The Google Maps Argument

Harish’s father trusted three things: his own memory, roads he had used in the nineties, and the principle that a left turn could usually be avoided through sufficient confidence.

This made him an interesting passenger near Hebbal.

The family had booked a cab to visit Harish’s aunt. Harish sat beside the driver, Ravi, with the navigation open on his phone. His parents sat in the back, carrying a fruit basket that seemed to occupy the emotional position of another relative.

The app said turn left.

His father said turn right.

Ravi said the current lane would take them straight, after which he could follow the proper route without cutting across anyone.

Harish’s mother, Uma, looked out of the window.

“I know this road,” his father announced.

“You knew a road here,” Harish replied.

“Same area.”

“Different decade.”

Ravi continued safely. The debate travelled with them, requiring no fuel of its own. Harish explained that the restaurant his father remembered had closed. His father replied that the road did not depend on the restaurant’s business performance. It was, annoyingly, a strong sentence.

The fruit basket shifted slightly. Uma steadied it and said, “Can we stop somewhere?”

“In a minute,” Harish said. “We’re deciding the route.”

His father began drawing an invisible junction in the air. The diagram contained a petrol bunk, a banyan tree, and a medical shop whose continued existence could not be verified. Ravi listened without committing the car to any of it.

The app offered an alternative. Harish studied it. His father interpreted the pause as an opportunity to restore traditional cartography.

“If we take the right, we come out near the old bakery.”

“Which bakery?”

“The good one.”

Uma said, more clearly, “I need a bathroom.”

All three men stopped discussing the bakery.

Ravi asked whether a nearby café with suitable parking would work. Uma said yes. Harish selected it as the temporary destination. His father nodded with the serious expression of someone contributing to a newly important operation.

For the first time that morning, everyone agreed on where they needed to go.

They reached the café without a single navigation argument. Ravi parked properly. Uma went inside. Harish bought coffee while his father inspected the pastry display and discovered that he was suddenly hungry enough to reopen the bakery discussion under different terms.

They sat at a small table while Ravi took a short break. Harish checked the remaining route to his aunt’s house. His father watched him, then asked whether the app could show the road he remembered.

It could. They found it together. Some buildings had changed. One road connection was different. The medical shop still existed, which his father accepted with the restrained triumph of a man vindicated by pharmaceutical continuity.

“You could have just shown me,” he said.

“You could have let me finish a sentence.”

Uma returned and sat down. “You could both have heard me the first time.”

Neither man identified a useful counterargument.

His father remembered visiting that area when Harish was a child. He described a bicycle shop and an enormous dog. Without the pressure to turn anywhere, the memory became an enjoyable story.

For the rest of the journey, Harish handled navigation quietly. His father pointed out old landmarks as memories rather than instructions. Ravi drove. Uma enjoyed her coffee and the unusual peace of a family that had temporarily accepted job descriptions.

At the aunt’s house, someone asked why they were late.

“Traffic?” the aunt suggested.

“Committee,” Uma said.

She set the fruit basket on the table, removed one orange, and began peeling it with the satisfaction of the only person whose destination had actually been urgent.

Read when you’re a passenger or safely off the road. Never while driving.