Weekend Snippets

This past weekend, I had to drive Sarath to his lab like every weekend. It is a 45 min drive one way. There is public transport available, but it takes 1.5 hrs to get there. So, to save him time, we usually drive him there and back. On good days, it takes us 1.5 hours for the round trip. I had to come back quickly as Sanjay had robotics. So, I was rushing the kids to leave on time.

Once we started driving, Sarath asked me if we can listen to music. I agreed and he started playing his Spotify playlist. A lot of good songs although I don’t remember all of them. There we a bunch of Disney songs and songs from other albums as well. Both the kids were having fun with the songs. As I was driving, I thought about how much I loved to drive while listening to songs. In general, I used to love listening to songs especially the latest songs of the time when I was young.

Driving on the highway, listening to music is one of my favorite things to do. When I was learning to drive, my dad wouldn’t let me listen to songs initially. He was worried that I would not focus on the road if I had the songs blaring in the car. Just like any other teenager, I assured him that I will give my complete attention to the road, but he would not budge. So, every time I got in the car, I desperately wanted to listen to music, but wouldn’t dare ask my dad too many times. But, suddenly one day he decided that I was good enough at driving and he was confident that I wouldn’t get distracted. So, he let me play songs while I drove. I was so happy that day as if I won the lottery.

That love for music stayed with me for a long time. Even now, I like driving with some music on. After I got married, I drove to Milwaukee from Madison pretty much every day while I was finishing my masters. It was a 1.5 hr drive one way. I had a few mp3 cd’s in the car that I used to play everyday. A couple of Telugu and a couple of Hindi cd’s which I used to alternate. I loved that drive even though I had to brave snow on the road sometimes. One of my favorite early marriage memories is Somu and me taking long drives, enjoying our favorite music.

When the kids were little, we listened to nursery rhymes on loop to keep them happy in the car. Somewhere along the way, I lost much of the interest in music. Recently, in the past couple of years, after we bought our Ioniq5, I started to listening to music again in the car. It is easy to connect the phone to the car using bluetooth. Our old minivan has a 6 CD player (yes that is how old it is) and we cannot connect our phone to the car.

On the way back, Sanjay wanted to listen to podcast. We had a bit too much fun if you ask me. It was a hilarious episode of StarTalk radio show by Neil deGrasse Tyson. It did not feel like I drove for an hour and a half.

I love these interactions with the kids during our normal drive and activity time. We share jokes and I get to hear a lot of information about the songs, artists, podcasts etc.