A Sunday drive

I remember my mom telling us that when she was a little girl, she used to take Sunday drives. Sometimes ice cream was involved, but sometimes the six Glancy kids packed into the car, no doubt fighting for a window seat, and just drove. A Sunday drive. I thought about that this morning as I drove home from church. My auto driver chose to take some back roads, perhaps an attempt at a short cut. It definitely wasn't shorter, but it was unfamiliar and therefore I paid more attention than I often do when I'm rushing from one place to another.

Smoke and smells of idly and dosa swirled out of the tiny homes, patched together with slanty roofs and cardboard cross sections. We skidded on rocks and broken somethings as we swerved to avoid the young mother with a shorts-less baby on her hip and a plate of leftover cooking scraps. She tossed the rubbish into the thin river, adding to the trash lining the banks and adding to the confusing smell in the muggy air.

Little boys ran next to my auto, shouting in high-pitched voices and pointing and laughing at the strange girl passing through their neighborhood. We whizzed passed another woman bargaining with a man, his bicycle basket full of tomatoes and and an antique scale tied to the rusted sides. I made eye contact with a very skinny man in a plaid turban, who was leading a mud-colored and mud-covered bull down the middle of the tight street. Stray dogs yapped as a gang of preteen boys gathered for a game of cricket in the same street. A goat was tied to a post. A woman in a bright red saree walked down the street with tired arms hanging at her small sides and a large bag of rice balanced casually atop her head.

We pulled out onto a main road I half recognized and then approached an overpass I knew. A lorry in front of my tiny auto sputtered and threatened to cloud my driver's vision with an impressive puff of black exhaust. Men sat on top of the bags and boxes and loose trash filling the bed of the truck. Motorcycles and scooters competed with us for a front row spot at the starting line of the traffic signal. One little girl caught my eye, pretty jasmine pinned into her pretty hair, her arms wrapped around her father's waist. On my other side, a little boy in his father's lap, a mother seated behind them, and another 8 or 10-year-old girl behind--all on the same motorbike. I wondered if they were on a Sunday drive, headed to Greams Road Fruit Shop for a strawberry shake or sweet lime juice.