stack/hopr

They say the thrill is in the chase. Have you ever thought why would it be so?

Some of my free time over the weekend allowed me to do some free thinking and I did. The chase, the pursuit or the journey often turns out to be more exciting and worth remembering than the goal, the target or the destination. There are a couple of good reasons why it might be so. It’s the way we are wired.

Have you ever been driving on the road and overtaken by another vehicle? Sometimes, you feel the urge to pursue the person who just took you over and take him/her over. May be he/she overtook you in a wrong manner, in a smaller car, it’s the gender thing or sometimes just plain will to win. It kicks in. Then, what do you do? You push yourself and the vehicle. Tracking the car that just passed you. You judge the distance, start planning how you are going to maneuver the chase and the final takedown. You get your focus on your target. Maybe break a few traffic rules in pursuit. You take some calculated and some not so calculated risks and keep pushing. Many times you get near to taking over your target, but miss. You get upset. Reform your strategy, and push further. The excitement gets to the peak as you start tailing the car you are trying to overtake. It’s sheer adrenaline rush. But, then the car ahead of you speeds further, leaving you a bit behind. You feel the letdown. The road ahead is getting narrow, in turn narrowing your chances of overtaking your target. Some insecurity sets in. You begin  to wonder if you’ll ever overtake that car. You might even question the abilities of your car. May be if you had a better maneuverable, more powerful car you could make it. Or may be you need to be a better driver. You probably fight for a second not to get depressed for wrong reasons. Some cognitive dissonance might also set in. You might try to convince yourself that the car may not be worth pursuing and you should probably just cruise along your way like nothing happened. Or what’s the point in racing at all? And just in time, road broadens into a 3 lane highway. The driver ahead of you slows down slightly for whatever reason. Leaving just enough gap to get through. Now, you’re on automatic instinctive response. Without hesitating, you slam on the accelerator and leave the car behind before a blink. You win.

The moment you overtake the person, you feel liberated, happy and like a winner. It’s momentary. Then, it’s over. You’re back to driving as routine task. The thrill os over. That’s why the thrill is in the chase.

Watching a nature oriented channel like “Discovery” or “National Geographic”, can give you some of the most natural examples of the chase. A cheetah chasing a deer at cutthroat speed. The pursuit, the deer running for its life and the pursuer, the cheetah chasing his chance at lunch after a few days of hunger. It’s pure instinct at play. And it’s not very different from the car chase. The cheetah is constantly tracking its prey, judging the distance, the direction, the terrain and even the wind speed. He wants a perfect opportunity at hitting his prey where it hurts the most. Else, he stays hungry for a while. It can be very depressing and weakening for cheetah to be hungry for days. His muscle needs the meat and he is out to get it. Cheetah doesn’t do the reasoning as much a driver would do, but he’s getting his adrenaline rush as closes in on his prey. Suddenly, the deer takes a 90 degree turn. Cheetah tries to follow, but due to his weight follows on a greater radius of turning. The distance between then increases. I can’t exactly imagine how a cheetah might contemplate giving up, but he sure does that for a while. But, his hunger keeps him going strong. He knows he can’t get far, he is losing energy. In a ditch attempt to get to his food, he gathers all his strength and takes the risk. He jumps hard and lands on the deer’s back. The deer is down. But, fighting for its life. Cheetah struggles to keep his grip tight and get onto the deer’s neck. They struggle for a while raising a small cloud of dust. That’s the fight between survival and hunger. Cheetah uses the raw power of his jaw to bring the deer down. The deer finally surrenders. The hunger wins.

And it’s over. The next task of ripping apart the deer and eating it boring and cheetah is going to do that slowly. The thrill just died with the deer.

I drove to Goa last month with a friend. Calangute beach was the destination. Most of the preps were about the journey. Getting the car serviced. Loading up the right amount of food. Planning the route. We started early morning. The initial drive was exciting. As the day passed, the drive got mundane. We drove on highways, narrower ghat sections and through small towns. Taking ample food and beverage breaks. As we were about to reach, we were lost in some dense forest. We took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in the middle of nowhere. No vehicles passed us from either side. And it was getting dark. Some amount of worry set its foot in our minds. We started wondering about hazards of the jungle, some dangerous animals, being robbed by jungle gangs or something worse unknown. We kept going. We were running out of fuel too. If we were not to find any civilization or a petrol pump in the next 20-30km, we would make jungle our home for a while. The road was getting curvy and going into deeper jungles. It started raining soon. Blocking visibility beyond 10 feet. We did not have the luxury of fog lamps. We kept driving at very low speeds. Soon, a deadly turn grabbed my attention. It was “S” shaped, steep, dark and narrow with water flowing across the road. It was as if we were driving into the unknown. My mind was wandering too much. Bodies tired. Focusing was hard. So, with great control over mind and the car i negotiated the curve. And everything cleared. Jungle thinned. Clouds let in some light and to our pleasure, we found a small tea stall tucked beneath a giant tree of some kind.  Some locals huddled there waiting for the bus, drinking tea and chatting idly. We pulled over, jumped out of the cars and asked for hot tea, directions and current location. While gulping down the hot tea, we discovered that were not on the wrong path. It was just our fatigued minds and the jungle. Local people were humble and helpful. We chatted a while about the local culture, population, etc. And drove on. In about half an hour, we hit the beach. The journey was over.

The white-blue combo of the beach put in a peaceful state of mind. And it completely masked the thrill of the journey. I couldn’t decide which one I desired more.