Did you know that Madhuri Dixit loves track driving? “She enjoys the speed, adrenaline, and thrill that comes with it,” revealed her husband, Dr Shriram Nene, in a recent interview.
“She is a dancer, so she knows how to park one foot next to the other, and how to choreograph movements. Her hand-eye motor coordination is phenomenal,” said , further telling Mashable India, “But she won’t take driving lessons from me, because she’s like — that’s a sure way to get into trouble as a couple.”
But what is relation between the two things?
Rima Bhandekar, psychologist at Mpower Aditya Birla Education Trust, told that while taking driving lessons from your partner seems like an obvious choice, it could be a bonding moment or a disastrous experience for a couple.
“Learning to drive is inherently a stressful experience where you must coordinate between many details – mirrors, pedals, signs, and your partner’s voice – all at once. When stress increases, so do emotions, which could lead to arguments. Sometimes it may leave a feeling that you’re not just learning to drive, you’re being judged,” she explained.
According to her, sometimes being good at driving may not translate well to being good at teaching driving. You want calm, clear instructions, and your partner shouts and gives fast instructions in a panicked tone, like “BRAKE NOW!” This naturally creates confusion in the beginner’s mind about what happened. The learning and teaching styles of partners may not match, she added.
Illustrating the main difference between a partner and a professional trainer, Bhandekar said that an experienced driving instructor is taught to remain cool, properly comment on mistakes, and be emotionally neutral. “When your partner teaches, it could be a verbal match with the learner shouting ‘I am trying!’ and the partner screams, ‘You’re not listening!’, she added.
There’s another layer to this whole debacle. “Mistakes are part of learning, but making them with your partner in the passenger seat can feel like a personal failure to some. Somehow, the arguments could go from mistakes in driving to mistakes made in the past that hurt,” she added.
In short, Bhandekar noted that driving can cause control issues. “It is not like you can take five minutes and go for a walk; you are stuck literally next to each other with no breaks,” she said. If the driving lessons keep ending in tears or shouting, it’s not a failure of either of you—it’s just a sign to call a professional instructor.
