A JOURNEY - LINE NONE BEFORE!

In two days, I lived a life-time. When I set out at 1 am from Bangalore in my SCORPIO, I knew we both [scorpio and me] could take whatever was dished out to us by way of dirty mud and jelly filled roads - BUT EVEN THEN I WAS SURPRISED! It brought out the best in both of us. MAPS TELL LIES. National highways marked boldly can suddenly have ditches as big as moon craters [OK OK - a little smaller] and you can expect to hear the suspension almost scraping the bottom. AND SUDDENLY out of nowhere, small village roads - open up with garlands in hand - where you can hit as high as 130 Kms.

A LIFETIME indeed! I saw a girl child of 7 years full of dusty hair but with a wide smile which I will carry in my memory for the rest of my life. She looked at me - as if challenging me - WILL YOU CHANGE MY LIFE? And I knew I wouldn't be able to. The stifling albatross that hangs around us `middle class' will not allow me to take a stick [ make that SCORPIO ]and walk [drive] away into the big wide world - however so much I may want to. I HAD FAILED YET AGAIN.

But I will try - till my last breath - I WILL TRY. The dusty, rocky and barren country-side interspread with boulders forming into hillocks - it is a KARNATAKA where even after one hundred years nothing will change. Oh No, there will be changes - mining for natural resources will keep destroying land, people and all living things whose habitat it has been since time began. A GREED OF FEW - is stripping away any chance that may be there - the living world of animals and plants is heading up a nozzle of extinction.

THAT MY VEHICLE - MY SCORPIO - went through all this with me seems we will yet again venture out - even to more remote places. We will together build memories - so that when I sit with people I love - I can share my PAINS and PLEASURES with them. And, of course, the dress rehearsal for my INDIA DRIVING keeps going on. Travelling from Bangalore to Chandigarh seems to be a very real possibility now. AT 58, what more could I ask?