In this beguiling essay, writer Snigdha Manickavel brings to life the experience of taking driving lessons in small town South India. "I'm learning to drive. I am grasping terror in my hands and tossing it aside. I wake up early in the morning, earlier than I have for years. It is cool and grey outside and my room is filled with dark shapes and hungry mosquitoes. I wear my sister's abandoned clothes and dress in the dark because 6 a.m. is when our daily three-hour power cut starts. " Her vivid prose goes on to paint a picture of her particular corner of the world, and the specific people who inhabit it -- including her wonderfully eccentric driving teacher. Woven into the local detail of her story, are universal themes - struggle and triumph, fear and compassion, self-doubt and empathy.
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