Bangalore traffic : Streets to nowhere and an urban rubble.

The road to madness

He always wanted a fast car. Long drives during the weekend were something he would always dream of. It has been a few years into the job, and now he has had the chance to get a car with a fizz. He longed to be behind the wheel and racing along the highways or motoring around the city in the warmth of the beauty. It was time to announce his arrival and banish the boredom of sitting in a car without the steering in one’s hands. Riding was not fun; driving would be, he knew.

The smiling salesman did his job, the mortgage looked meagre, and the dream car beckoned. Everything fell into place.

On a sunny, sparkling Sunday afternoon, the car is delivered. It was a brand that was a symbol of the elite. The top speed that the beast could hit was 200 kmph. Everything inside the car was a dream; almost every feature was intelligent. The air conditioning would adjust itself without any flick switches or knobs. The doors were smart, the music system lively, and the seats would cool at the bottom too. It was one of those modern contraptions with intelligence that just meant that the dumbest thing in the car was the one driving it.

Heads turn as they often do at such spectacles. And they did when it arrived at his house. Life was finally on its way, and people around seemed to notice him. It definitely was money well spent.

When all the heads that could turn had turned, our man settled down into his life. It is time for the drudgery of daily life. The excitement of the drive to the office wakes him early, the time up to when he walks into his garage flits by. He enters the garage, flicks the remote, and settles into the seat. ,having done that he breathes the air around him, scans the lighted dashboard, and gets going.

He revs up to the gate of his house at 60 km, and the world opens upon him. The fun of all the money spent was just waiting across the gate.

And then the world intervened…

The mere mortals on the road in their ordinary cars and dirty motorcycles would not allow him to get into the steady stream of traffic. The city was already awake, abuzz and of it on the roads. After what seems to be an eternity, he does manage to get into the stream. He suddenly realises that he is noticing more things than he ever did. A helmeted bike rider appears in the right rearview mirror, then disappears. The rider appears in the left mirror a second later as he swerves from side to side, looking for an inch to get into.

The mirrors are playing a trick. Our man is in trouble; his muscles contract as he expects a bump, and they relax as the danger passes. A blue bus creeps up on him. It is about two inches to his right, and it smoothly slides in alongside and past him. The angle of the bus changes as it eases itself in front of him. It is now just centimeters away.

The brakes are hit, the muscles go through the routine.

A cab on his left realises it is in the wrong lane and must go right at the next light. It cuts in and across. It has got its nose ahead, an undeniable advantage, as anyone who knows how to drive should know. The cabbie understands his advantage and presses it home. There they go, the muscles, our man has lost control, his mind and body are now independent of each other, they are doing their things.

While he tries to make sense of all this, the outside world pushes the pause button. The traffic ahead has stopped, and the lights are red at a signal on the horizon. He can barely see them, his seat is so low that he almost feels threatened by the exhaust pipes of the huge container truck to his left.

The light in the distance has lost its mind and its routine. It is probably broken and stuck at red,  the green never comes on. He is already tired of this. He decides to try the usual solution and switches on the radio. The adverts are great, aren’t they? He wonders why a noisy RJ speaks in between the peppy ads. It’s his lucky day; the station is actually playing a song. Some stoned Punjabi hunk is reading a song. They call it rap. It doesn’t make any sense. Neither today or ever.

Geeta Dutt and Majrooh Sultanpuri would have made more sense with.

Jaata kahaan hai deewane, Sab kuch yahan hai sanam

Baaki ke saare fasaane, Jhoote hain teri kasam

( Where do you want go a oh crazy one, everything is right here…all other stories are just a lie)

The car horns are blowing as patience wears thin. They are in tune with the beats on the radio. An eternity passes, and the lights magically repair themselves and go green. Unseen to him, there is a mad rush at the lights. The traffic has woken up and rushes forth. Four lanes of cars and buses dive into two crossing lanes ahead. The ones next to him also stir into life. The world seems to converge on our friend.

Boxed in by demons, he is petrified and frozen.

He can hear the horns, behind him, alongside him, and ahead of him. He snakes his way to the crossing and, with his eyes flitting from one mirror to another, turns the corner and joins the tail end of the traffic waiting for the next signal. He is sweating; the song on the radio does not even register. The smart air conditioner can cool the car, but can’t stop the sweat glands. Eyes are squinting and darting from one mirror to another and then another. A bus is an inch behind him and fills his rear window and mirror. The wait for the next green begins.

A million crossings, signals, and heart-stops later, he eases into the parking lot of his office. The dream of a great day in the office is dead. The day target was to make a meal of the monthly sales target, but now it is one of recouping from the hell he endured to get to the office. While taking the lift and shaking his head to clear the cobwebs, he remembered the old farmer in his village who wanted a job for his son as a driver.

An hour later, thousands of miles away, a phone screen lights up in a modest house sitting pretty beside a green farm patch. Farming in the villages was about to lose another hand. Ironically, growing food was neither filling the plate nor a way to make ends meet, and the old man knew it. Atletast his son would get a dream job in the city.

One more innocent victim was about to get added to the madness of the this urban prison.

An unsuspecting man was being forced into a city, one where the smoke clouds your eye, the traffic kills your spirit, and hell is actually experienced.

Another kid would suffer this hell on the way to and in school. One more lady would work as a house help for some thankless idiots blinded by misplaced ego.

And all this in the poisonous air and the dry dusty lanes of what is called a great city. The trees are disappearing , the lakes are gone, water is scarce and the crowd is swelling.

This is the beginning of the end.: Welcome to the show.

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