“Wheels and Lens” – Belgaum, March 2013

There is nothing more intoxicating than to get into your car, buckle up, start the ignition and get the machines rolling! And once you do that, there is nothing that can get you to stop that roll! It’s an addiction. The joy of steering a movement, the fun of zipping through passages of vehicles is like weaving a crusade. Wheels and Lens is the impression of my love affair with my car, the road, the sheer delight of travelling and steering from one point to another.   

Driving to Belgaum was a lot more than fun! It was a purpose….The Intent of the journey itself was to facilitate a workshop for 80 students at the Jain college of Management. The theme was well-defined - Clarity, Conviction and Confidence – the 3 Cs of my life. It took me a couple of days to weave the content of the program together. Trying to pull together a training program on what you believe in has its own set of challenges.  One is never satisfied with the power that mere words have to offer as a standby for your passion.  The locus of the enthusiasm resides in your belief which is so often inexplicable.  One needs to experience it in more ways than one before attempting to articulate it. And so, I departed with an overall framework in mind and deliberated on the methods to translate the experience. The wheel / drive was at hand; the lens was missing. The thought wedged its way through the onward journey only to find its home in my rearview mirror…. “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”!  The answer was right there which had escaped my attention for ever so long.

Driving through the countryside in India is like Alice taking a trip down the rabbit hole. The journey is packed with bursts of magical moments. The journey is where it all begins. Like the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland, it’s a one way trip – the entry, not the exit to the magical world. The green expanse unfolding itself, the sky displaying its temper tantrums (blue to white to grey to black and then again to blue), the zeal of the sun drumming in its varying beats, and finally watching the rustic, naïve country folk whisking their way through the drudgery with a smile. Incredible India.! One wonders if Alice walked through this country and mistook it for a mystical rabbit hole.  I definitely did and my conviction was endorsed with the innumerable Mad Hatters we met with. 

Take to the wheel on the highway, and you will realize that the experience qualifies for space travel in more ways than one.  One encounters the impossible, a world where the day to day norms hardly apply, and a time that refuses to say tick tock. The laws of driving do not apply to Wonderland.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would be. You see?” (Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland)

The excitement of dealing with the unknown and the contrary is what gives way to Clarity of thought. One must necessarily experience the strange and the conflicting to come into contact with clarity.  That was going to be my first mantra.  

And now experience the world as a woman who is driving a 7-seater, heavy powered SUV that is weighing approx. 2000kg, on a national highway. Her co-passengers are male and she is attempting to leave behind smaller vehicles (sometimes bigger ones too)! The experience for a lot many will be nothing short of overwhelming. The look of awe (not sure if the suffix is ‘some’ or ‘ful’) has a significant impact on the driver.  It makes you ponder with the metaphorical touch-me-not – for a moment, just a moment (should I, shouldn’t I). That fleeting thought many a times has the power to take on the life of a meditation which slows the process and therefore the progress down.  One begins to brood over it. It is that precise moment that demands for the driver’s conviction. The weight of the truth that one carries mandates a voice and in this case it is the potential of the automobile.   That one moment of dithering is like

“If you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison’ it is certain to disagree with you sooner or later.”

The acknowledgement of the truth in me is what spearheads to Conviction of that thought.  Therein was born my second mantra. The test is in the execution – the basic to keep your foot on the gas pedal and to operate it with the flexibility of a dancer. Slow down, speed up, and maneuver the twists and turns with the confidence of a maven!

“Only a few find the way, some don’t recognize it when they do – some… don’t ever want to.” (The Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland)

The accomplishment of the deed is what gives structure to the Confidence in the thought. This was the third mantra that I would attempt to unravel to the students.   Every day of our waking life, we wake up and get ready to reach our place of work. And to bring ease to our commute we try to procure a mode of transport. The smaller the mode, the easier to maneuver; the bigger it gets, so do the challenges. And so is life! We prefer smaller dares, the trouble-free roads, the affluent and painless courses.  What gets noticed though are what we do with the bigger braves and how we face up to them.  

“I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah, that’s the great puzzle?”

I don’t intend to get out of this rabbit hole. My seat belts are on and my hands itching to speed through to meet more Mad Hatters!!!  Wheels and Lens…. I am ready for my next…..