How did we manage without GPS

After Exodus or during Exodus (I am not a biblical scholar) the Jewish people left Egypt and wandered for 40 years when they traversed a distance of about 250 miles before reaching Canaan. Now why would it take 40 years to travel the distance between Chennai and say Madurai? Well the punch line here is "Men, even in those days, did not ask for directions". Please see this video why men in modern times are scared to ask for directions.

This is in contrast to our household, where the women folk are extremely stubborn starting with Jannavi. She hates asking for help. It is a matter of pride for Jannavi to reach for stuff in kitchen cabinets 9 feet high even if I were standing near ready to help or, as happens more often, sitting nearby watching reruns of popular shows from the 1990s.

When we were graduate students we would drive a lot. I liked to drive and we deemed the cost of flying too high. We would go to AAA and get Travel guides and maps for the places we were visiting. The maps alone paid for the cost of the membership. This was before Google Maps made maps a commodity that can be now carried on a browser enabled phone!

The AAA maps were very helpful, since it was easy to get lost in down towns with their maze of one ways and narrow crooked streets. Jannavi was the navigator during our travels and it is amazing we are still married considering the number of times we have quarreled over the way she gave directions or the way I failed to follow it. A lot of my time would be spent on cajoling her to ask passerby folks for directions. I still see that mulish tilt of her head and the deaf ears that do not acknowledge my worthless entreaties.

I on the other hand am very different. I could be standing right outside the Taj Mahal and still feel the desire to ask for directions. I need help (in more than one way), OK.

Then one day we discovered GPS and life changed.

For better.

Somewhat.

We now fight over other equally useless things.

Strangely enough it was Jannavi that came up with the idea to buy this device. We now enter the address and I try to follow the directions from a sweet tempered woman. Being accustomed to hearing instructions barked out at me, listening to someone in honey toned voice requesting me to take various actions, was needless to say something of a change.

I used the phrase, try to follow, earlier because where directions are concerned, I am a dunce. Give me a stretch of freeway for hundreds of miles, I put the car in cruise control, set the stereo to Carnatic music and I am in Nirvana. Anything else, I get confused. Easily. But this woman never gets snippy at me even when I miss the exit that most blind man could have seen! She simply tells me "computing new direction" and within 30 seconds has a new set of instructions for me. I discovered this feature when I took the New Jersey Turnpike last weekend, or I should I say, failed to take it.

It does not matter to her how many times I make mistakes. It does not matter if I ignore her completely. She is single minded in her pursuit to get me back on track.

So for all those couples, that like taking road trips; buy a GPS. It could save your marriage.