Traffic & Tempers

-
A ride in an auto rickshaw on a Bombay street is always full of adventure. In addition, it gives you a good workout and digests food faster as the craters on the road shake and stir you in every direction till your insides are all mixed up!

I missed my office transport so I took an auto rickshaw to work and while on the highway I heard a lot of impatient honks behind. The rickshaw driver was of course quite oblivious and thought he was Michael Schumaker driving a Ferrari. Once he awakened to reality, he reluctantly gave way to a Merc right behind, however the Merc was rather miffed that she was not given way so the lady at the helm spewed a few verbal abuses to the rickshaw driver. Michael Schumaker spat in return and drove on with more vigor - it was a make beleive Ferrari versus a Merc!

Anyway Bombay is hardly a place for aspiring F1 racers and traffic played spoil sport to the merry chase (rickshaw sputtering behind a Merc) and Schumaker in a vengeful mood, bumped into the Merc as she chose to halt right in the middle of the road without any indication - just because she is a Merc. The lady emerged screaming obscenities and slapped poor Schumaker and said that he had deliberately banged (strong word - it was just a tap) the Merc. The Policeman, who's main job is to catch hold of hapless souls and collect a little bribe was called upon to listen to the horrific story of a Rickshaw deliberately banging into a Merc, a small crowd gathered around and the Lady in the Merc swelled with self importance and wailed about how Schumaker refused to give way while she was in a hurry to go the Doctor. I was called in to give my expert judgemnet and I went for Schumaker all the way and wished that he had actually dented the Merc! The Merc Lady shouted at me and said how the crowd always supports the underdog and one day I will suffer at the hands of such louts and then I will understand her predicament.

The rotund Policeman, seeing a lot of prospects zipping past him, told the fat Merc Lady "Madam, apna energy mat waste karo aur jaldi kaam pe jao" (Madam, dont waste your energy over trivial things and go where ever you were going). So in all it was much ado over nothing, I lost 15 crucial minutes and got some material to write about in my blog after a long hiatus!

As a closing thought, I wonder if people with bigger, shinier and more expensive cars are ugler, angrier and more violent?

Comments

BlondebutBright said…
Always good to look at inconveniences as great blogging material. And I think the nicer the car, the more violent the reaction. It has to do with the perceived privilege of owning luxury, or something like that.
3:52 PM
Kausum said…
Its true, people with more moeny try to be more snobbish at the wrong reasons. Driving with an ego is always a cause for incidents. Forget about cars and autos. Try the first class compartments. There will be snobs around, who wouldnt even try to give an inch of space while with a air of supremacy will try to look down upon you as if you are fit for the second class compartment. While, in a second class compartment people are so accomodating.
8:49 AM
Grey Shades said…
Dont know abt that but they sure do have bloated egos and swollen heads!
10:17 AM
ichatteralot said…
@BbB: True and a superiority complex!

@Kausum: A girl I know told me that she deliberately travels in 2nd class compartments in a Bombay local as people help each other while in the 1st class they couldn't care less if you fall out of the train

@Gray Shades: Oh yeah! I have the misfortune of knowing some of these people!
12:14 PM
Nautilus said…
Here they say men drive big cars to compensate their small...ummm...you know what! Why do women drive shiny big cars? If she owns a Merc in Bombay I'm sure she could have paid some one else to drive it for her...

I guess its a classic case of lots of money = lots of power = bloated ego!
6:02 AM
Sue said…
Once we saw a family in a new car who had been tapped -- no scratches -- on the front right (bumper) by an auto. The father emerged, horrified. The mother ditto, screaming. The child ditto, crying, convinced that the sky had fallen on their heads. The grandfather sat in the back looking shocked.

Mind you, now that I own a car myself, I totally see their point of view!
6:05 PM
ichatteralot said…
@Nautlus: Yes - good point there! Men need to live life kingsize if they are umm...:D You know, it was probably the driver's day off!

@Sue: Hey good to see you again! Hows the baby doing? I know I know - maybe if I owned a Merc I would behave exactly in the same way!
7:30 PM
zypsy said…
so very right!!

i always find people with the bigger, shinier and more expensive cars, or any vehicle for that matter, louder, angrier and more abusive than the other party.
3:35 PM
ichatteralot said…
@Zypsy: More money = Subhuman behaviour! *SIGH*
10:44 AM
Sue said…
Baby's doing fine, thanks.
1:21 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sibling Rivalry

-
My cousin and I grew up together in Delhi; our Mothers were good friends so as families we met very often. Our dolls used to spend the week at each other's houses, we used to make 'Fanta' by powdering orange drops and then mixing it with Soda, we used to cook food in toy utensils over a candle flame, we used to play 'Beauty Parlor' with our dolls where we would be the beauticians and our dolls at the receiving end of our experimentations. She introduced me to the forbidden Star comics, which were a pictorial representation of a romantic story. Then the kiss seemed a repulsive thing - imagine a man and woman exchanging saliva - YUCK! However curiosity about this man woman thing (however yucky it seemed) made us consume quite a few of this disreputable literature before we were caught. She was the darling of the colony, everybody knew her, and even my Mother would comment that she is such a bright and lively girl. "Why can’t you be more like her?" She would ...
Read more

Death of a Newspaper

-
(Based on thoughts generated by the article in my previous post) When I see the Times these days, I wonder whether I can continue subscribing to this paper for long. From a paper who believed in serious journalism it has degenerated into a rag which mostly prints syndicated material with some writing here and there by correspondents. My uncle was an eminent journalist with the Times, my cousin was the Editor for a while, I grew up with discussions about politics and happenings at the newspaper office and somehow Times has been a habit for as long as I can remember. Now it has grown into a massive media juggernaut and the groups priorities seem to have shifted and it seems they take the slogan 'sex sells' very seriously indeed. They can read the minds of the strapped for time urban lot who prefer light reading. They know exactly how to add spice to each and every section. Even Economic Times has the occasional titillating picture or a 'juicy' snippet. The morons that we ...
Read more

Going Back

-
For the past 15 years I had been contemplating about going back to Delhi - just to visit friends and look up all the old places that I used to frequent while I lived there. Somehow the opportunity or a reason to go to Delhi never came up and going alone for a weekend just to mingle with old friends was frowned upon heavily by family. Thankfully a very dear friend of mine decided to get married and the whole family had a reason to go to Delhi. There was a lot of excitement everywhere, another dear friend called me and threatened dire consequences if I didn't stay with her and both of us had a lot of conversations about our husbands meeting for the first time, food likes and dislikes and the menu plan for the five days that we would stay with her. The menu plan was an impressive array of Mongolian, Lebanese and Italian cuisines along with some Indian fillers which I used to eat at her house many moons ago. I was to be the guinea pig for the recipes that would make it to her soon to b...
Read more