"Trust Me, I Know Where This Road Goes.." Ahem...

They say men NEVER accept it when they are lost and almost never ask for directions. They also say that women are TERRIBLE at giving directions and can lead you around in circles. Stereotypes. Balderdash. Bullshit. I can narrate several instances to prove such statements wrong. But I can also narrate these 2 incidents:

Last Saturday we had gone for pizza dinner. On our way back my brother missed the turn that would lead us to our “village” – I was a bit surprised and made some noise from my back-seat, only to be firmly silenced by the men of the house. They knew what they were doing and where they were going. I figured that since they do go out daily with their respective cars, Papa and Bhaiyya might have found a shorter route…

10 minutes later we crossed the Race course and I knew they were DEFINITELY lost! Bhaiyya admitted that – but Papa still felt he knew where we were headed. "Ah well – men are always right," I told myself. "Sit quietly – there is another way we could get home, only it’s definitely not shorter, but almost twice as long as the usual route." So we drove on…and on…and on…I made some more noise and asked some more questions. “Will you please stop acting smart, young lady?” “Ok sir…you are in the driving seat!”

I waited patiently for 20 minutes for a landmark, which falls just outside Pune limits – and then calmly announced that we’d just crossed Manjari Meadows and were on our way to Solapur! “Oh is that so? Well then I guess we missed the turn somewhere!”

Ah - the pleasure it gave me to direct us back home! Muhahaha – I quite relished the experience of hearing them admit they were very lost and that they should have listened to me the first time I made noise!

I guess sometimes, it is true then – that men never accept it when they are lost and almost never ask for directions.

Now that I’ve related that -

I must admit that 75% of the time, my directions could lead you in the completely opposite direction. If I’m sitting next to you, I’ll immediately rectify my mistake, but if the directions were given to you on the phone…hehe God help you, coz I often mix up between right and left. If I’m not looking down at my hands then I’m almost certain to ask you to turn right, when I mean left!

I did this yesterday, telling Papa that he has to turn right at Café Canada to get to Kasba Peth, and getting very annoyed with him when he said there is no right there! So he drew a map for me – much to my embarrassment I’d meant left! Needless to say, that ended up being a source of amusement for my brother and father for the rest of the day!

Touché!

So sometimes it’s also true that women are terrible at giving directions and can lead you around in circles.

;-)