In Bangalore, you can never be certain about a few things. For example, sambar. Just because someone tells you it is sambar, it neednt be that. But then, there are few things which you can be very sure about. Like for example, when a car harasses you no end by flouting traffic rules, you can be sure it is NOT a guy who is driving it.
Double Road, jam packed, bikes touching autos touching cars touching bigger cars touching vans touching buses, and am not even close to doing justice to the real traffic scenario. Amidst all this, the cops decided to raise the bar and test our sanity. There is this narrow, uphill bridge which connects to another traffic madness. Climbing it in itself is okay. But since life was lacking spice, our cops install removable road dividers in it. Now these road dividers can be tricky. I am in two minds looking at the lanes, lane 1 has this tired carrier-auto in its lazy walk climbing four feet up and three feet down and a tankload of black smoke, lane 2 has old uncle who doesnt want his kinetic to hurt itself, so goes at an unearthly pace. Since i choose uncle over smokey-auto , i pick lane 2 and am moving up. As i am slowly overtaking uncle, B-A-M, in comes a Hyundai Santro like its possessed.
Turns out that our cops wanted one final surprise, and left exactly that amount of gap between two dividers, just to give people that false hope of confidence that they can sneak in through it. Figures that our santro got stuck behind smokey-auto, decided to play daredevil, looked to the left, found a grey haired thaatha (grandoldman) and someone with "mow me down" written on his jacket and took a mad swerve at both of us. Grey-haired uncle was the first line of defense. I have heard such a screeching of wheels in the climax of the 70s jaishankar movies, but this was the first time i heard it live and so close. From the looks of Uncle's face, you can be sure that he might have expected even godzilla to come out from nowhere, but definitely not a maroon colored metal monster charging in. In spite of all the action happening so close to him, GHU knew that he shouldnt go towards the car, which was good for him, but at the same time decided to move in the other direction, which was not good for, errrm, let us say the other parties involved in this three-way dog-fight. Now, i can hold my line like moronic michael schumacher does, but considering the given circumstances, that would be "tata, bye bye, cheerio" for GHU. I can move to the other side, but somehow this concrete wall doesnt seem to budge like it does in the movies. So as my rear-view mirrors start scratching with the concrete, GHU drives his kinetic right into my bike and while both of us end up with scratches and stop our bikes, maroon santro picks up speed and flies past.
Hot in the head, i chase it down in a hope of stopping right in front of it, catch up with the car and look in, voila. The driver, early 30s maybe, was busy adjusting her hairline in the rearview mirror. Now i looked at the odds of what would happen if i stop the car and pick up a fight. Let me see, we will first have a gang of jobless b*ms walking in to arbitrate, and looking at the drivers of both vehicles, it was quite obvious with whom they would side. On one hand, we have someone wearing a dirty jacket, dirtier pair of jeans and an even dirtier pair of shoes, talking in english and with "I cannot speak kannada for nuts" written in his face. On the other, we have an early 30-ish, santro driving, lip-stick laden, shade wearing, high-heel totting dame who is a mobile perfume factory on the loose. The odds were straight forward. I would get lynched even if i had been run over by the car in front of everyone in public view. She had won it before even the fight started.
Now, regardless of what people say or do or portray, the house is a place which men have lost their control on. Yes, the ration card reads "Head of the family", but thats as far as any man can ever get. There is only one voice at home, a really loud one, and it is always right. Even when it is hopelessly wrong. So, when the man leaves home, thinking that the road is his and he need not feel threatened or oppressed or censured or knocked about, B-A-M, we see yuppie women driving the wheels out of their cars with an evil smile. The bigger the car, bigger the trouble. While maruthis and santros cause danger to limb, we have women driving scorpios and CRVs which can only mean an advanced appointment with your great grand fathers. Now that men have unconditionally surrendered the house to all the women, cant they just come down a bit and leave the road for us ?? We promise to drive around the corners and have our own little bit of fun without disturbing the hierarchy. And that too, we dont want the road all the time, but atleast during peak hours. Somehow we all strongly believe it is imperative to reach office in one piece.
In another galaxy, far far away, men would still have a chance at calling something their own. There is still hope.
Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...
