My father, a retired Indian army officer with the engineering
corps, was very fond of automobiles. One truck he was very passionate was the
3.5 tonne carrier- Swaraj Mazda.
He had taken voluntary
retirement from the army and set up a transport company at Pune. He had bought
3 Mazda trucks and hired an equal number of drivers to begin the business. He
primary objective was to keep himself occupied and hence the venture wasn’t important.
It was
precisely the time when I was into my late teens and was eligible to get a car
driving licence. I had urged my father to lend me money for joining a car
driving school without luck as my father insisted that instead of learning how
to drive a car , I should rather learn the truck which we had at our disposal.
He had his way;
and assigned a driver who took me every morning took me to the open land
adjacent to the University grounds and taught me truck driving. This went on
for a week or so and soon I was confidently maneuvering the heavy
truck on the ground.
When I went in for
my permanent licence for giving a Test at the RTO, the invigilator over
there asked me to get along my car to which I said that I had brought our Truck
along. Astonished, the RTO Invigilator informed me that I would be only
eligible for a Car licence and then asked me to hire a car for the test. I did
so by paying a fee at the RTO office where they provided Car's for driver
testing. Without doubt, I cleared the exam and got myself a car driving licence.
It’s called LMV( light motor vehicle ) licence.
Several years
later when I asked my father as to why he had insisted me on learning the Truck
and not the Car, he asked instead " Do you think Edmund Hillary and
Tensing Norgay would find it difficult to climb the Sinhagad Fort( a hill in
Pune city).
I replied,
" No".
"Why",
he asked me. And before I could answer, he said, "Because they have
scaled Mount Everest. My Son, it would be an evening walk for Hillary and
Norgay to climb the Sinhagad fort. So, Always Do The Difficult Thing First
!!"
Now that's a
coach.
Isar Qureshi
