Today, while inching along and balancing precariously in bumper-to-bumper, horrorific traffic near Dairy Circle on my Old Reliable, I got attacked by a monster.There I was, trying to ride in a straight line with my very large and heavy brother seated behind me, shoulders and back aching with the effort (not to mention under tremendous psychological pressure because in spite of the abominable traffic I didn't want to weave and ride out of line or 'break any rules') when this speed demon in a big truck starts honking like a madman right behind me. Please note there was no place to go ahead, WE WERE IN A TRAFFIC JAM for God's sake! But apparently I was cramping his style and I could hear a continued barrage of screams and cusses from behind. So I ignored him and continued my careful balancing act. When suddenly this beast vrooms up alongside, sticks his scrawny neck out his window and to my great shock and horror starts yelling at me, pointing and shouting stuff at me I had done him some personal wrong (like laughed at his clothes or something). I swear he was almost frothing and foaming at the mouth and I wanted to reach out and give him one tight slap, like MTV. Except I didn't.
I asked him to shut up and try driving straight, and this was possibly the last straw because stud muffin then swerves dangerously in front of my bike, leans out of his window and... hits me on the helmet! Then races away, nearly killing people on the fly. Aiiiiyayyayyayai!
If anything can knock the wind out of me, it's people's rudenes, and here I was subject to just so much of it as one can take in a lifetime.
I mean, what, what, what? What the hell was this?
Like a loser, seething in anger and still unable to digest what had just happened to me, I pulled up next to a traffic cop (in spite of my chequered past with this set) and in a very uncomposed and disturbed, damsel in distress state ( I know, shameful, but I was actually shaken and very out of sorts at that point) narrated what had happened. I asked him to get the next cops to hold up the damn truck (already visualising myself pointing at the loser in court saying, "It was he!" and the jury- which we don't have in India, I know- saying, "Guilty on all 300 charges of attempted murder"), but Traffic Cop just asked for the vehicle number and said he would register a case of 'rash driving' against him.
Well, what else?
Hmmmph. I'm leaving. It never used to be like this.
Good Gawde writes about his disillusionment with the Mumbai he grew up in.
Let's talk about right here right now. I've been in Bangalore since the infantile age of 15 so that takes care of my growing up years, I think.
Back in '97 it was a lovely, quiet, cool (climatically and otherwise) place.
And today it comes to this. Rowdies on the road bonking law-abiding, smaller-sized citizens on the head and getting away with it.
Tchah, I tell you, it ruined my day of fasting it did. More's the pity.
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2 comments:
Yo sista from another Mista!
Your helmet sems to be going through a bad time eh? First the bird and then this truck driver!
I am quite sure this truck driver was the same guy who I met at crawford market in Bombay! or worse, the rude people tribe increases!
I unfortunately suspect the latter!
How right Calvin's decision to leave the planet and go off to Mars with Hobbes in tow, seems.
Mars here I come!!
What? Really? *sheer disbelief*
He leaned out his window and smacked you? How did he (in a truck) manage to lean so low?
The sad truth is that such incidents happen everyday and the culprits almost always get away with it. Tchah. Bangalore traffic was the reason number ONE I left Bangalore.
Hope you aren't too shaken. I'd expect you to leap and beat the crap out of him and in effect protect your brother haha :p
Sabbah! Moving day approaches, all packed?
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