When I will count those moments which have occurred recently - among them the ones which were entirely unplanned and unexpected - this incident will indeed rank among the higher ones.
11-12-2014, a unusually usual morning for me. Mom wished me Good luck for the day, as she left for her office. Brother and Dad wished me the same too, and I get set for the 10 kilometer journey to my office, like I'd been doing for the last approx 150 days now. I could feel the cold in the bones of my fingers as I rode on, and was pleasantly surprised to see the roads not as packed as they usually are at ~9:30AM. The highway was crossed with unexpected ease and there I was in Noida waiting to complete the remaining 60% of my drive. It wasn't too soon that the storm hit me hard. Like a million dead vehicles clogging the veins of this metropolitan, the roads were nowhere visible. Amidst the cuboidal blocks were minute struggles of motorbikes, cycles and pedestrians grabbing every chance to sliding though the gaps. Though the journey was still enormous like the Pacific to be covered in a lake motorboat. I did think different and broke the law. The right of this road had but a few vehicles, and so I turned about, reached the gap in divider, and shifted to the wrong side till I was close to the junction of action. Few traffic police personnel seem to be struggling with routing the vehicles, while everyone wanted to be the first one to cross. I loved the fact that being on a bike you could somehow swim through the rocks of obstruction, and so I was soon a kilometer ahead of where I could have been if I was in a car. Little did I know that the junction ahead was going to be a reason for a constant reflection for sometime today.
A huge bus standing strong blocking the road I had to follow. And beside it was a jungle of cars and auto-rickshaws, resulting in a blockage that seemed almost impossible to dodge. But then there was a limit to this stack of patience I had, and so I started to hunt for opportunities of slipping through the crevices. Turned here and tilted there, I was soon close to a gap that wanted my gut to decide whether to take the leap. And then I just did. Slowly moving ahead I knew something was about to snap as the gap was a few millimeters short of my bike width, which was increased a bit due to metal protectors on the sides of my front tire.
Then the sound came, and I bit my tongue. The rear of a car on my right had a small scratch and the one on my left had a snapping noise as it's number-plate catapulted a bit but nothing was broken. I looked at my right, expecting a scorn in the rear-view mirror. But like a blast at the back of my head, I heard a particularly eloquent abuse hurled at me from an elderly not so gentleman in the car on my left. This was unexpected. But what was even more unexpected was that he walked to the rear of his car and took a wooden lathi out. I thought to myself - Wow this dude is up to some serious beating business here. At such times, the brain has almost no time to speculate and take a side. So I stood strong (had no space to move anyway!) and waited for the epicenter of this storm to hit. He walked up close and an array of unstoppable verbal filth erupted from his elderly pockmarked mouth. I looked at the bloodshot in his eyes and suddenly felt pity. The humility with which I talked to him would surprise me later on when I give this incident some further deeper thought. I remember myself acting not like I usually do. When the old man was the on the brink of exploding the nerve on his forehead, I smiled faintly and placing my palm on his chest asked him to relax, lest he get himself unwell.
A particularly junior traffic policeman came close and asked the older man to calm down. Though he himself stayed away from the range of his lathi. It was miraculous how such a natural and simple gesture as showing him support resulted in easing down his catastrophic blast. He walked back to his car and waited for the traffic to loosen. He did honk a few times before silently leaving.
For me, it was easy to call him an asshole and move on. But somehow my brain stuck a different cord. This old man, who had just abused me in the most outrageous of ways, was nothing but the face of a common Indian. He's probably wasted so much time stuck in traffic jams that it could be accommodated in a happier mini-life. Every day of these 150 ones while I've been driving from home to office, I noticed vehicles, roads and traffic instructions. But never did I notice the people. I never actually looked at their faces, while I exchanged abuses more than once every couple of days. It was today I realized that life is tough. It's short. And when you spend a chunk of it honking and waiting for hours in unending queues, it's but natural to be painfully dry and pissed off. But then who's to blame? I guess all of us. It's all of us who set certain rules, and then break them. The logic ultimately brings you to the decision - me or us? You can skip a red light and probably reach a few minutes earlier. But imagine when you interpolate this trend to a country of a billion people. From a logical standpoint, when you look at the larger picture, it's a blunder big time. But when done at the individual level, the long term impact isn't visible.
Being an Indian, I have learnt how even earning stomach-full is an everyday struggle for a jaw-dropping huge proportion of people. Can we solve it by coming closer in spirit, holding hands and walking together? Probably. Will we actually do it? I have no clue. I don't think anyone has. Not even the unknown old gentleman who's left a print on the sands of time for me.
Then the sound came, and I bit my tongue. The rear of a car on my right had a small scratch and the one on my left had a snapping noise as it's number-plate catapulted a bit but nothing was broken. I looked at my right, expecting a scorn in the rear-view mirror. But like a blast at the back of my head, I heard a particularly eloquent abuse hurled at me from an elderly not so gentleman in the car on my left. This was unexpected. But what was even more unexpected was that he walked to the rear of his car and took a wooden lathi out. I thought to myself - Wow this dude is up to some serious beating business here. At such times, the brain has almost no time to speculate and take a side. So I stood strong (had no space to move anyway!) and waited for the epicenter of this storm to hit. He walked up close and an array of unstoppable verbal filth erupted from his elderly pockmarked mouth. I looked at the bloodshot in his eyes and suddenly felt pity. The humility with which I talked to him would surprise me later on when I give this incident some further deeper thought. I remember myself acting not like I usually do. When the old man was the on the brink of exploding the nerve on his forehead, I smiled faintly and placing my palm on his chest asked him to relax, lest he get himself unwell.
For me, it was easy to call him an asshole and move on. But somehow my brain stuck a different cord. This old man, who had just abused me in the most outrageous of ways, was nothing but the face of a common Indian. He's probably wasted so much time stuck in traffic jams that it could be accommodated in a happier mini-life. Every day of these 150 ones while I've been driving from home to office, I noticed vehicles, roads and traffic instructions. But never did I notice the people. I never actually looked at their faces, while I exchanged abuses more than once every couple of days. It was today I realized that life is tough. It's short. And when you spend a chunk of it honking and waiting for hours in unending queues, it's but natural to be painfully dry and pissed off. But then who's to blame? I guess all of us. It's all of us who set certain rules, and then break them. The logic ultimately brings you to the decision - me or us? You can skip a red light and probably reach a few minutes earlier. But imagine when you interpolate this trend to a country of a billion people. From a logical standpoint, when you look at the larger picture, it's a blunder big time. But when done at the individual level, the long term impact isn't visible.
Being an Indian, I have learnt how even earning stomach-full is an everyday struggle for a jaw-dropping huge proportion of people. Can we solve it by coming closer in spirit, holding hands and walking together? Probably. Will we actually do it? I have no clue. I don't think anyone has. Not even the unknown old gentleman who's left a print on the sands of time for me.
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