Road Trippin’

Raoul: What is a road trip?

Me: You don’t know what a road trip is? Seriously? Yeah right. Nice try.

Raoul: Ok, ok. I guess I didn’t frame my question properly. What I want to know is… You can’t call every single trip you take in a car a road trip, right? 

Me: Now, that is a good question. Hmmm. You do have a point there. You can’t exactly call a drive to the local supermarket to buy some bread and eggs a “road trip”, can you? Well, not without sounding like a fool anyway.  According to most people (myself included), a road trip is a long-distance journey on the road in a vehicle. But unlike many, I feel that all vehicles that travel on the road can be included in this definition – be it a car, motorcycle, scooter, moped, auto, bus, truck, racing car prototype, Batmobile,.. Ok, I’ll stop.

Raoul: Fair enough. So tell me – why a road trip? Why a road trip, when you’ve got things like airplanes and trains that are much faster? Why is a road trip, which takes so much time, preferred when nowadays parents don’t have time for their children and the children for them?

Me: The reasons we all go on road trips? I’ve already got quite a few running through my mind right now… But hold it! I think I’ll write a future post on that one. Good idea – thanks!

Raoul:   Hmph. You could have just confessed that you needed a little time to think about that one. Moving on… I gather that you are quite the road traveller. How do you keep yourself occupied in the car (or whatever vehicle you travel in)? The idea of feeling the wind rush past my tongue just bores me now.

Me:  For me, inside the car, I do what everyone else of the Y-gen does – play some good music! But music isn’t my sole refuge. When I’m on a road trip with family and friends, we all play games. Antakshari is the common-est. To challenge our verbal skills, we play word building games. Back when I was a kid, we used to play with those Pokemon trading cards and wrestling trading cards. Good times, yeah. Apart from all the music and games, there are those hours in a road trip which get lost in meaningful conversation. Questions on life and poetry, thoughts on philosophy and the universe float around in the air – and then someone breaks the somber silence by asking whether an irrelevant Bollywood actress is actually dating Mr.Rich-and-I-Know-It.  Meaningless, I know.

But the main attraction for me lies outside. Outside. Where the world rushes past you non-stop and all you want to do is to stop and stare. There’s never enough time for that.

Raoul is merely a figment of imagination, and perhaps I should leave it like that. But I cannot. So here’s the real story – Raoul was the name of my grand- aunt’s dog, who died at a ripe old age. Since I never had any pets myself, I got Raoul to be my partner in this conversation happening in my head. You can expect more talks with Raoul only on the Travel Column, mlore.manipalblog.com! Send in your travel stories to [email protected] or mlore.manipalblog.com.