I have always loved and enjoyed driving, especially in the City Beautiful, and in & around the idyllic countryside found just on the outskirts of the city. I also love to drive around the bucolic landscapes of Punjab soaking in the rural sights and sounds of my beloved state. Driving my Black Thar, with my favourite music on, is not just a necessity but a therapy for me to exist on a sane note in this mad world. It is a microcosm of relaxation, introspection, contemplation and self-reflection for me. In fact, I often connect and talk to my higher self while driving; seeking answers to the conundrums life throws my way. It is also my gateway to bliss when life in this world gets too much for me to handle. Life for empaths like me has never been easy and when the going gets tough, I grab the keys of my car and just go for a long drive in search of my soul and sanity. Trust me; I come back every time as a changed person with a sparkling smile on my face and a completely new perspective on anything which was earlier weighing me down.
The selection of the music for the drive depends on my mood and the weather outside. It ranges from the 80’s-90’s Hindi film songs, gazals in Jagjit Singh’s honey-laced voice, Razia Sultan’s songs, Bhupinder Singh’s renditions, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan saheb’s sufiana kalams, Mehndi Hassan’s classics to mallika-e-gazal Begum Akhtar’s Hindi songs. Besides our very own Surjit Bindarakhia crooning to peppy Punjabi songs, I love his trademark hek -the holding a single note for one long breath. I also love Boney M besides Enrique Iglesias to Kenya Grace, her song-Strangers, is my current favorite as it teleports me to another world itself.
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam
The city that I experience while being in the driver’s seat of my car and my life offers me a lot to chew on philosophically and intellectually. I have seen life thrive by very closely, as I drive through the serpentine roads of this city lined with beautiful and lush trees some of which are almost a century old. And it’s not just the flora and the fauna stretched out by the side of these roads which manage to catch hold of my attention and lend me important lessons on life and living but also the quaint little balconies and terraces of dilapidated old and relatively newer buildings which tickle my senses beyond the here and the now.
I have my favorite roads chalked out and I follow the same route every day, even if it’s the longer way home because I have established a relationship with these roads, sectors, trees and stray animals often found wrapped in the arms of these roads and the familiar cityscape offering me sights and sounds of my favourite buildings, balconies & their inhabitants with their pots and pans strewn out in their balconies encapsulating their thriving little worlds and households. The sight of the mottled sunlight filtering through the treetops, painting beautiful patterns of life on the wet clothes spread out to dry in the sun is hard to miss.
And having driven along the same routes for a long time now; which I reluctantly change only when the venues for dropping off my sons for their school and their extracurricular classes change, I have now established an unsaid and an unspoken bond with the people I find living by the roadside, the hawkers, the strays with their favorite spots to nestle in on the side of these roads, the trees lining the sidewalks and with the people I find sitting in the balconies as I drive by daily. Sometimes I catch these people enjoying their morning tea as they sit turning the pages of a crisp morning newspaper, other times watering their potted plants sitting chock-a-block on a rickety old stand or just savoring some piping hot pakoras in the balmy evenings as swirls of steam from their bone china tea cups perched precariously on the railings of their balconies make heart-warming halos in the air before flowing out of their divine abodes into somewhere else in this universe.
And I now know like the back of my hand about who sits in which balcony, at what time and is doing what. I recognize most of these roadside hawkers too by now and I know what they sell, at what time in which sector. And if some day I find any of them missing from their regular spots during their regular hours or if I fail to spot someone for a few days at a stretch, I get somewhat worried about them and a little prayer of hope and blessings quietly escapes my lips and is sent their way. I hope my prayers find them in good stead.
These city roads now nestle in my extended family as they have all become a part of my life and together they all connect me back to my source and my collective consciousness. Life without them in it loses its flavor and maybe this is what Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam actually means in its true sense.