The soft sound of instrumental acoustic with oldie numbers, a cool breeze across the open windows, cold drizzles trying to enter your vehicle, smooth sound of swish-swoosh wipers clearing the mesmerizing view of the clear 'zero-traffic' road ahead...a smooth wet clean black road making swift turns to nowhere like a snake flowing on water, sides of which is covered by dense thick forest trees making a tunnel above you...just like a dream...
You hear a sound - "After 1 km, take left". It's the Senorita of GPS advising you to be prepared and come back to the reality check and reach your destination safe. The gear shifts from 5th to 4th to 3rd to 2nd and tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock indicator lights up to take the turn on the T-Junction.
There are road-side hawkers selling fruits, cola, cigarettes, pakori and chaai , and a vegetable market. You reached some village. The forest is running with you on the left side and slowly diminishes to become farm lands with yellow sarso, some farms barren waiting to replenish their nutrients, some having paddy, wheat, .... and you drive on. Music doesn't seem to be so important now. Your focus shifts from the experience on to the journey. You hear a noise of a far away tractor ploughing the field in the rain, honking sounds of trucks, herd of cattle on the road with big bells' sound and smell of their dung on which your tires divide and leave behind splashes and a modern design painted on the road with memories on the sides of the tires and car body and suddenly the drizzling stops.
The dream-drive came to an end and now the eyes see the GPS as to when is the ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival). Suddenly, you see that the GPS is showing a U-turn after 300 metres. Damn!! What happened? Did I enter the wrong destination, has the GPS gone mad, did I miss the turn or read the map incorrect, does this road lead to a dead-end, did I take a wrong decision of left and it was right, and suddenly there are thousand questions and options flashing your mind forcing you to stop and review. The whole enjoyment is on a halt like a survivor amidst of a desert hoping to find a lagoon behind the next sand-dune.
No! The destination entered is correct. The way is also the right one as initially you had some idea. But better to rely on GPS as it is more experienced and better than you (or is it really?). Then what the hell happened.
Finally, after all the calculations, gut-feelings, mind-over-heart-over-mind battles, logics, experience, evaluation, probabilities calculations, you decided to ask the locals. Thank God, they knew. THEY ALWAYS KNOW!! U-turn was right. Few minutes old Mr.Einstein referred to JPH Guide (Jinn Planner of Highway) as the traditional GPS. And blindly, you took the U-turn and followed the directions. And this time, GPS was switched off, and local Genies were blessing all throughout the way to reach the destination.
"If only", life had those Genies and U-turns with time remaining in hand to reach the destination. Life is much more interesting...from the time you become eligible to dream (and) to drive, it teaches you ways in it's own strange ways, shows you the roads for you to travel, ultimately to be changed as per 'not-the-plan' with one destination "Fulfilling Dreams". Life is a car without the GPS, it's just that how well are you able to drive it at which gear to reach your destination with your own GPS or without it, with Genies or without it. What you become today in this drive of life is all because of all the miles you have traveled and drove an experience to reach your dream destination, soon realizing after achievement that you have another dream to chase. But this time, on a harder road, lesser Genies (if at all), lesser time, longer miles with higher altitude of achievement realization. One thing added, 'experience' to drive better on the worse road, better than the one you drove on the smooth road. And there is always a U-turn planned where you halt, evaluate and decide to explore the unexplored to reach "as planned". And surely you will again reach your destination, no matter which model you drive, it rests upon you to rest or to start again till you have the drive to drive the vehicle called LIFE!!
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