They say life is all about finding your true self, but the number of times I have got lost and found myself while driving to a new destination, has made it even more adventurous, especially when it came down to asking for directions,
Courtesy my unflattering sense of direction, I had often been at the crossroads, not knowing which path to take. No matter how pricky or brave I was, trouble started when I would go astray like a golf ball in the high weeds, while reaching a friend’s place or a wedding venue on my own. Having lived in Chandigarh, which had straight simple roads, I am poked up to admit that I had sometimes ventured into tiny, hustled, winding rough roads that never led to my destination.
I was coupled with a better half who had an impeccable road sense and a great photographic memory, that never let him forget a road that he had tread once. In our initial years of marriage, he thought that it was the newness of the city that had me bumfuzzled. Pretty soon he realized that my software for remembering directions was entirely missing. He couldn’t hold back his Punjabi spirit and hence I earned a new sobriquet, ‘Gawachi gaa’ ( lost cow).
The advent of google maps was a savior to distraught souls like me, but in earlier times the locals on the street were the needles to our compass. My social work would take me to no-network areas and I would fall on the advice of the first person in sight. It was interesting to see how people had their own interpretation of directions. If you’d ask a hillman how far the place is, he would casually say, ‘pahari ke paar’( just beyond the hill), implying that it is not far. In reality it could be a few miles away.
I once came across a grand old ‘chaiwala’ having a tea stall in the middle of nowhere, in Punjab. When I asked him how he expected a good flow of customers in that area, he had an amusing answer. Being an old timer , he had noticed that many people got lost at that particular spot while visiting a nearby temple. Hence guiding people became his profession and the divine tasting tea he sold was his reward.
Traveling in foreign countries was always a lot of fun where we were constantly seeking directions to new places. It created a warm bond with the person who would sometimes explain things in a foreign language. The people of Singapore had a unique way of guiding . Their sentence would begin with, ‘if you know how to walk, then your destination is five minutes away’. The ball would fall in our court whether we wanted to use the healthy way to reach our place or deal with the guilt of hiring a cab.
There was this one time in life when even google maps couldn’t locate the place and my asking for directions was a complete failure. This was in the heart of Bangalore city, when my cab driver told me that I must visit a popular place called SM Lal. I got down and started searching. After hunting high and low, I decided to check with another cab driver. He said it was the ‘Assembly Hall’ right there in front of me.
Losing the track had certainly led to enriching experiences. Infact, I had stopped worrying when I got lost, for I always came back with a new story in my kitty.