Finding my way...

I have a bad sense of direction. Whenever I reach a junction I am confused whether to take a left or a right. Sometimes I go with my intuition. Sometimes I don't think, just drive. Most of the times I am wrong and then I have to look for an appropriate place to take a U-Turn. If I don't find an appropriate place I keep driving, knowing well that I am headed west when I am supposed to go east. Soon I am lost. If I am alone, not queueing up other cars behind me, I make a call to my GPS service (A on the phone with google maps :D) . Yes I need a GPS but they can also be out of date. I get worked up and begin to fret and then terribly miss my country , miss the Indian GPSs.
You know what I am talking about: the autowallahs and rickshaw-wallahs or shopkeepers or any pedestrian...just simply stop the car and ask "Bhaiya yahan se X tak kaise jaaun?"
There will be enthusiastic replies with detailed gesticulated explanations.
Bangalore autowallah:"Madam, left maari. Next circle right maari."
Calcutta rickshaw-wallah:"Didi, shaamne giye baandike jaan. Tar por crossing'e daandike ghurben"
Mumbai taxi-wallah:"Pehle left maarne ka hai, phir aage signal se right maarne ka hai"
Chennai autowallah:"Madam english. No hindi"
Then you reach till wherever they have guided you and repeat the same question with a new bunch of people.
I like it :) and I miss it :(


While writing about junctions and directions my mind began to draw an analogy of the situation to decision making.
Yeah I am always at a junction when it comes to critical decision making. There are invariably multiple paths to choose from and each looks equally likely and prospective to the other. Some paths can be ruled out with little effort but ultimately there is always a bifurcation to choose from. I try to take a more professional and analytical approach: weighing out pros and cons on excel sheets, color coding the choices,assigning them weights and sorting the columns. There is almost always a tie. Then there are calls to help services: A, mom-dad-B and sometimes friends. That leaves me more confused. Since now I have 3 for the matter, 2 against the matter. Should I try another couple of people? Its like tossing a coin in the hope of heads; if heads appears stop else toss an odd number of times till you get the maximum occurances of heads! Silly I agree, the fact that I opted for a second toss itself indicates what I am inclined towards. The risk in this case however is that there are no autowallahs and pedestrians and shopkeepers whose directions I can blindly follow. In this case there is no opportunity of a U-Turn. In this case if I am lost I have to find a detour. Myself. With the aid of my gut.

Isn't making a decision for equally prospective untrodden paths always a gamble? Maybe not for many, but for people who belive that good and bad coexist and that there is no such state as utopia it might be a little more confusing. Yes we can estimate consequences, make a few future predictions, look in the blind spots, have a hind sight and foresight but how accurate can we get? If we choose path 1 today it could lead our life to a completely different track. In just a split second if we had chosen path 2 where would we have landed? How would it be if I could trace back my life to the split second decisions that I have made, opt for the other paths that I rejected earlier and see what life had in store for me. It would be an opportunity to prove or disprove the "grass is always greener on the other side" myth/fact. No, I am perfectly happy with my today...just curious.