ROAD TRIPPING WITH QB

Long drives they used to call them there. Road trips are what they call them here.

What once was and what now is -- both are home. Music is a trusted bridge 

between the two worlds. The car moves through summer's irrepressible verdure, 

through Tilsonburg, Thorndale, Stratford, past cardboard signs selling strawberries 

and fresh eggs, honey and fat peaches. So much to see and yet the ear yearns to hear. 

Start your playlist. Tibetan flute at first -- Nawang Khechog's aural notes that both 

awaken and still, opening the folds of your mind. An unfolded mind seeks some 

mischief, so switch to gypsy guitar music. Make your senses trip the light fantastic 

while looking at yet more green -- swaying fields of corn and soy, rows and rows 

of cabbage and cauliflower. Yours is a caffeinated head now and there can't be 

any looking back. Play Qurratulain Balouch on a loop. Swing to the bounce 

and husk of her voice, notice the car picking up speed, zipping through the 

highway as you drive towards her live concert. Listen to her sing of humsafars, 

fellow travellers who shared the road but couldn’t sync their minds, of a 

lover’s deceiving heart, of shedding suffocated tears like salt does in dough. 

On the long drive back home late in the night, bite into the ice cream cone you 

bought at the concert venue, and rewind. Stay ensnared in the dark clouds 

of QB's hair, her domineering presence -- on the stage or off it, her 

electric performance. See how the there and here, then and now all melt into 

a circuitous jigsaw.