y mother loves to drive her car, because it had always been her dream to learn driving. She had to do fulfil her dream, after much initial resistance from the family, because she is a woman. She has been driving for years now and is confident behind the wheel. But a woman driving a car is still considered an unusual spectacle. When mom is driving and I am in the passenger seat, I often see male drivers looking at her with scorn, contempt, and ridicule.

The road does not discriminate based on gender, neither does the car, but people do. Every day, I keep on finding instances of the prejudice against women drivers.

Once, a boy parked his car alongside ours on the parking lot and stepped inside a supermarket. My mother told him politely, “You forgot to turn off the headlights. The battery of the car may drain out.” He laughed. Would he have laughed if the suggestion was offered to him by a man? It reminded me of the time when the same suggestion was offered to my mother by a man. He had uttered the same words, albeit with scorn, contempt, and ridicule.

If men make mistakes while driving, it is considered normal. When they block the road to reverse their cars, the other drivers wait for them patiently, without blowing their horns. If a woman does it, it’s blasphemy. Horns are blown. Heads are shaken. Rebuffs are uttered.

Sometimes, this prejudice takes the form of road rage. We were stuck in a traffic jam. The neighbouring car intentionally hit ours and its driver laughed. Would he have dared to do the same, if our car was being driven by my father? The drivers of other cars looked at our damaged car. They assumed that the mistake was ours.

Some people even resort to harassment. We were on the highway, travelling to our hometown. On the way, a man closely followed our car from one intermediate city to another. We were terrified.

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