We are driving through a really pretty part of Rajasthan from Kota to Delhi via Sawai Madhopur and Dausa. The fields and water bodies plus the very decent roads of the Mega Highway scheme are inspiring innovation.
For the last hour, Udai, Rahul, Amma and me have been betting on distances to the next expected town. The one whose guess is closest to the distance shown on the next milestone wins. The score is as of now three each for Rahul and Udai, one for Amma and none for me!
Every now and then, Udai is thrown a small mental math challenge, usually to calculate the total distance covered since morning. Or some other random division sum, that being the latest lesson learnt in school and something that really excites him.
As I write this post, Rahul and Udai are competing to tell the poorest silliest joke. Those that appeal to an eight year old are particularly ridiculous. They take me back to our childhood days when jokes were a vital part of how we spent our time. We made our parents buy joke books and pored over them in a bid to find and memorise rare ones that we could share with our friends and family. Antakshari, another favourite travel pastime is being given a miss today. My kids don’t have enough of a song vocabulary yet.
Aadyaa in the meanwhile has been snoozing away, perhaps the best pastime of all on a long drive!