A Windshield and a Road

Imagine an early Sunday morning.

The city hasn't quite woken up. Its streets still belong to the occasional newspaper delivery van, a milkman's scooter, and a handful of people who seem to have discovered the peculiar luxury of being awake before the rest of the world. The traffic lights change obediently for almost nobody. Shop shutters remain down. The familiar bustle of the city is still several cups of coffee away.

And there we are.

The Brezza hums along effortlessly, its engine settling into that gentle, reassuring rhythm. There's a lovely stretch of road ahead, the morning light spilling across the bonnet, and the windshield framing a world that seems, for once, to have nowhere urgent to be.

No particular destination. No appointment to keep. No elaborate itinerary. Just a road that looks inviting enough to follow.

We're chatting about absolutely everything.

Cars, naturally. How some engines seem to have personalities of their own. Why one car makes you feel at home within five minutes while another, despite all its specifications and clever engineering, never quite wins you over. Whether a particular bend is better approached in fourth gear or fifth. And why the driver of that enormous truck ahead seems convinced that the entire road is a personal inheritance.

Then music. Perhaps an Eagles song comes on. We let it play. There's something about music heard through a car stereo, with the landscape moving in time to it, that makes even a familiar song feel newly discovered. A few lines are hummed, a few memories surface, and before long we're discussing the strange business of growing older while remaining, in certain respects, exactly the same person we were decades ago.

The conversation wanders, as good conversations should. From music to memories, from memories to people, from people to the peculiar turns life takes. We might discuss some grand philosophical question, only to abandon it halfway through because a particularly ridiculous-looking three-wheeler has just overtaken us. Some observations deserve immediate attention. Philosophy can wait.

There are stretches when neither of us says anything. Not because the conversation has run out, but because the road itself has become conversation enough. A row of trees, a distant hill, the occasional glimpse of the sea, a village slowly emerging from its morning sleep. The world has a way of offering little things when we're not particularly busy looking for anything.

Perhaps we pull over for breakfast somewhere. Nothing fancy. A small place with good coffee, hot food and a view of the road. We sit a little longer than necessary, watching other people go about their Sunday mornings. Then, eventually, we return to the car.

And off we go again.

I wonder if that's what I've been looking forward to all this while. Not merely the ownership of a car, or the satisfaction of learning a new skill, or even the freedom of being able to travel independently. Those are all wonderful in their own right. But perhaps there's something more elemental about it.

The simple pleasure of movement. Of choosing a direction. Of watching the world unfold beyond a windshield, knowing that for the next little while, the hours are your own.

It's an odd thing, really. At fifty-two, after all the years of work, responsibilities, deadlines, disappointments, small victories and unfinished plans, here I am, discovering the anticipation of a Sunday morning drive with the enthusiasm of someone who has just been let out into the world.

And perhaps that's the nicest part of it.

The road doesn't ask how old you are. It doesn't ask what you've achieved, what you've missed, or how long it took you to get here. It simply stretches ahead.

The engine hums. The morning opens up. A song begins playing.

And somewhere beyond the next bend, there's another stretch of road waiting.

No destination.

Just a windshield and a road.

-- Pradeep K (Prady)