Long Drives

I was feeling awfully low and plainly uninterested in life one day. Happens at times...you feel the grind is endless and also feel that the ride is not worth all the pain and heartache that you have to endure with it. My husband proposed taking me for a walk, but the lazy bones in me would just not budge even remotely at the suggestion. With much effort I went to take a bath and all of a sudden an idea popped in my head.
"Lets go for a drive," I mumbled with no enthusiasm.
"Sure baby...lets do it," he offered encouragingly.

And off we drove. I put on the AC at full blast and for the first ten minutes of the drive did not utter a word. I remained in the sullen mood that I was and my husband's repeated attempts at conversation were met with no response from my side. He tried playing music in the car but I switched it off again. I just wanted the feeling of quiet to engulf me. Of course there was a lot of noise from the honking of cars outside and the hustle-bustle of the traffic but that was noise that I enjoyed. Sometimes, the natural sound of a particular environment can help alleviate your mood and spirits. So we drove in silence from Kalkaji to Defence Colony, a distance that takes about thirty minutes during peak hours in South Delhi.

The number 8 that my husband is (yes, I'm into numerology, but more on that later), makes him kindda obdurate, or say persistent - depends how you look at it. So, he persisted yet again at conversing with me, this time with a Sardarji joke. And yes, the silence and my sullen mood were both broken. Laugh I did but did not get it...it was a dirty joke (my husband tells me,'you're such a daft'). We started the return journey and now I was in a much better frame of mind. I wasn't over the top happy but two-three notches above rock bottom. The drive and my husband's repeated attempts at small talk had done the trick. Its all about breaking the inertia and the monotony of routine. We didn't go for a movie, or to shake a leg at the disco, or for a drink at the pub but for a simple, casual drive and I was feeling good in about forty minutes. This was nothing short of a feat, considering how miserably depressed I had been just about an hour ago.

Once you cross the threshold of feeling dejected and enter the positive terrain, then its a matter of minutes before you start feeling light. Now we started looking for ice-candy. I wanted to have the cola bar from the 'Kwality' vendor whose seen at the roadside, in most places. But we managed to find a 'Mother Dairy' vendor and I had to settle for an orange bar. There's something about long drives and ice-candy. They always go hand in hand. As I relished the ice candy, I turned on the music. The music no loner perturbed me and my husband and I started humming along with the Salman Khan chartstopper 'Character Dheela'. As we grooved and swayed in the car, we bonded over the simple pleasures of life. The drive was liberating and enthused me with fresh energy and hope when I was having a particularly rotten day. Of course having a husband who's obdurate(ooops persistent) helps!