Driving: the fantastico feel

It was the 17th of September, 2013. I had just signed up in a driving school and was just about to have my first class. It was about eleven in the morning when the driving school instructor called me up and asked me to be ready within five minutes.

Just as he came, he asked me to sit in the back seat as other people were having their practice at that time. As I saw that for the first time, i was both awestruck and a little scared at the same time. I had always fancied sitting on the driver’s seat since i was very small. The idea of one person controlling such a big and complicated device and running it at such high speeds appealed greatly to my childhood mind. And now that i was just about to learn the same, it was very exciting indeed.

And then I finally got my chance to sit on the coveted seat. The feeling when I first pressed the accelerator gently with my foot and felt the car move upon my command was absolutely amazing. How can such a mild touch produce such a great force? Of course i knew it was because of the engine burning diesel and a complex mechanism of gears, but the sheer feel of being able to control a vehicle for the first time was simply le fantastico.

Driving was initially much harder than what I expected. It always looked like just a simple turn of the steering wheel, and pressing the accelerator and brake - just like I had driven in the computer games. The reality was a lot different. I slowly began to get the hang of setting the gears and being able to judge when exactly one should shift, or hit the brakes, or steer - it took a little time but it was all worth the effort.

And just as I had imagined, driving has become an absolute fantastico experience for me now. Of course, it's hard to be delighted when you're navigating through heavy traffic in Indian roads - but otherwise, when the road is empty, it is pure bliss. There are few things that can match up to the feeling of driving at 100 km/hr on the empty Tank Bund road at 6:30 in the morning, with the windows pulled down, the cold breeze from the lake hitting your face and a mild-volume music playing in the audio system. It gives me a zone in which I can lose myself - a little shell where I can totally stay in touch with the world and yet stay far away from the maddening crowd. I have a Tata Manza and I'm quite satisfied by its performance. I'm sure the new Tata Zica will live up to the great standards that Tata has always been synonymous with.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.