my ultimate goal, driving down the highway on the ultimate road trip, a perfect playlist on the stereo and a perfectly confident driver behind the wheel.

  I decided to join the local auto share program so I would always have access to a car, and most importantly, some insurance. When the online system lavished its acceptance on me, I beamed and Jen suggested a little afternoon drive of celebration. Which is when the smile died. Though I had driven just the past weekend, I was already nervous again.

  “I won’t be able to back out of your parking spot,” I stammered. “That left turn out of our street is too advanced for me.” Nonetheless, we agreed to go for a ride and see how I felt about driving home.

  Well, I agreed with that.

  Jen made a right turn off our street, careened down the next street, and pulled over onto the shoulder. Smiling wickedly, she jumped out of the driver’s seat and I had no choice but to trade places with her.

  “Fine,” I said. “I take no responsibility for passenger-side impact.”

  She didn’t flinch, so I cautiously pulled out onto the street, awaiting her instructions. It was a holiday weekend, so streets that would normally be bumper-to-bumper chaos were virtually empty.

  “Okay,” Jen said, motioning to two cars a foot ahead of me on a quiet street. “Pull up right beside that first car.” When I was in place, she said, “Now parallel-park.”

  I had no idea how to parallel-park. I wasn’t even that proficient in regular parking. I recalled many failed attempts to pull through a spot to the one adjacent and hearing a car horn blare at me. How was I supposed to know they were waiting? And really, aren’t the yellow lines just a guide?

  “Fine,” I said. I took a deep breath and looked into the rearview mirror.

  “Sharp right, sharp right, sharp right!” Jen coached. “Now left, left, left.”

  I jerked the wheel from one side to the other, the car moving a millimeter each time, beads of sweat dripping down my forehead.

  “Okay, stop! Stop!” Jen said. I jerked to a stop and turned off the car.

  I made it. Not even a bump against the curb.

  “Okay,” I said, quite pleased with myself. “What next?”

  What was next was more parallel parking. Ten more parallel parks. Jen seemed to think that parking upon arrival was more important than learning to drive to the destination. She spouted off a statistic about parking-lot accidents. I reciprocated with a lie about having to get home to watch a show and she let me off the hook. When I got home, I immediately wished I had stuck it out because I really felt like getting behind the wheel again. I dialed Jen’s number and left a message.

  “Hi, it’s me. When can we do that again?”

  NINE

  step by step

  I turned thirty-one in May, rather unceremoniously, upon my request. When I was younger, all I wanted was to have a birthday party, to play pin the tail on the donkey with my friends, and give out loot bags. The only kids who were ever at our parties were our cousins. Our ignorance of Western birthday-party etiquette was evident when Gurpreet and I were allowed to go to our next-door neighbor Anita’s seventh birthday party at McDonald’s.

  We were so excited that we kept bothering our mom the whole week to get Anita a gift. We couldn’t show up at our only social affair of the year empty-handed. After we twirled around the Grimace bars and went down the Hamburglar slide at our local McDonald’s, Anita’s parents asked us to gather around so Anita could open her gifts. When she got to ours, I sat in anticipation of the big reveal.

  “This is beautiful,” Anita’s mom said, pulling out the turquoise beaded necklace and matching earrings that we had helped our mom choose. I was beside myself with excitement. We were at a party, we were having fun, and people thought we had given Anita a truly awesome gift.

  “Oh, wow,” the kids said, in between gulps of a sugary powdered drink.

  Not having been to a party before, I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to sit silently and let the birthday girl move on to the next gift.

  “It was only two dollars!” I yelled out.

  Gurpreet was so embarrassed that she made a Kids Say the Darndest Things face and pinched my arm.

  I lost my fervor for birthdays after I turned twenty-one, the age when you officially cross the line from child to adult. After that, each subsequent birthday felt more like aggravation than celebration. Will people show up for my party? Is everyone having a good time? Is so-and-so coming? I decided to spare myself the gift of heartburn for my thirty-first and keep it a small affair. Moira, Jen, Jaclyn, and our lovely redheaded friend Maggie and I met for dinner at a cozy restaurant downtown. “To thirty-one!” we toasted, hoisting our wineglasses in the air. I was now the oldest of the group, though a lifetime of being yelled at to stay out of the sun helped to make me look younger. A handful of wiry gray hairs were my only informants, but they lurked somewhere around layer three hundred of my hair, allowing me to back-comb them into the abyss with little effort.

  “Here’s to a great year,” we cheered.

  “And to many more ahead, just like this one,” Jen added.

  “What’s next for you to do?” Maggie asked me.

  “Hmm,” I replied, not entirely sure.

  “I’m going to keep trying with tennis,” I replied, “although I am still not very good at it. I have to drive more…and choose a camp…and look into a trip to Disney World.”

  As I rattled off the list, I was aware that at thirty-one, I was already completely different from what I was at thirty, or twenty, or even ten, for that matter. I felt a real sense of hope about what I could achieve, because for the first time in a long time, I was actually doing the positive things I had set out to do. No longer was I stuck in the pattern of making myself grandiose promises and being unsurprised that I didn’t keep them, then downgrading them to small promises and being disappointed that I couldn’t even achieve those. Now I was experiencing the satisfaction of putting my money where my mouth was, and it was taking my life from routine to rejuvenated.

  I was happier. I believed in myself more and I believed that life was worth risk and hard work, because it would all work out. It was meant to work out.

  Yet, though I had done so much, I still wanted more. As my friends and I talked about the outstanding items on my list, it became apparent that I was nowhere near finished. Like a student who had was
ted her whole term partying and suddenly realized that finals were upon her, I had to start cramming or I was not going to make it to the finish line. With this uncomfortable proposition in mind, I shoved another extremely comforting forkful of steak into my mouth.

  I really had to get planning. I am a nauseating overplanner, a habit acquired from a lifetime of being made to feel unable to make wise decisions. If you are a kid who is only going to go out twice a year, you have to choose those outings with a lot of care. My fear of choosing poorly made me indecisive in all decisions in life. I would stand in a department store for ten minutes debating between two pairs of socks and leave both in the end. In high school, I went to the guidance office every week to sign out the university books so I could have four solid years of contemplation before making a choice. Now, having a full-time job and trying to relive two decades of missed opportunities, I would need to demonstrate a certain amount of forethought and wise scheduling. Almost every single day since starting my to-do list, I have gone online and looked at dog photos and Googled such phrases as “having a dog in an apartment” and “breeds that bark the least.”

  At least ten times I have looked up driving routes to Orlando, Florida. At least five times I have checked the available dates at every camp in North America from piano camps to fantasy camps to good old-fashioned canoe-and-cabin camp.

  “Learn to swim,” I typed into my Outlook calendar when I got home from dinner. As I looked up adult swim programs, hoping there might be some hosted in all-female gyms or nunneries, I dreamed of gliding through the water, my two braids no longer a barrier.

  A message from Navroop popped up on my computer: “Happy Birthday!”

  “Thanks,” I typed back.

  “I think this is going to be your best year ever,” she wrote.

  “You know what?” I wrote. “So do I.”