Covid-19 and subsequent pandemic brought all generations at single roof for long. Probably first time in the history of this century. Obviously I was not the exception to this. After spending almost two years working from home, When I was about to go back my office located at different city, my family realized one important task. A Typical, Indian middle class family ritual - a temple visit of ancestors' deity. That was too far from my hometown. Hence we booked a car and hired a driver who was in his forties. Well, let me tell you. We were seven from our family. One (my younger sister) in his early twenties, two other heading towards thirties (me & my twin brother), my parents in their fifties and my grand parents heading towards their platinum jubilee.
When I was home for almost two years, I didn't realized few things which I noticed that day. Let me start from bag packing incident happed just a day before our travel. Our mom took exactly twenty minutes to pack four people's stuff in one bag (only two set of clothes for each). However we all three took an hour each for packing our own bags. Which includes 5 sets of clothes for 5 days, 2 pairs of sandles/shoes, 2 pair of sox, scarfs, matching jewellery, mobile, headphone, power banks and a nice camera. No need to mention, we three had separate bags for each to accommodate our list of belongings. So yeah... As we go down in the generation hierarchy, the definition of basic needs gets increased - my first realisation that day.
The next morning when we started the journey, our family head (my grandpa) did a small worship like breaking the coconut in front of car and spread its water through tyres, keeping four lemons to squash under each tyre, drawing a 'swastik' (made up of turmeric powder mixed with sandalwood paste/water) onto car hood, lightening the incense sticks and looping them three times clockwise. He didnt forget to keep some nice red flowers inside the car as well. All these elders were doing this pooja & I was assisting them as a elder obedient child. However my brother & sister were busy in something else. You might have guess it correctly. Yeah... It was their selfy time with pout and some fancy reels with hashtags. This all took around twenty minutes and then we actually started the journey.
When we reached the first toll plaza (after about thirty minutes) our grandpa suddenly realized that we forgot a pamplet having priest's new home's address. It also had a printed map along with a highlighted way to reach his home from a famous landmark. That was handed over by our prist to grandpa when he was in town last month. My grandpa was so worried and suggested to take a U-turn and collect that pamplet from home. But my father said, "Don't worry papa. I have it in my phone. I took it's picture yesterday. And we have his number as well. We can call him anytime once we reach there." As soon as he finished his reply my grandma added worriedly, "what if he didn't pick up the call? Its always good to have physical map in hand beta." On her innocent question the smart child of home (my younger sister) immediately said - " Don't worry, Dadi. Google hai na." What she meant was nothing but the google map & its magic. She was able to find out some more details about priest's new location from social media within few minutes. So the problem was solved. We didn't took the U-turn. We headed the journey ahead with one more realisation in my head that day - we, the technology kids can't even imagine that people like my grandparents used to keep physical map for long journey. Specially when they are first time traveller there.
We were enjoying the journey. Weather was neither cold nor hot. It was spring and so everything was delightfully cool. Trees were starting to put new leaves and birds were in full mood of charm. Nature was just feeling fresh like a newly wed bride. This pleasant surrounding was actually relaxing my mind with silent long-drive-songs in the car. I was enjoying it. But looks like my mother was not so happy with that play list. She asked our driver, "bhaiya, koi dusara cassette hai kya?" Though I was aware about the word "cassette" and got her point what she meant to say. But our baby kid is from instagram generation. This term was new to her. So with a big question mark on her face, she asked - "whats that?" Then my father started explaining her. "Beta, When we were young we did not have such mobiles or ipods. We used to have a device called 'tape recorder'. There we used to record or play the sound on magnetic tape or paper. We used to carry small square shaped device like DVD player for storing our favorite songs. It was fun sometimes to play with unused long brown/black colored paper sheets of cassette. We really miss that today." Nowadays all cars having advanced sound systems so there is no chance of having such cassettes more. But our driver was so kind. He happily turned on the retro play list available with him. I was able to spot that instant glow in my mother's eyes and small bits of her feet while listening those melodious songs. However, this new play list was not of our smart kid's type. So she plugged in her earphone and lost in DJ bites. By the way, our senior most generation was not at all intrested in either type of such music. They were busy in capturing the real beauty of nature outside window. Isn't it intresting to witness the different entertainment types under single roof? This brings one more realisation to me that day.
We took some breaks in the journey to relax or stretch ourselves little bit. Enjoyed cup of coffee, chai, bhaji and light snacks followed by lunch in the noon. As I woke up early that day, I started feeling sleepy immediately after the lunch. I had nothing special to do so I slept. Not sure how much time passed. But when I wake up, it was evening. Sun was setting down. Our car was at petrol pump. Refilling the tank. I noticed my father pay the cash by taking out few notes from his bundle which was kept inside his inner pocket safely. Except my grandma all others were outside the car, taking small walk to relax the legs. Our smart kid was busy capturing some clicks there too. I decided to join her and so I stepped out the car. After 10-15 min of that small break we all came inside and journey started again. My father took out his small diary and started writing something again. As it was dark, my grandpa sitting next to him showed the light of small torch which he carried. I was actually wondering since morning what he is writing inside that diary whenever he pay for something. I was curious so asked him the same. He replied, "In trips we tend to spend money randomly which becomes difficult to calculate the expense report later. So as soon as I spend on something, I make a note of it. I think, you should also start practicing this. Its a good habit." I asked him, "Why don't you use mobile applications like split wise? And while paying the petrol bill, why didn't you prefer digital pay? Isn't it risky to carry hard cash now a days?" My father smiled and replied, "That's not of our generation baby. We are more comfortable with this pen & paper." I had nothing to say more and so I smiled back and went in my deep thoughts. We hardly had twenty five years of difference. We both are literate, we both can handle mobile very well but still when the comfort comes we both have different preferences. One more and probably the last realisation of mine that day.