Manee
Well-known member
I'd love to know CW's reactions to an interesting anecdote about a driving instructor that I had last year (have a new one now as he moved on to teaching only automatic cars).
Apologies for not knowing the technical terms but the instructor was a muslim man who wore the traditional muslim attire with the full beard, like robey thing and the head gear. I don't have a problem with that. However, during lessons, we used to stop off at the Mosque and he'd go in while I'd wait in the car and this would last about 30 minutes. I'm not sure if you can imagine being a Sikh looking boy in a Mosque carpark, but it terrified me - but perhaps I was being overly fearful - I did think it was odd for this to happen in every driving lesson though. We'd make up the time and so a 2 hour lesson would end up taking 2 and a half hours, which was okay.
Later on, we used to drive further down for one hour before stopping at a farm carpark (I think that is what it was) and he'd say "I need to get something" and disappear for 45-50 minutes. The first time it happened, my overactive imagination did think the car was going to blow up, but alas, I guess I'm inherently racist, or something. Later, I went looking for him in the woodsy part and caught a glimse of him praying (I think) with like a cooking pot type thing. He'd later explain before going that he was going to pray. However, the length of time this took meant that lessons are now taking 3 hours. This carried on until he stopped being my instructor. Should I have said something? Or should I have written a complaint to the company? I'm unsure.
Another interesting sight was once, when pulling out of the carpark and been driving for about 30 seconds, I pulled over to let someone through the narrow road and the instructor said to himself "I wonder who he is", asked me to stop and ran after this car (which was quite a funny sight in his attire) to the farm car park, presumably to talk to the guy.
Anyway, in hindsight, this was very weird indeed, how would you have reacted to this?
Apologies for not knowing the technical terms but the instructor was a muslim man who wore the traditional muslim attire with the full beard, like robey thing and the head gear. I don't have a problem with that. However, during lessons, we used to stop off at the Mosque and he'd go in while I'd wait in the car and this would last about 30 minutes. I'm not sure if you can imagine being a Sikh looking boy in a Mosque carpark, but it terrified me - but perhaps I was being overly fearful - I did think it was odd for this to happen in every driving lesson though. We'd make up the time and so a 2 hour lesson would end up taking 2 and a half hours, which was okay.
Later on, we used to drive further down for one hour before stopping at a farm carpark (I think that is what it was) and he'd say "I need to get something" and disappear for 45-50 minutes. The first time it happened, my overactive imagination did think the car was going to blow up, but alas, I guess I'm inherently racist, or something. Later, I went looking for him in the woodsy part and caught a glimse of him praying (I think) with like a cooking pot type thing. He'd later explain before going that he was going to pray. However, the length of time this took meant that lessons are now taking 3 hours. This carried on until he stopped being my instructor. Should I have said something? Or should I have written a complaint to the company? I'm unsure.
Another interesting sight was once, when pulling out of the carpark and been driving for about 30 seconds, I pulled over to let someone through the narrow road and the instructor said to himself "I wonder who he is", asked me to stop and ran after this car (which was quite a funny sight in his attire) to the farm car park, presumably to talk to the guy.
Anyway, in hindsight, this was very weird indeed, how would you have reacted to this?
