#8 Learning

Kolkata - 7th September 2021

The fan spun noisily over our heads.

I asked my cousin, "Have you learned how to drive yet?"

He let out a grin - "I already have my license, but I can only move around in Salt Lake, slowly, in first gear. Plus, I don't need to, you can get whatever you need within walking distance, I never feel the need to use the car, it's just lying around, gathering dust. I have to properly learn it. I have driven a fair bit here, but can't find the confidence yet."

"You learned to drive, by driving inside Salt Lake, didn't you?"

"Yes"

"Hmm… That's why"

"What?"

"Salt Lake is a comfortable place to drive, but it's a terrible place to learn to drive. This is because the rest of Kolkata is not like that. The roads of Kolkata are packed to the brim with traffic, there's buses making sudden stops, there's motorcycles on the wrong side of the road, cars moving an inch of one another... It's a mess. Salt Lake is not like that, Salt Lake is a controlled environment - the roads are well maintained, the traffic is low and mostly consists of other cars, there's a proper footpath alongside the road, and at every turn there's a roundabout! Real life is not like that, real life is messy."

It's an island of comfort at the center of reality, and you can only learn so much there.