Gear shifts

It’s a scene that replays on my mind time and time again – not many scenes do.

Its not even a scene – its just a fleeting moment.

Winters are cold, Delhi winters are not cold, they are bitterly cold, the zen’s air blower struggling to warm the feet is the only way I remember it, I don’t remember if the sun came out that day or not.

The road, one of the only long and winding roads in Delhi, the Ridge road, the bend just before the Raj Niwas up the hill.

I was not always the driver I am today, I was habituated to keeping my left palm on the gear shift lever, it’s a kink I had, to drive the perfect drive where you never feel the shift in the gear downwards and the sound of the engine engaging into the power train again merges with the release of the clutch without a change of sound, its an unconscious moment most people don’t even feel it or care about it but it’s the difference of those split seconds of shift -  engage - and release, that is imperceptible  that decide how smooth are you ?  its happening all the time.  It was the way I was taught to drive by the sound of the engine. 

Call me addicted to it or call me obsessed about it but that’s the way I am. It comes naturally to me, its part of me,  an extension of my body but when my father is seated next to me on the other side – I am conscious about the entire process, “conscious”  how many times ?, I have no clue, you can imagine the number of times I would have changed a gear shift lever with him next to me – there has never been a time I have not been conscious about it no matter what the situation, its like every time I am being judged for my performance of that seamless transition in and out of the shift.  Its like breathing, you are not conscious about it and now imagine that you are conscious about your every breath and imagine that every shift of the gear downward or upward is a breath you take - and you can understand what I am trying to say about the frequency of the activity performed.

 

Empty road, no rush hour, I know the stretch of the road well, (I have been lost walking on these roads as a child visiting my grandmother's home and that is where this drive started), like the back of my hand, the destination 10, K.G. Marg is a second visit in a lifetime only and both on the same day, today.  

I hate not knowing the route,  it disturbs my gear shift pattern,  every turn has to be etched in memory to be the perfect driver, I simply hate not knowing the road.

 

Am lost in myself with my palm on the gear shift lever,  I can see Pooja in the rear view mirror,  staring into emptiness, from the corner of my eye,  I can see my dad on the left looking into his own folded hands,  the quietness of the cocoon speeding down the road is broken only by the warm whirring of the blower. 

And as I take the bend and I shift the stick forward my dad’s palm slips over my hand and he says quietly “ I don’t want to die“ the clutch released under my foot, the power train engages, I lift my right hand off the steering wheel and across my heart and put it on my dad’s hand on the gear shift and say nothing.  For those split seconds of life – life stood still in a void with the car going into the bend with no hands on the wheel, till reality forced my right hand back onto the steering wheel.

 

It was one of the few rare moments of my life when I saw a conscious acceptance of a weak moment in my father’s life span spent with him.

It was the only moment that I saw from the corner of my eyes, a man looking into his folded hands that life was only a matter of time.

That said I don't remember him  even flinching one more time ever again till the end, other than the one request.    " please don't let me suffer " 

 

Every time I shift gears I hear those words “I don’t want to die.”