Vijay Nair had driven from his house in Thrissur to his in-laws' house in Palakkad forty-seven times in fourteen years of marriage. He knew the route. He knew it better than Google Maps. He knew it better than the road itself.
When his wife Sreeja opened Google Maps on her phone as they pulled out of the colony, he glanced at it with the expression of a man tolerating something unnecessary.
"I know the way," he said.
"I know you know the way," Sreeja said. "I'm just checking for traffic."
"I know the traffic too," Vijay said, which was technically less defensible as a claim, but he made it with complete confidence.
The route Vijay knew went through Mannuthy and then along the old national highway. He had always gone this way. He would continue to go this way. This was the way.
Google Maps said to take the new bypass.
"There's a bypass now," Sreeja mentioned.
"Bypass will have traffic," Vijay said, with the authority of a man who has not taken the bypass and therefore knows exactly what the traffic is like.
"Maps is showing it's forty minutes faster."
"Maps doesn't know this road like I do."
The old highway had, in the fourteen years since Vijay had first driven it, acquired three new sets of speed bumps, a functioning traffic light that had previously been only a suggestion, a milk van that parked partially blocking the left lane every Tuesday between 4 and 5 PM (this was a Tuesday), and a new median wall that redirected traffic through a detour that added twelve minutes.
Vijay navigated all of this with the grim determination of a man who is not going to acknowledge that the alternate route might have been better. He pointed out, at intervals, that he knew exactly where they were at all times, which was true.
Google Maps recalculated twice and continued suggesting the bypass.
He turned the phone face-down.
Sreeja, who had been married to Vijay for fourteen years and had her own theories about the relationship between certainty and stubbornness, sent a WhatsApp message to her mother saying they'd be about an hour later than planned, and then watched the scenery.
They arrived at the in-laws' house one hour and fourteen minutes after leaving. The bypass, Maps had estimated, would have taken fifty-five minutes.
Vijay parked the car and sat for a moment.
"The milk van," he said, to no one in particular.
"Yes," Sreeja said.
"Every Tuesday," he said.
"Apparently."
He got out of the car and greeted his in-laws with great warmth and said nothing about the route. At dinner, his father-in-law mentioned that the new bypass was excellent, very smooth, very fast. Vijay said yes, he'd heard, they should try it next time.
On the drive home, he took the bypass.
It was, he noted privately, very smooth. Very fast. Fifty-three minutes, which was two better than Maps had estimated.
He did not mention this to Sreeja.
She did not ask.
They had been married fourteen years. Some information, both of them understood, doesn't need to be spoken to be heard.