Windows rolled up, A/C on, tune
up the radio station, put the seat belt on or rather force the seat belt around
a bulging waist line…say bye to a smiling wife…recheck whether the laptop is
kept in the car, comb 4 or 5 strands of hair, 4 or 5 times so that they don’t
reveal the shiny bald head, set the rear view mirror…the car has been obeying
first part of Newton’s first law for more than a minute…waiting for an external
stimulus. Knock knock at the window…the smile of wifes face has become
inverted, time to stop whatever I was doing and set the car into motion. Just
as I exit my street, the GOW(Garbage On Wheels) maatha has parked her push cart
right in the middle of the road and wandered off to collect garbage. Typically
at the beginning of the journey, I am at my patient best, so smiling at
everyone around, wishing everyone a very good morning, I wait for the maatha to
arrive. Its only when people behind me start honking thinking that I am not
able to move my car out of first gear, the man ego is hurt and I am all ready
to showcase my car squeezing talent. Only in such situations do people turn
good Samaritans, guiding you up to the last degree of accuracy, that you don’t
scrape the edge of car parked right next to your squeeze path way. When the big
ass of the car is out of the squeeze zone, the GOW maatha walks in and pushes
the cart aside, looking at me as if to say I have created the huge jam behind
me. No expletives exchanged, just stern looks as I move on. Peace prevails and
my attention is drawn towards the RJ who blurts out absolute non sense for 15
mins after a 3 and half min song, “En nim maneli thindi? Naanu beligge indha
thindi ne thindilla gottha?… neevoo thindi thinnadhe office ge hogtha idre,
elli hogi thindi thinbahudu antha break aadmele helthini….dont go anywhere!,
kelthaane iri…”. “Big Jams ellidhe antha ee haadu kelkond banni amele helthini”.
And that “amele helodhu” happens after the song, which itself appears a flurry
of commercial breaks! Finally confused as to when this “amele helodhu” will happen
and whether she told about the traffic jams or the songs and the picture of a
jackass appears in my mind, I change channels and finally stop at vividhbharati,
the no nonsense radio station. If they say they play 45 mins of good old
kannada songs, they keep their promise. Just as I finish this daily chore I
enter a hilly terrain, enroute to my office.
I think my generation is the
blessed one to bear the brunt of infrastructure development activities in
Bangalore. All the metros, all the underpasses, all the BWSSB development
activities have happened during the time my generation has started working, or
in the middle of their career. Could you not shift it by couple of decades?
Never mind, the male gender never complains. Hence, my journey into the tough
terrains of north west Bangalore begins
as I enter the hilly terrain courtesy the main road being blocked for an under
pass construction, and the BWSSB also deciding to showcase their plan execution
skills in the by lanes of that crowded locality.
Picture this, as I carefully take
a turn keeping a hawk eye on the end of the busy hilly terrain road, a
vegetable push cart vendor is busy negotiating with the lady in front of her
house. A cute college going girl who has L board written all over her scooty,
sparing only the helmet; barely able to touch the ground with her feet trying
to balance the scooty in its static position, manages to stop her scooty right
in front of my only available path way through the hilly terrain. And for all
that disclaimer filled act of hers, her response was a smile (meaning to say…all
the fault was yours moron, could you not wait until I completed my death
defying act and crossed this road?) No romantic song playing in the background…
Controlling my frustration, I try to smile and guide the girl out of my
pathway, when a hardcore Shankar nag fan (nothing to demean the iconic actor)
comes in at 45 degree angle and occupies the only 1 and half feet available
between my car, the pushcart vendor and the cute scooty girl. A perfect
situation for 4 of us to lay a charpoy and play rummy. Wonder whether the girl
would know how to play? Never mind, Time for expletives. Except for the
vegetable pushcart vendor, all the 3 of us could honk our hearts out. The only
person who could move in the reverse direction with ease was the push cart
vendor and he obliged. As the path got cleared the girl looked at me menacingly
as though asking “If you don’t know how to drive then why did you take this
route?”. I smiled back as if asking “Can you please lend me one of the many L
board stickers you have put on your scooty?” This mute conversation through
telepathy reached the ears of our Shankar Nag fan, and he zipped through the 2
feet gap that was now created. Path cleared, time for me to hit the accelerator
as I have lost time. As I roll up windows, and tune back to Vividhbharathi, Yesudas
sings “Idhu entha lokavayya…..”.
Just when I start picking speed From
terrain filled by lanes to parent vehicle filled school lanes....I slow down
again as I watch these small kids wearing bags equal to their weight clinging
on to their parents, sitting at awkward angles in the backseat of their
scooters. The parents with the zeal to be on time to the school, oblivious to
the way their kids are seated, drive at reckless speeds (by reckless I mean
even speeds of 40kmph are dangerous when you have kids on board, especially on
two wheelers). I get shit scared when I pass next to these two wheelers or when
I overtake them, and thank almighty for passing through scot-free every time.
Falling prey to competition even
Vividhbharathi has resorted to 15 mins break with mindless recipe programs,
which are neither here nor there in terms of content or presentation. So as I change
the radio station, Indu Nagaraj sings “odu odu odu odu mundhe nuggi odu…”. What
an inspirational song, I say(at least for that moment), I downshift and press
the accelerator and make quick work of passing through another old Bangalore locality.
Barely into the second para of the song, I join a serpentine queue along the
Sankey bridge all the way to the Bhashyam circle. I play wicked here, just to
get ahead of the queue. It’s easy to identify them, drive very close to an audi
or a chauffeur driven car, they will give you way, or find a sedan or compact
hatch driven by a lady (I mean no disrespect to them, they drive much safer
than men), and just get close to them, they let you go. But as I do all this, I
am never into the opposite lane, all this antics are done at the left edge of
the road, where there is space slightly more than that available for our auto
rajas :)
Weeding through the clutter as I
go past the mekhri circle underpass I join the “u never know” traffic on the new
airport road. Time to ease into cruise drive, (i.e reach the 4th
gear for the first in the travel distance of 10 kms from my house). I am just
at the border of the speed limit on this road, and yet people honk me from behind.
The reason being I am on the right most lane or the speed lane. As I am being
pushed from right most lane to left most lane still maintaining my speed of 60
kmph, I keep wondering how these two wheelers manage to drive at such reckless
speeds in all lanes. And then we have these messiahs of marauding in Volvo buses,
who are ready to French kiss your cars ass if you don’t give them way. Jostling
for space, bullying small cars and respecting hatchbacks, and staying away from
Volvos and TTs I finally hit my lane to reach my office at Manyata Tech Park.
Just as I park my car in the basement, the RJ blurts out “Adhe office canteen
oota thindhu thindhu bore aagidre, ivath madhyana elli ootakke hogbeku antha
helthini, keltha iri….:)”
Note: This is typically what I go
through during my normal drive to office which is approximately around 14 kms
from my house near Rajajinagar.
