About a month ago, my fragile ego got heavily bruised due to a snub by an influential person. I decided against the ‘tit for tat’ option since he had the ‘system’ on his side. Then I remembered I had an urgent work in the old city- this trip could divert my attention and thus act like tablet alprazolam for me. I set out in my old car which was no stranger to scratches and minor collisions.
I stopped at the T-point before entering the main road since I had to wait for the wave of incoming traffic to ebb and give me an opening. A moron, who was in the car behind me, started honking- as if I had fallen asleep. I hurled a noxious abuse at the top of my voice- something I could never do in public. I knew he couldn’t hear it but that was not the intention. Then I opened my window and rotated my wrist to convey to him- Are you nuts? The honking stopped. Since he couldn’t notice the bespectacled, ‘the person who won’t hurt even a fly’ look of my face clearly through my rear-view mirror, he probably thought of me as a potential basher.
I started driving on the main road. But my ‘serenity phase’ received a rude jolt soon as the right front tyre hit a cavernous pothole. I cursed the system and the employees responsible for the upkeep of the road. As soon as I entered a market in the old city, my swearing, which was audible only to me, became regularly
regular. The ‘dream team’ for a traffic jam was there- shops which double in size during the day, jaywalking pedestrians, cyclists rushing to douse fires, circus artists driving motorcycles and car drivers under the heavy influence of ‘status’. Some cars were parked on the road right in front of the shops- the same persons who walked for miles during the morning walk were not ready to walk a few metres.
A young man was obstructing the traffic by buying mangoes from a push-cart while sitting in his car. This was the last straw. Just as I was crossing his vehicle, I opened the front door window, sneered like Amrish Puri and said, ‘Is this road owned by your father?’ Then I drove away as I have been out of practice for hand- to- hand combat since quite some time.
Suddenly, I realized that all the shouting, swearing and grunting had made me feel light-headed. Since then, I have often used ‘bad traffic’ as a therapy. You can also give it a try. But keep the car windows closed at all times and make sure that you don’t have a judgemental person sitting in your car.
Indians have so many qualities- traffic sense isn’t one of them!
Jas Kohli is a noted humour writer. His published work includes three bestselling humour novels- ‘Anything to Look Hot’, ‘Lights! Scalpel! Romance!’ and ‘Lights! Wedding! Ludhiana!’.