Experience – Page 3 – That Road Trip Lady

Hitchhiking is not very common in India nowadays. Twenty years ago, it was a Once In a Blue Moon phenomenon. Around that time, I was on a road trip (Delhi-Agra) with my uncle's as well as my family. hitchhiker-Image by Tumisu from Pixabay We were 4 adults, 2 children and one toddler. All in one Maruti 800 car. It was a summer vacation trip in north India, so the temperature was around 40 degree Celsius and our car was not equipped with air conditioner. We wanted to go from Agra to Mathura and stopped to ask someone on the road for directions. The guy asked us if we had already visited 'Gokul' which was supposed to be a historical town of utmost significance as that is where Lord Krishna spent his childhood. He was a good salesman and knew exactly how to sell the place to the four adults (aka decision makers) in my car. Our destination was updated to 'Gokul'. {Nowadays the concept of Fear Of Missing Out or more popularly known as FOMO is mostly due to barely known people on social media whereas for baby boomers, it seemed to be due to random people on the road!} My only question at that time was if going to Gokul meant that we would skip Mathura. Now, I am not a religious person, but have you heard of the famous Mathura Pedas (Indian sweet)?! Thankfully, I was told Gokul would be an additional stop and not a replacement. The guy gave us convoluted directions and then said that Gokul was a small town so it might be difficult for us to find it on our own (pre-GPS days). He further said he was going in the same direction and could lead us to the town. The adults thought of this as an act of kindness. Some shuffling happened. Toddler was passed on to the already crowded back seat. Our "kind" passerby crammed into the co-passenger seat along with my dad. Did I mention that it was 40 degree Celsius? We set off towards Gokul. After around half an hour of driving, the passerby asked us to stop the car while we were passing through a village and said he had to get off there. We were asked to drive on for 1 km on the same road to reach Gokul. We drove for 2 km but did not reach anywhere. Realisation hit us - we had come across an "undercover" hitchhiker! Everyone in the car was so exhausted that we decided to skip Mathura (!) and head home. I couldn't wait to grow up and qualify to be a decision maker.