Directionally Challenged, Mrs Khurana- A Humorous Journey
When I die, and my soul rises up from my lifeless body, I really, really hope that either there is a bright light to guide me to heaven, or the devil sends his minions to drag me to hell. Coz if it were left to me, I will be lost in the eternal twilight zone, or be like poor Trishanku stuck between heaven and earth.
Why are there no guide dogs for the directionally blind, I wonder? In fact, why oh why God, am I not a dog? I'd surely have left a pee trail to find my way back every time I stepped out.
I am sure somewhere in the vast grey matter of my brain, there is a tiny little compass. Yeah, yeah I do have one of those, but sadly it does not have the pointer needles.
You know what the worst is? When you are in a huge grocery store and they,(whoever they' are) have hidden all the signs for the restroom and your dam is about to burst. You are literally walking cross legged to contain the flood and can't seem to find the restroom they've hidden better than the chamber of secrets. Then you grab hold of a passing grocery clerk and ask them where the "hidden chamber of secrets a.k.a the restroom is?" in a polite voice when all you want to do is scream, "SHOW ME THE FUC**NG RESTROOM, NOW."
He or she, (Mind you, I don't care if it's a zombie pointing the way to me in that moment) then points me in the proper direction and I do a rather graceful Audrey Hepburn walk until the clerk is out of sight and then I march across the grocery land like Atilla the Hun, hell bent on conquering. Now while Atilla is marching across, she sees bottled water sitting on shelves in military precision, abutting milk cans and juice bottles and it reminds her of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariners"
Water, water everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
I put on mental blinders and continue on, at jet speed, refusing to look at the water torture on both sides of my path and march on and... end up right in front of the zombie who had pointed the way to me in the first place.
I have been truly blessed and found enlightenment since the goddess of enlightenment Devi GPS, the great Navigation Lady came into my life. On the path of life and I mean that literally, my life can clearly be divided into eras, before she came and after she came.
Before GPS, I remember always being on the phone with a man, (my husband) who thinks he is God's gift to the directionally challenged, namely me. I'd call him in a panicked state of mind, "OMG, I can't find the place. I think they have moved it over to Mars, or the building has been has been demolished. Help!"
He would ask me to get off the highway and stop somewhere so that he could guide me. But you see I know me. If I got off the highway, I knew Id never get back on it till I am reborn again with my compass pointers intact. Once, I followed his advice and landed on a downward slope that ended abruptly and opened up into the vast Pacific Ocean in the city of San Francisco. Oh my God!! I was so close to the water I swear, I could see Japan reflected across the length of the water body.
So just on such an occasion, as Mr. He-Man was guiding me over the phone, he realized that my destination was right ahead and asked me to take the next exit. I was in the leftmost lane, the exit was a minute away and I had 3 lanes I'd have to cross to get to the exit lane. With tires burning and brakes squealing, I embarked on "Mission Impossible." I made it just on time and cut right in front of a sweet old gentleman who raised his raised his hand and waved at me, starting with his middle finger. I believe he forgot to raise the rest of his fingers. Age, I tell you, it gets to the best of us. As it was only polite to return his gesture, I returned the favor by raising both the middle fingers of both my hands and waved them at him furiously, while racing past him in glee. What a riot that was. I felt I had avenged myself against Voldy Moldy with not one but two magic wands.
I remember once parking a car in the airport parking lot and coming back and searching for it for one whole hour. I swear I thought my car was stolen and was almost in tears when the airport security located it for me one floor below. I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole.
Worse yet was the time when I got lost in my own neighborhood. I saw the familiar face of a 5 year old who passes my home every day while going to school. I looked at him desperately, "Hey kiddo, do you know where I live? Can you take me there?"
He first nodded a yes, then shook his head negatively, gave me a scared look, dropped his toy gun and went screaming for his mommy.
"Uhh, brat. I am the nice lady in your neighborhood not a kidnapper."
Any person I'm driving with, who asks me for guidance and directions, is ready to dump me on the tarmac, because I always say left while pointing my finger to the right and vice-versa. Even if we're only a mile away from home, I make sure they take the scenic route, especially if I have a map in my hand and maps to me are a mystical and mythical language, as yet to be discovered or long forgotten.
And so I confess, I'm a lost soul on the road of life. To me straight ahead is always north. With respect to that, west is always to the left; east to my right and south is invariably behind me. If you are shaking your head condescendingly at me right now for my ignorance, tell me, why in the world does geography commit the cardinal sin of teaching us the four cardinal directions the way it does.
Directions make me discombobulated. And if you're thinking what a complicated, confusing word that is and whatever does it mean? Let me tell you I feel the same way about the directional world I find myself in every day.
I desperately await the day when a Star Trek like teleportation device is built and all I got to say is,
"Beam me up, Scotty."
Then surely I'll believe when they tell me that,
"Happiness is a journey, not a destination."
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Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
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