Manzile apni jagah hain….raasthe apni jagah and GPS !

And whoever had penned these beautiful lyrics to be sung by our evergreen Kishore for our evergreen Big B, surely was a victim of the ‘oh so familiar’ disorder, I too, am a victim of. And before one starts guessing as to what I’m referring to…no, its nothing to do even remotely with that ‘heart’ thing!

I have suffered in silence for the past fifteen years or so, that is since the time I had to travel on my own. Finally, I’m coming out in public, here on my first post. Read on…

I googled the term as ‘directional disorder’ wishing from the deepest pits of my heart that I don’t find even a single entry…. Alas!

There were lakhs of entries, links with concise descriptions of the medical jargon types! I mean… I just had a slight doubt and surely didn’t believe it at all, that such a term truly exists. So, that does it! I always feared this: I do suffer from some kinda syndrome…..only my parents were too busy in my childhood to catch it and take me to the correct specialist. To my utter shock, guess what, there were discussion forums where ‘real’ people with names and email IDs discussed about this disorder, took solace in the fellow sufferer’s plight, provided tips for unguided travel, offered healing words of comfort. Slowly, I came to my senses. I knew at once, yes, this is my world… here are others just like me. I belong here!


This is my Family, here’s where all my ‘so-called’ excuses will be understood as ‘real’ reasons for me losing my way all the time! Now I have the exact medical term too to add to my list of excuses !! I was glad I googled. I thanked Google.com for helping me find my ‘true’ family.

Take simple instructions like… take the first left, second right and there you go, your destination is right at the corner, lady! I would nod with gratitude and immediately draw a picture of a road (raastha) with a left turn and later two right turns and my destination (manzil) at the corner. The single, lonely woman traveler is in control… she is not going to lose her way this time…. Alas!

She not only lost her way, she lost it completely since she ie. me was trying to visit my best friend I have visited a million times before…. A few rescue calls later, I was picked up from the place where I was supposed to anchor myself as a reference point for the rescue teams , lest I lose my way again!


Then again, I wont be allowed to travel alone…. Me and be escorted, oh come on… every woman needs to travel alone at times and me, a woman of this world, a smart woman of substance, obviously needed to travel alone. Here, one may think of the adage ‘If you believe you can, then you will’. Only, me, the die-hard believer, the smart Alecca thought that if I believed too hard, I could easily fool the germs in my brain that erased the directional picture map I drew so diligently every time I was given instructions. I was about to prove my point.

Take even simpler instructions like…. take the coming left and keep walking with your eye towards the right…. Stop when you see a bunch of kids coming…. So we know there’s a school nearby.. ask one of the kids where’s the school. That’s all… the lane (raastha) opposite to the back of that school is where you need to go (manzil) ! don’t get confused… there’s also an old tree there. I nodded in chaos, the directional map I usually drew in my brain got null and void, no work here for the germs! As if all the trees are young except for this one.

I mean… talking about trees, I use these gentle creatures as my reference points now. OK, I turn left when I pass the big Gulmohar tree and keep walking till I pass these four, old trees with tiny, yellowish flowers (don’t know the name) and at the end I will pass a Peepul tree, but wait… I’m not supposed to cross it, I have to take the left that comes before it ! One may wonder, what does this smart Alecca do on her way back…. Simple, she does the same things in reverse !

At times, most trees in an area would be the same species or genre or family. But, me the innovative, die-hard, do-it-yourself-and-prove-to-the-world woman found new avenues for guidance. Hoardings, Billboards, Signboards were the new trees for me. Don’t cut down trees… I mean they are good for the health of my city and please don’t stop putting huge Billboards in my city….I mean they are good for the economy. When ‘Philips’ goes like ‘Lets make things better’, I know they mean this! Things can’t get any better than that. Look at me, I’m on my way without a single soul harassed enough to keep tracking my progress. Whoever needed GPS… yes definitely when I’m in the Antarctic region with no trees and Signboards, then GPS or Global Positioning System would guide me. hmmmm...

One may now contemplate the depths of the creative lyricist…. See what I said when I started …the raastha-manzil divide in the brains of the ‘directionally disillusioned’ !