On riotous roads of
C V Raman Nagar that morning, I was
clinically gentle and vastly precautious - like an orderly L board driver, throttling the vehicle speed mostly through mental pressure,
without flogging the accelerator.
Lapsed vehicle
policy toned me down so much so that suddenly I was very protective about
others’ vehicles and their lives. With third party coverage gone, I was
reminded by a fact that a single dent caused by me on people’s car and limb can
decimate my bank deposits.
I was making a
way to every speeding vehicle regardless of the direction that they were moving
to or coming from.
I was generally used
to receiving the middle finger gestures from others for my cocky driving
actions on road otherwise, that people using a good combination of their hands,
palms and fingers symbolizing grace, gratitude and admiration was a welcome
change. Strangely, I was the only man in that huge traffic, who seemed highly
respected - that morning.
At DRDO junction, the congestion was ridiculously
abnormal.
This is an
unusual spot where I get to read usual foolishness of mankind from simple lenses
of anthropological imagination. I just see a pointless motion of vehicles,
competing to go first.
The spirit to
compete, hinges on two variables; the one, who drives the vehicle and the
vehicle one drives.
Invariably, there
is guaranteed problem either with the first one or the second. Simple.
The one who
drives always wants to go first and wants to go fast on small roads that are
over spilling by people with similar aspirations. Hence this man finds every
driving action of other person crazier than him and uglier than others.
Alas, these men under-use
mirrors, so much.
For these men –
vehicles, pedestrians, zebra lines, humps… nothing matters, literally.
They just want to
go.
Vallish
- my friend who got a supernatural skill of spotting these reckless rogues,
cautions me not to come on their way. One evening when Vallish and I were driving together, a driver behind me was
honking, loud. “Rajesh …. let him go;
looks like his wife has called him to come home and told that sex would happen
at 10.00 PM – with or without him’, said Vallish.
Whenever you are
maintaining an order on a blocked road and suddenly one warrior breaks it and starts
moving as though the road is supposed to be left vacant only for him, whenever someone
honks behind you to make a way while you are waiting at the signal and whenever
someone is excessively and unnecessarily speeding his vehicle by endangering
others on the road, I just remember Vallish
and save an adultery that Bangalore may
witness.
***
If you have time
and patience on roads, you get to spot some very interesting people, patterns
and phenomena, here.
Let us begin with
foolhardy motor bikers who rule the Bangalore
roads.
A few riding these
bikes act as though they are highly medicated by behavioral altering drugs.
Some others imagine
they ride an angry rattle snake. It is funny to see them shaking their bums by
forcing their soft testicles against hard petrol tanks, depleting their sperm
counts. Once they stop their vehicles and go into their workplaces or homes,
they must often be going to private rooms to see if their balls are not turned
into hummus.
And then you have
a city transportation buses; they just need a passage to zoom in their vehicle.
Once they get in, rest all is assumed to be alright. The rear body of their
buses kissing others’ vehicles is just an affectionate way to say “f*** you.”
And then ‘the world
famous, in India’ auto rickshaws.
No matter how
horrible is the traffic throughout the city and no matter which part of Bangalore you are at, if the auto driver
has accepted to give you ride to the bus station or railway station, he will
definitely drop you to the destination ahead of time, dead or alive.
If there is ever
a competition between politicians and rickshaws to demonstrate the ability to
bend and break a rule, then the auto guys will win over anybody, hands down.
Auto rickshaws
were created, when god found it difficult to go on Indian roads.
They believe that
they are smaller than micro-organisms and faster than jet planes.
No, hang on …..
they are actually rockets; it is just that Auto rickshaws move horizontally and
have no propellants and Auto rickshaws also have brakes that are grossly
underused. Astronaut training and human spaceflight programs were secretly
designed by the principles of Auto rickshaws’ velocity. I sometimes suspect
that Hyperloop may face legal threat on Auto rickshaw ‘IP’ infringement.
One last thing
about Auto rickshaws; their actions are conversely proportional to epic quotes, written on the back of the Auto rickshaws. One guy who appeared from nowhere (that is how they occur
on roads, by the way) and was about to hit my right door, had a quote on the
back of his Auto rickshaw which said “you
safety is our concern.”
It was highly
confusing; nobody knew whom this statement was meant for, including the old man
sitting in it, who looked apologetic towards me for the action hero’s stunt.
I finally looked
at some heavy vehicles.
While diesel tractors
carrying mud and trucks ferrying city trash would give a Jacuzzi sprinkle to
our vehicles, HLVs and JCB earth movers constantly converted every waiting
vehicles into touch me not plants.
***
In a snail paced traffic I perhaps was the slowest
snail, that day.
I suddenly heard
a sound of a small thud. Around 50 meters away from me, one car hit another.
Windshield had a crack, left door was smashed. The fight began on an innocent mistake
that Bangalore otherwise is very
tolerant about. As rising tide will lift all boats in an ocean, one incident
made sure that the traffic which already was worst hit, is now stalled.
Now I had more time to observe;
I shifted my observations from vehicles to people.
I spotted the
most respectable and tolerant set of people first; the pedestrians.
With smoky breeze
caressing their bodies and cranky noise crushing their ears, their only respite
perhaps was to walk fast on the vanishing footpaths of Bangalore, mocking at the trapped vehicles in the figurative messy
amusement park rides that all the drivers were perennially into.
The second respectable
man on that day was a middle aged traffic cop who was amused with multiple
challenges he was dealing with- all at once. His hands – that were designed to
do one function at a time were magically universal; on the touchscreen of his mobile
phone, on his mysteriously coiled mustaches, on his groin, on his slipping pair
of trousers – all at once.
Well, he was also
regulating the traffic, effectively.
The third guy was
funny. It was a cab driver – who came out of his window, pulled out a half-filled
green pet bottle from inside – drank a bit, poured most in his hands, splattered
against his face, gurgled with creepy noise, sprinkled it out, weakly.
Before he pulled
himself back into the car, he looked around stoutly - as though he was one
soldier who killed 10 terrorists, infiltrating into Indian Territory.
Most of us who
saw this man in this action, saw each other- swiftly.
There was one
common relief on everybody’s face that he did not have a bucket of water.
And then a very pretty woman riding
her stylish moped, almost sneaked next to me reminding me the brio of a
charming lady who led the crowning glory ads in the 80s. A perfectly curved body - almost complimenting curvaceous bike that she
was riding was magnetizing both men and women around her. She looked at
me (accidently) as though it was the closing scene of La La Land and I was Sebastin
playing a band and she is Mia pausing
to give me one warm look. You know, some people
have a rare sword swiping specialty in their looks; she had it. If you are fan of Ghazals, you would realize that Ghazals
often uphold three things; melancholy of life, mirages of men and magnificence of
a woman. She was a live
I
switched off my cacophonic FM channel and switched on to the USB. Then Mehdi Hassan sang “yeh meri umr mohbbat ke liye thodi hai (this life is too less to be in
love with..).”
Once the road opened
up for her motor bike to move, she vroomed ahead - leaving me to linger into a
light hearted
sin.
Her
vacated space was timidly occupied by a Nano
car carrying a Giga couple.
Inside
the car, I saw a fat man in his early thirties - wearing an awkward floral tie that
was too short, competing with his pot belly. He, every now and then would look
into his mobile phone and giggle - as though he was under a severe influence of
a laughing gas. He
continued reacting differently every 3 seconds, reminding me of a dog that witlessly
rubs its back, lazes on the ground to lessen its itch.
The
lady (I assumed, it was his wife) sitting next, chomping some food, also pulled
out her mobile phone, switched on the selfie mode. She spruced up her face
looking into it, applied lipstick and began clicking selfies by making faces
that only can be made by people who by mistake inhale highly allergic gas.
This woman who had no
dressing sense was wearing an awkward T shirt that surreptitiously covered two squeezed oranges, positioned exactly
on top of an inflated pumpkin.
The
couple, by all means were a byproduct of etiquette massacre that are mostly
spotted in Bangalore shopping malls.
‘Lucky you’ – I said in mind looking at both, wondering about the quantity of lies that they should be telling each other about their beauty and body - everyday, just to keep the marriage intact.
***
Even as I was freelancing people, I realized
that I was turning out to be mean, wicked and highly opinionated. This’ what
democracy does to us; it unreservedly gives us a weird entitlement to brand others with vicious
opinions and contentious views. No wonder, why the name of new born baby of a
celebrity and the games that politicians play around it - become national
headlines, in my country.
In guilt, I looked into the side
mirror which displayed my convex image and insultingly said that ‘the objects are closer than they appear’
– underlining the
abundant absurdity that was hiding, within me.
The
mirror hinted to me that there is a differentiated way of looking at others.
The
note reminded me to tap into my own dysfunctional life before I assess others,
precariously.
People honk
because they are happy.
People eat
because there is a greater joy in feeling hungry and eating food.
No matter how
envious I am about an undeserving couple, they are not going to change their relation
just because I have an opinion about them.
The cab driver
who did a miracle with half bottle of water perhaps must be working very hard
and he may not have had time to even go home and feel refreshed. The Auto rickshaw
drivers mostly speed up so that they attend more and more passengers and make
small money; they also have daughters whom they need to buy school bags for or
pay for their sons’ bus passes.
Who knows?
But I knew one
thing for sure; every person that I was branding was generally nice, warm and
happy. They merely were creative characters in a play called halted road.
Tyranny of rapidly surfacing remorse, put me into an aching discomfort.
The traffic was a
merely a symbolic time trap – making me appreciate an undeniable relation that existed between devastatingly stunning contradictions I knitted
about myself in comparison with others.
The self-serving compulsions that made me ascribe a blueprint
to an ideal way of dealing with life, actually seemed to be my neurotic disorder.
I was sick!
I think, I was reduced to live a life of a denizen in a detained pool
of water. My zest was simply trapped under a heavy armor of turtle, confining
me to a flimsy life defined by materialistic norms.
I recovered and
made a pledge, never to be mean to people.
The
sensation was uncommon; I was in the present and very happy.
Choosing
to go slow and be patient on the road was a great incentive to discover life’s
simple truths.
It reconnected me to rapidly diminishing values of life.
Technically, driving an uninsured car taught me one
simple thing that life is too fast and I must slow down.
As Wordsworth in his “world is too much with us” sonnet highlighted the peril of materialistic progression as sordid boon, the
forced halt reminded me that that I have been
unnecessarily speeding up, when I am supposed to slow down.
