Dad was a traveller at heart and loved adventures. And honestly, travelling with him was often more of an adventure than the places we went. To this day, our family laughs more about the things that happened on our trips than about any postcard-worthy sights we saw.
One of those memorable journeys was a family trip in the 1980s to Mahabaleshwar, a quiet hill station near Mumbai. The plan was simple: the five of us — Mom, Dad, and us three kids — along with two cousins, would spend a few days enjoying the cool breeze and fresh strawberries.
Dad had our Premier Padmini Fiat serviced and ready for the drive. We squeezed ourselves into the car, and set off. The journey there was smooth, and our time in Mahabaleshwar was lovely — walking around the lake, breathing in the fresh mountain air, and eating the juiciest strawberries.
Before our return, my mother — always the generous one — spent almost all her money on baskets of strawberries to take home and share with family. Tired with all the fun we had had in Mahabaleshwar, we squeezed into a car smelling of strawberries for a journey back.
Halfway down the winding ghat roads, the car gave a cough, a splutter… and stopped. Just like that.
There we were, standing on the road, with Dad unable to figure out what went wrong. Luckily, a kind truck driver agreed to tow our helpless Fiat with seven of us to the outskirts of Mumbai, to a garage. It was quite an experience to be sitting in a car that was being towed!
We reached by nightfall but were still far away from home. We had no choice but to take a local train and a taxi the rest of the way home. That’s when Dad checked his wallet and mom her purse – and both realized that we barely had enough to buy seven train tickets, let alone a taxi fare. Again, we were lucky! The mechanic lent us some money to get us home.
As for the strawberries? We had to abandon them. There was no way we could carry all those baskets on the crowded local train.
We finally reached home close to midnight — tired, hungry. By next morning, it became a story to tell and laugh.
That day taught us more than any sightseeing trip could: that challenges are part of the adventure, that kindness can show up in unexpected ways, and that sometimes the best stories are the ones that didn’t go as planned.
And Dad — as always — taught us to face it all with a smile.
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