To drive in India...

You driving? Here!? is the common “shocking” question that I got when I decided  to drive in New Delhi. And my answer or rather a question was: Why Not?After all it is a car and I had work to do. 

The service provider failed to provide a substitute when my driver Raj had to go back to Kerala for a family emergency.

The service providers here can be a pain at such times.

 By train its three days to reach the Southern State, which means I would be without driver for more then a week as traveling alone would take six days, exactly when Eid Mubarak celebration was taking place, which means work that I can’t avoid.

 Besides, how could I miss the ketupat and lemang? No way.

 So, that was exactly when I told myself, I got to do this. No harm trying and how difficult would it be to drive a car? It is not a totally new experience for me given that I drove when I was back in Malaysia.

 The reality was not so difficult. In fact, I didn't find driving in New Delhi any different from Malaysia.

 It is just that one got to be more vigilant as homeless kids could just jump in front of your car, drivers that often beat the traffic (which is also common in Malaysia) and the worse is finding a car or lorry driving on the wrong lane, right opposite you.

 But, if you’re focus, careful and maintain a safe speed. You’re on a safe side.

 So, in life sometimes you just got to take the chances. Create your own path and make a difference. It felt good to do something that majority of foreigners are afraid to do.

 And the best part is, no one would stare at you if you accidentally HONK!

THIS MOMENT THAT FEELS LIKE A DEJAVU

I kept crying, it is like a dejavu. Something that happened 15 years ago.

Sometimes I wonder why I am like this. A person who says out everything that my mind speaks, but at 36, one can’t change that part of me that makes who I am. This is what I am.

If I die tomorrow, I have no worries of if I should have said this and done that.

“You can’t break me,” use to be my famous line during my student days. Yes, no one was able to break me as I am. I was tough, I still am. The only way one could do that is by hurting my family members and friends that are close to my heart.

But came a day that the ego in me vanished! In split second. I was broken to pieces. No, it was not a love failure, love doesn't fail anyone, it only strengthens you, whichever way one sees it.

It was a friend, someone I appreciated very much during my university days. 

Someone I shared many of my sorrows and happy moments. This was 15 years ago when a girl and boy speak to each other and go out often people tend to think it has to be love. It was not. I knew that very well.

With the amount of challenges I faced during that time in my life. All I needed was a friend to talk. Someone who will just listen and tell you everything will be fine.

Things went awry one fine day -- I came to know that he was close to me only because he was interest in my good friend. A friendship that was built on vested interest, to be made use of and well planned. 

That crashed me. It would have been fine if he had told me that in the first place itself. Nothing is wrong in falling in love with your friend's buddy. But, what I couldn't accept was that he made use of the friendship and the trust.

That was the last day I spoke to him February 16, 1999, 5pm, despite his various attempts to keep in touch, ask forgives and wanting to talk again. I wasn't able to forgive him. 

Why should I forgive a person who was not able to value the friendship!?

My final year in university went by with me in isolation. I rarely spoke to anyone. I graduated, got a job and moved on.

Now, 15 years later, I feel like I am going through the same thing all over again. A friendship with vested interest.

Why do I value people so much? Why it has to be this way? Why do I think saying things as it is the most genuine act in the world? What am I trying to prove here? I have no answer for any of it.

But this moment that I am feeling like a dejavu. Do I seriously deserve this? Is this tears and pain worth it?