ASHES

On Drive

Raah pe rehte hain, yaadon pe basar karte hain
Khush raho ehle watan hum to safar kartein hain

For the past one year now my father has been living in a small place in himachal Pradesh. My mother is staying at home in Delhi, my sister got married and moved out and I have been living in a hostel for the last 5 years in Delhi. Long story short we have all disassembled for a family. I meet my father only on weekends and my sister even more rarely. I go home 4 days a week and that too for a very small time as I have to get back to college next morning. Life has been difficult or at least uneasy. But I try my best to make the most of what life gives and I guess that’s the essence of life more or less. As a result of me going back and forth from my college to my home, which are at a distance of 27 kms and the Delhi traffic, I have been doing a lot of driving. My father bought a new car last august our first owned car. Since he is away I drive it mostly.

I spend on an average around 2.5 hours in the car and this is only when I am driving from one place to the other once a day, there are times when I leave for college in the morning and get back home in the evening. But the good thing is that I love driving. Although its even better if it is with someone (:P) but even when I am alone in my car I love to just keep driving. The Delhi traffic gives you quite a stroke at times, but it’s good to be on the road. It’s like a challenge to beat the previous times of your drive. Basically driving is very relaxing for the mind, not so much for the body.

My car also has a music system for which I am very very thankful to my dad who had the foresight to put in a cd player and not an old fashioned cassette player. I can play almost any song I like to now. And with the gift of a bearable voice I can please my self by singing with the song and believing that I actually sound like sonu nigam :P.

It’s really about the time that you give yourself is what makes me like driving, I guess it’s important for everyone to give themselves time all by themselves. And if you can do that simultaneously with some other thing like driving home it becomes that much more fruitful.

Last night I had probably my best experience driving. It was raining like cats and dogs and there was wind blowing. It was just so good to see in the month of may in delhi. And the rain got intense as much as to decrease visibility to almost zero. But I loved it. I was driving pretty slowly but frankly I had no other option because I couldn’t see anything. And then I did something which I regretted the rest of the while to home. I stopped at a place near AIIMS because I couldn’t see anything. I felt sad later that I shouldn’t have stopped and in fact just wiped the wind screen from inside and I would have seen better. Plus you never get a chance like this to drive in Delhi as all the two wheelers were of the road taking refuge under flyover and bus stops. We were all by ourselves, by we I mean cars (who would have thought I would say something like this :P). I think once in a while you should take chances and prove to yourself that you have not got stuck. And that if there is ever a dire situation, you can measure up to it. I believe you need it.