This day, the day of the Drive, was years ago. And I have been aching to write about it since I thought of it to be any value. But then, there have been days when nothing has felt valuable, enough to retain, and translate into words. So I have gone back and forth on this and the memory of the Drive has simmered in my head. And then, out of the big blue, life squeezes out an hour for me on a random Friday when I am buoyant with hope and believe, anything that has simmered this long, must be of some value. Some, if not much.
It was a Monday, I presume. How many years ago, this was, that many years ago. It's funny because never before on a Monday had anything been planned. Anyway, so we packed small bags and the baby's things. Milk and towels and diapers and blankies and wet wipes and such. Such an stifling hot day it was in August. Humid and sweaty. The air conditioner in the car was in full blast. The baby was so tiny, in my arms. It felt like a toy. Except that he cuddled. But my head was so dry. And my memory was so faint, post partum. I could barely remember the friend or the relative I met the day before. I zombied through the nights and the days were - well - the days stretched between hours and prolonged into slow afternoons and suddenly merged with sleepless nights. Sometimes I didn't connect correctly, how hard everything was. But everyone told me, it would get easier, most definitely.
And there was a friend who didn't tell me anything. Just listened. Established her presence. And allowed me to feel what I felt without intervening much. I felt closest to my previous person with her, and when she suggested the idea of this drive, I jumped. But we had to collect an aunt, on the way. An aunt, would accompany. The aunt was a must. Those months in my life, it was difficult to have a view or an opinion on anything since the mind was not fully functional. So I nodded, for most things. And shrugged, subsequently. Nothing seemed to make a difference, oh my.
After settling down, when each one of us got comfortable enough to slumber, the aunt started talking. To begin with, it was nice. She was no stranger, of course we knew each other. But to share the close confines of a car for seven hours is something else, altogether. Aunt started narrating the story of her life. But very much in brevity. I respected that. I tended to the baby, wiped its pee and poop, aunt did not pause - she moved on to how people make a living, in the world today.
Now that I find debatable. I have slept over it, and woken up on it. I oscillate between having a purpose in life and being a full blown nihilist. Now, nestling a baby and cradling nihilism don't go well together, so I gather all my forces to hold on to whatever is good in the world and build my life around it but aunt started to float away in her tales.
Aunt, being the aunt she was, told us how her husband was no good. He wasted decades of his life, sulking at his government job and battled alcoholism. Battling is the wrong word her, allowing alcohol to rage and take control of his life, would be more like it. And now he was dead and the children were no better. The daughter had married herself off, reasonably well, given everything that could have held her back. And she had nothing to do with her mother or her brothers. The younger son, decided he would be a parasite and live off his father's retirement money, whatever there was. The older son, her first born, was a replica of his father. Started drinking very young and didn't know how to stop.
Aunt spent her days and weeks worrying about him. She told us, the mother worries about the weakest offspring. I looked at the baby's sleepy face, the one and the only.
This older son of hers, she told us, was educated and could do all sorts of jobs. He could be a salesman, anywhere. Or have a smug desk job. There was hundreds of thousands of young men, who started jobs in private firms and moved to Middle East and made fortunes in dirhams and came back to their ancestral villages and built concrete homes for their grandmothers - and mothers. They had wives and children and lived peaceful lives, away from intoxication of all sorts. Of course, some habits - a few cigarettes or day, or something was fine. As long as you could work and make a living, aunt said. But her son won't listen. Then there were hundreds of young men who would sit for exams - banking or the railways or postal and settle down with jobs. They lived in dingy quarters to begin with but outgrew them soon. And they escaped the downtrodden impoverished lives of their forefathers, who lived off the land. Also, there were young men, hundreds of them again, who started businesses. A grocery shop in a busy locality, if you managed it well, would make money. You just have to show some interest in life. Both me and my friend agreed. Aunt went on.
There were traders, who just sat in their homes and talked on the phone and made deals on laptops. All sundry jobs, making money. You just have to decide to make money and money would come. She was so staunch in her words, I felt bad for her. I did. I imagined her son, whiling away the Monday in some bar downtown or drinking away at home and telepathically ignoring what his mother was saying, a hundred kilometers away.
Forget men, the aunt continued. Even girls these days are leaving no stone unturned. Either they marry well, meaning rich. Or turn into beauticians or nurses or flight attendants or bank clerks. But they definitely turn into something. And in the city they meet boys who are salesmen or businessmen and then they marry and then they have two kids each and they are happy and they buy a car and they buy a house and they build houses for their mothers and buy gold too and keep buying new phones and shoes and televisions and washing machines and keep paying everything on EMI. Nobody the aunt knew, except her son, who sat in front of the TV and drank rum all day.
I sighed. I had forgotten how rum tasted. I wanted a tall glass of wine and to fall asleep afterward. And not wake up until we were there.