Asha stopped briefly near the park as she waited to cross the road on a crisp Monday morning with birds chirping, vehicles honking and morning walkers chatting.
She watched an elderly woman from the neighbouring building reverse her car carefully. With calm confidence, she straightened the wheels and drove away.
“Some people make it look so easy,” Asha murmured to herself.
“Amma, what are you staring at?” her son Rohan asked, joining her at the park gate.
“That aunty must be almost seventy. See how comfortably she manages.”
Rohan shrugged. “So? Lots of people drive.”
Asha nodded but said nothing.
The road had once meant something completely different to her.
When she was twelve, her father had taught her how to ride a bicycle. He held the seat from behind and ran along slowly as she tried to balance.
“Do not look down,” he said gently. “Look at the road ahead.”
“But what if I fall and get hurt?” she asked anxiously.
He laughed. “If you fall, you get up and try again. Asha, roads are not meant to be feared.”
After several attempts she managed to pedal a few metres by herself.
Her father patted her back proudly. “My Asha can do anything.”
The memory stayed with her long after he was gone.
Years later, the road took him away.
Her father had left home one morning on his scooter.
“See you in the evening,” he had told her mother, like he always did. But that evening never came.
One accident.
One phone call.
And their lives changed forever.
From that day on, the road quietly changed its meaning in Asha’s mind.
A few years later,
She cycled to college. Being short had never stopped her then. At traffic signals she would hop down when the light turned red and quickly jump back on when it turned green.
But riding a scooter had always been difficult. “My feet do not reach the ground properly!” she used to complain. So she never learnt to ride a two-wheeler.
That left only one option. And somehow that option kept waiting.
“Madam, release the clutch slowly,” the instructor said patiently. The car moved forward smoothly.
“Very good,” he said. “You are ready to drive on your own.”
Asha nodded politely. She had heard these words before.
Once.
Twice.
And now this was the third driving school she had joined in twenty years.
Each time she learnt perfectly. Each time she promised herself she would continue. Yet, somehow her confidence behind the wheel remained short-lived.
And each time, she quietly stopped after a few days.
Often when she watched cab drivers and delivery boys skilfully navigating crowded roads and steep ghats, she felt a strange admiration for them.
Many of them might not have had the education she had. Yet they possessed a skill she deeply respected.
Even in an emergency, she often thought, this was a skill that every person should know.
She knew she had to conquer the fear. She just had to gather the courage and begin.
But courage had a way of playing hide and seek in this part of her life.
One afternoon, while cleaning an old cupboard, Asha found a file containing a sheet of paper from her son’s school notebook.
The title read: My Mother.
She remembered the day clearly. Rohan had been five years old studying in Grade One.
She began reading slowly.
“My mother’s name is Asha. She knows so many things…”. Then towards the end he had written, “My mother does not drive. But one day she will learn to drive.”
She had laughed and hugged her little one tightly.
But somewhere deep inside, those words had quietly stayed with her.
“Amma?”
Rohan’s voice pulled her back to the present. She was still standing near the park gate.
A week later, Asha had to leave early in the morning for the Sari Walkathon being held on Women’s Day. Her husband watched her getting ready in a sari and raised his eyebrows. “Should I drop you at the venue?”
Asha picked up the car keys and walked toward the parked car.
“It is Women’s Day,” she said calmly. “I am giving myself a gift.”
She smiled.
“The future I kept postponing.”
The truth was that no one had really asked her to postpone it. But she had quietly done it herself.
Her husband laughed. “Fine. Just one thing. Be careful. No scratches on the car.”
Asha rolled her eyes. “See? This is exactly why I hesitate. Husbands are always more worried about their cars.”
She opened the car door and sat down. For a moment, she simply held the steering wheel.
Twenty years.
It had taken her twenty years to reach this moment.
She started the engine and slowly drove out of the building gate. The road stretched ahead.
For years that road had carried fear. Today it carried something else – hope, true to her name.
Asha pressed the accelerator gently and joined the moving traffic, humming a familiar melody- ‘’Dil hai chhota sa, chhoti si asha”
And a familiar voice echoed in her mind.
“Do not look down. Look at the road ahead.” It was her father’s voice.
For the first time in twenty years, Asha was not driving away from fear but towards a future she had postponed for far too long.
Pic: courtesy freepik
