Making road journey a family time

Anna and I were recalling today, while on our way to kerala, that we have probably  travelled 400,000 kilometers in 25 years, driving 10 different cars.

We started driving on single lane roads in 1985. We could afford only second hand cars when we started. There were fewer cars on the road and were driven by older people in those days. There was terrible hooting to chase away pedestrains and cattle from the road. The roads were shady with avenue trees and the speed of travel on an average was only about 40 kilometers per hour. 

Now everything has changed. We have better roads, better car, less traveling time, but more   vehicles and road traffic accidents.  We recalled today a significant learning experience from our long hours of travel on Indian roads.

'Travel for pleasure' was a motto Anna steadfastly held on to while planning for your road journeys. Anna used to engage Arpit and Anandit with reading stories, playing games and having conversations around childhood interests. For them, car travels were not a journey from one place to another for a particular purpose alone, but journey itself was a fully engaging time with fascinating experiences and conversations.Since children stopped being with us, Anna continue to read interesting stories, biographies, anecdotes, etc. We have several unscheduled stops to take in sights and surprises.

Being together without interruption of TV, Phones (cell phones did not exist then) or other distractions gave us plenty of time for conversations which would not have taken place in the course of the routines at home. Arpit and Anandit had time and freedom to ask questions to us on many topics leisurely; they expressed their pleasure and displeasure about our decisions or choices we made for them; they took time to  hear our growing up stories of childhood; they talked about silly and difficult things that needed the ambience of comfort and intimacy.

We returned from every journey with a feeling that we have been brought together to a better level of understanding and relationship. So,  make road travel, a time of pleasure, by turning it into family times.

We had three major accidents, following which the cars were badly damaged. We had a few other misses. Still, what stays with us is the joyful memories of hours spent together as a family.

MC.Mathew(text and photo)