Do you remember the first time you got behind the wheel of a car? Once you remember that, do you remember who taught you how to drive? For a lot of us, it was a parent or a relative–my dad was entirely too patient with me, but I still think about him when it comes to not being an indecisive driver. Some of us are in the hands of a seasoned professional, and if Shanti Goodjar is in the passenger seat, one of her hands probably has a cigarette between her fingers. In Charles Frank’s winning, unexpectedly wistful documentary short, Shanti Rides Shotgun, this instructor teaches the young motorist wards of New York City how to merge and how to honk the horn–what they don’t expect, though, is that they might absorb some of her toughness and intelligence along the way.
There’s driving, and then there’s driving in New York City. It’s an entirely different animal, but if you have someone as street smart and uncompromising as Shanti as your teacher, you automatically retain some of that spitir when you are behind the wheel. The first time I drove after I watched Frank’s film, I literally considered WWSD. Or What Would Shanti Do. The city of New York has a stereotypical reputation for being loud, crowded and rude, so that also extends to driving around. It’s not for the faint of heart.
What Frank wisely does is show not just how Shanti is as a teacher but also how she lives in her home. When she speaks about her late husband, her demeanor is entirely different and her voice is softer. Perhaps the loss of the love of her life is so immeasurable that she’s eager to get behind the dashboard of another car with someone to mold into the best driver that they can possibly be. There is affection in her voice when she speaks to her pupils, and she speaks about the privileged people of the world because they have sat in the seat right next to her.
In a world that is obsessed with the softer edges of everyone’s persona, Shanti Rides Shotgun embraces the hardness. We do not learn our most valuable lessons from gentle nudges but from abrupt collisions. In Shanti’s case, she will teach you how to avoid the physical crash but learn from the close calls.
Shanti is truly a ride or die.
