Road trips have been on my mind since yesterday. The more I am thinking about them the more I want to go one. Very hard to go on one when you are in lockdown. It is making me think. Think of freedom. Freedom from all my responsibilities. Freedom from my limitations. When I am behind the wheel of a car, I truly feel free. I am fearless then. It is that one time when I simply feel no fear. The road ahead is my friend and I just want to keep driving.
I am truly a part of the road folk’s tribe. I just want to keep moving. It was like that for me in my university days as well. My car was my space. Moving home had to happen every six months and sometimes even earlier. All my material possessions fitted in my car. Those were the days of no mobile phones. Limited or no connectivity. Expensive international calls. I moved through life untethered. Floating from one home to the next. Somehow keeping my family informed back home. Writing a lot of letters to them and all my friends at home. Remember no emails. Had to write with pen and paper.
The idea of fear never crossed my mind. The road was always my friend. And I just had to keep moving.
Having learnt to drive at the age of thirteen, it became second nature to me. So much second nature that I felt I could drive in my sleep. I was king of the roads. My only weak point was that whilst I could drive anything, I did not and could understand anything under the hood. That was just a black box.
I could drive endlessly for hours. Not tiring. Not needing to stop. Not wanting to stop. I was this crazy point to point driver. My wife made me unlearn that after some years of being married. She showed me that there was more to road trips than just driving. She actually threatened to stop going on road trips with me if I did not ease up. Harsh but it worked. Another dimension was added to the idea of Freedom for me. I realized that freedom was in being able to stop wherever we wanted to. To explore whatever caught our fancy. To not have to reach our destination on time. To be able to stop at a farm and get a stick of sugarcane from the fields.
With her also came the picnics. She just loves picnics. I grew to love them as much over time. I started to love the mess that picnics can be. I stopped getting hassled about the mess in the car that happened. I loved her more for showing me the joys of making stops along the way. The conversations that happened. The sing-alongs. The comfortable silences. The right music for the right road. Playlists were never my strong suit. So, getting the right song at the right time on the road was a bit hit and miss. But when it did happen there was this special thrill. I do wanna try and learn the art of making playlists.
Even today driving is like a form of meditation for me. I can be so focused that all my worries are forgotten. The slate is clean. The road is my friend and I am just cruising along.
It is not just the cruising along that I like. I also love the speed. The faster I can drive, the more I can feel the adrenaline. The more the adrenaline, the more I want to go even faster. I must be an adrenaline junkie. Only when I am driving though. I don’t want to try any other adventure activity. For everything else my fear stops me.
For me it is spontaneity over routine. And road trips allow my spontaneity to flow. I want to do a lot more of this. The last decade has killed so much of my desire to do things. They have been tough years. But I want to put that behind me. I want to reset my life and re-discover that soaring feeling. There is this inexplicable desire in me to move and discover. An almost primal urge. Don’t know where that comes from. But road trips do quench that urge. The road helps me embrace the unexpected. I love the randomness of it all. I love that sense of freedom. I want to stop and feel the air against my skin. I want to stop and experience the forest. I want to be in nature’s embrace.
Our most memorable road trip to date has been from Siliguri to Bhutan. Over two weeks the four of us got to know each other better and it was the best way to experience Bhutan. We were two couples. Our friends were very organized and we were there for the joy of the trip and for their company. It was everything one wants from a road trip — randomness, good music, dancing on the road, stopping whenever and wherever we wanted to and truly feeling the magic of Bhutan. Inspiring conversations with so many locals showed us why this is a happy kingdom with genuinely happy people. Their focus on the happiness index making a definite impact on the everyday lives of its populace.
Another trip etched in my memory is when my father took us all on a driving holiday from Mumbai to the southernmost tip of India — Kanyakumari. I was very young, perhaps ten or eleven years old and there was another family of five with us. The ten of us were driving in a special camper bus fabricated for my father. It was a once in a lifetime adventure. With six children there was fun and fights, and lots of crying. Sleepy weary eyes and hunger. And new discoveries and wonderment about the world we lived in. My father even today at eighty loves his drives.
Road trips are a bit like life. Unpredictable, arbitrary and wonderful expeditions with no sense of definite direction or ending. Like life it is just about the journey. More than ever now during these Lockdown days I want be out on more road trips, feeling life against my skin.
I am blessed that my wife also loves road trips. And this crazy desire just to keep moving. To experience the world and its people.
We have lost the desire to collect material things and are happy to be lost in the journey. Rolling stones gather no moss. We are most definitely road folks.
Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road. — Jack Kerouac
Written By Mohit Gupta
Week 20, May ’20
