It was getting easier to manoeuvre the car on Dubai roads around Belhasa Driving centre, I was getting used to the roads and the turns and there was a boost in my confidence.I could hear Krishna reacting lesser as the mistakes I made were fewer. I was happy. In spite of all this “If you do this you will fail” kept dropping in regularly making my confidence level go for a toss. But that was fine, just made me more cautious. I still tried hard to please her. I don’t think I succeeded. But that was ok. Once I was a bit confident on the road, Krishna divided each class in 2 sections. One hour on the roads and one hour parking practice inside the yard. As mentioned earlier there are 4 parking one needs to learn about.  Parallel parking (:( still gives me nightmares,  angle parking (not so bad), garage parking (used in most residential parking slots) and hill parking.
I wonder why the instructors want to start with the most difficult, parallel parking in my case. It is so complicated that one gets confused with the number of times one needs to look in various glasses and mirrors, on each side of your seat, manoeuvre the turns correctly with correct indicators that at the end of it one starts looking like a zombie. And on top of this, one is not expected to make any mistakes. I mean even an expert will fail to perfectly park a car in parallel in one go. But you work towards perfection , you don’t succeed is another story. After Krishna was convinced that I was ready for the parking test I was asked to pay for the same and take the date. I was nervous like hell. Wasn’t sure of I could pull this one through.
I went to the extent of writing down the steps of each parking and vizualize it and practice it in my mind. I wonder if everyone goes through this. The fear of failure was very demotivating. I wrote down steps of exactly when I needed to look in which mirror/glass, when and which indicator to give, exactly how much and when to turn and so on. I would lie in bed and speak out those steps in my mind….firm determination…I have to pass this test….If I would be asked to go for a retest…It would be for parallel parking. Rest I knew I would manage. Krishna had trained me well with accurate instructions. I am thankful to her yet again….now I just had to see what happened on the day of the test…had to go through another trial…