Over the years, a part of me has come to detest the Holiday Season. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the decorations, the Holiday spirit, the seasonal parties and get-togethers just as much as anyone. It is a dislike of the sheer effort and drudgery of Holiday shopping!!

Som and I had a rare two days of the weekend together and she was determined to pack in as many things that we could possibly do over these two days. Sunday morning had been spent entertaining the children outdoors and we had got home after a very late lunch. My body and spirit daydreamt of flopping into our overstuffed sofa (preferably with a beer to lubricate the gears of my mind) when Som looked through a few store flyers and announced that it would be a good idea if we went shopping.

Carefully concealing my complete lack of enthusiasm, I helped bundle the children, first into their winter woolies and then into the car. We drove out of our small side street into the main road. The streets were packed with cars, undoubtedly all holiday shopping. My wife, Som, prattled on about what we had to buy and what we were merely going to look at by way of "price comparison shopping". I mumbled the appropriate "yes dear", "no dear" without really listening to a single word of what she had to say. Most of my driving has always been on autopilot and today was no different. It seemed the conversation might soon reach the same stage!!

We were stopped at a traffic light. I was trying to ignore both Som and the DJ on talk radio when I idly glanced into my rearview mirror.

Nothing very exciting in the first cursory look. A gold colored Toyota sedan (in fairly urgent need of a good car wash) with a forty something (I guess) couple in it. I like cars and I enjoy working on them. On the road, I look at other cars and try to figure out what year they are, what state of repair (or disrepair) they are in, and so on. I looked again into my rearview mirror to do my usual appraisal for the Toyota when my attention was caught by the couple in the car.

He was in the driver's seat. She, in the front passenger seat. Respectable clothes both of them (anyway, no one really dresses very spiffy in the USA - more so New York!). Nothing very bold, yet nothing very boring. They both looked very middle class. Both had shades on and I could not see their eyes.

That they were arguing was obvious. Both had their winter jackets on but their body language suggested that the temperature inside the car was ready to kindle serious trouble!! It's strange how an argument takes on a completely different appearance, when you cannot hear the words or see the eyes of the protagonists. Over her shades, I could see her eyebrows arched high in rage. Bright red lipstick framed the borders of a petulant mouth within which her teeth were clenched in fury. She would not look directly at him but the words were just pouring out of her. In the brief few seconds (although it seemed like much longer) that I watched them, she was really working herself up into a tizzy. She finished whatever she was hollering at him with a derogatory gesture of her hands.

He sat there ramrod straight, his spinal extensors suffering the brunt of his pent-up anger and his hands gripping the steering wheel much tighter than he needed to. His mouth was set in a grim line of anger, and also, hopelessness. The way she was carrying on, I am sure that a small part of him had already realized that he was not going to get a word in edgeways!!

He was looking straight ahead into my mirror but I don't for a moment think that he even saw me. I was really intrigued. Whatever could they be fighting about? Som caught my prolonged interest in the rearview mirror and demanded to know what had attracted my attention. Mercifully the traffic lights changed and I used the excuse of getting the car on its way to avoid an immediate answer. "Nothing" I replied. "I think the couple in the car behind us are fighting"

Som gave me a questioning look that silently asked if I was coming unhinged after forty-eight hours of "Family group activities".

I watched the couple in the car for the next few lights. The vehemence of their argument showed no signs of abating. I turned off the main road into the shopping mall and lost the Toyota.

I will never know what happened after, but if someone were to tell me that things became much uglier in that car, I would not be surprised. Despite my lack of enthusiasm, we actually had a very productive shopping expedition.

The kids were as good as gold. Som, in a way that only she could, hunted out bargains that I could never have found. Later that evening after the kids had gone to bed I sat down with Som in front of the TV. Over the years I have watched just about everything in my rearview mirror while driving and I cannot recall dwelling on any of them in any detail. Today was different. For some strange reason, I could not get the couple in the car out of my mind. Perhaps it was the intensity of their anger, and the feeling that somehow, I had been the proverbial fly on the wall, watching them fight, that intrigued me. Perhaps if I had been listening to Som, I would not have looked into the rearview mirror.

That took my mind off on a tangent. I looked at the clock and somewhat guiltily discovered that I had spent more than half an hour daydreaming without following a single thing that was happening on TV. Som curled up a little closer and asked me what I thought of the TV program. "Brilliant" I replied, even making it sound quite convincing. It was then that I realized with something of a start, that the last half-hour was not just "my old car dream". With an automotive analogy, I had spent about a half-hour looking into the rearview mirror of my life. And although I had enjoyed almost every twist and turn on the road that had brought me up to where I was in the present, starting way back when in Pondicherry; in some ways, I was glad that road was behind me.

And, in my aging seclusion, although a very small part of me is still young enough not to really care about what's behind me now, the road ahead still looks just as exciting and sweet as the road behind, in my mind's rearview mirror.