The Wait

Wake up. Phone clock shows 4:57 AM. What the hell is the phone doing ringing? Oh yea..... got a bus to catch.
I had this basketball match to attend the other day. Due to the match being scheduled for the first slot of the day, and because of the college organising the tournament being situated somewhere in Uttaranchal, I was asked to board said college's bus, to save myself the trouble of arranging transport all the way there. I was told to be present at the bus stop at 6:10 'to be safe, just in case'. As you can see, it is not the most normal kind of timing for a college bus, being a mite on the earlier side.
I ask to drive until the bus stop, and my dad obliges. I kinda hoped the early-morning drive would get my senses up and running.
It didnt.
I stood at what I thought was an agreeable place for an early morning bus to stop on that road, and pretended to be awake and aware of my surroundings. The tea kadais were open and bustling with activity. There were loads of early-morning CA students walking briskly past me. I was secretly jealous.
Bus after PTC bus went past me on the road.
Let me attempt to put in words, the rock-n-roll technicolour superfest that is the arrival and exit of a PTC of a popular route number at a bus stop.
You always hear them before you see them. Ok, in this case, my eyes were half closed, but nevertheless, at least in most cases, you do. And the first sounds of them you hear are a series of gut-wrenching clunks of varying volumes and durations. These sounds emanate from a plethora of areas on the bus, right from their over-used, and highly-abused transmission systems, their taxed suspension systems, the various bits and pieces of other components flying about the innards of the vehicle in a frenzy, and not to mention various interior pieces, like, for example, the metal shutter blinds hitting against the walls festooned with "anbukumaran is akust".
You can tell the frequent bus travellers from the normal ones, when observing your fellow bus-stop occupants. Upon hearing these distant noises, their ears perk up, and their bodies tense up in expectation. Could this be the one?
Then the bus comes into vision, groaning towards you, canted gruesomely to one side, its headlights feebly attempting to illuminate at least one foot of air in front of them. The driver has his arms spread out, clutching the massive wheel, and constantly correcting course even in a straight line. He looks understandably cross.
Everyone in the bus stop has begun craning their necks by now. Most look, then sigh, and get back to waiting. Some look, then go imperceptibly on tiptoe to see if it really is THE bus, and then stride forward expectantly.
And then, when the bus is about a hundred metres away, the sound of the brakes begins. A high-pitched screech that vibrates tooth fillings, and gives you a strange ringing sensation in your head. About half an hour later, the behemoth has finally been brought to a stop by the brakes. It is a wonder they can combat such a high momentum.
You then hear shuffling of multiple pairs of feet, and watch in wonder as, somehow, people manage to get into the bus as, simultaneously, other people get out through the same doorway. It is one of the great mysteries of the world.
A few seconds later, yet another sickening grunch ensues from the bus as the first gear is engaged, just after the shrill whistle of the conductor, and, before you know it, the bus is gone.

One might think that I must be a very sad person to be brought down to the level of observing, in such minute detail, such a mundane event such as a mode of public transport going about its daily rounds, but that, my friends, is one of the side effects of an early morning bus stop wait for a bus you are not even sure will come.
The other effect is rather more irritating. The mosquitoes.
Early morning mosquitoes are very different from night mosquitoes. And mosquitoes outside sanskrit college on an early morning are serious. They dont play catch-me-if-you-can games, like the good old domesticated house mosquitoes. These are a battle-trained mutated super-species, and they do not waste time flying about, waiting to be swatted. They scoff at the solo-flying, risky, and childish antics of their sissy indoor cousins. They believe in organized biting, and have perfected this mode of attack to an extraordinary level.
It is sad that most of their attack moves are performed in the darkness of the early morning, when they cannot be seen, or enjoyed by a third person. And it is sad for the victim of their biting efforts, for their biting efforts are supremely succesful, and, hence, supremely painful for the bitten.
I was such a victim, my friends. And I sit here, documenting this harrowing experience, only because I was saved by the timely arrival of the required bus just before my certain demise.

You can wave your arms and legs about in all directions. It is completely futile. They anticipate every single movement of your limbs, and move their positions accordingly. They have got it all mapped out. The traditional open-palmed straight swing, the clap, the back-handed slash, the half turn, the fake and full turn, the slow-to-fast googly swat, all of it. Every single mosquito-squashing move in our repertoire has been studied, and moves designed to capitalise on each of their weaknesses. You can walk about. Another squadron of stealth-quitoes will be waiting, wherever you step within a hundred-foot radius.
Therefore, if you get out of the attack alive, you would have looked stupid all the while you were under it, and you will be covered in bites after it.

The cursed vehicle arrives at 6:40. I was duped. Ths sun has half-risen by now, and the super mutated stealth-quitoes have returned to their bases, their tanks full with my blood. A resounding victory for them, and quite a taxing beginning for a day for me.

The High-beam menace

Do you own/regularly drive a motor vehicle?

If you do, and if you are not under eighteen and have basic education, you probably have taken your driving/riding test, and have hopefully passed, and now possess a license. The government thinks you are not a liability to other road users.
Proud? Wait a second there, joy boy. The next time you take your vehicle out after sunset, you will probably switch on your headlamp. And continue riding/driving.
Has it ever occured to 80 per cent of road users that they can switch their headlamp's high beam off when commuting within city limits? We do live in a metro, almost all areas are very much well lit enough.... and these high beams are given for a purpose, and that is for use on highways, even then with proper use of the dipper function.
My question is, there are so many people with the high beams on, how could they possibly not be inconvenienced by another road user blasting down towards them with his high beams aimed right at their eyes? This is no minor issue I am talking about. People could be killed because of the carelessness of some braindead call taxi driver double-declutching his under-serviced over-miled garbage-bin Indica into third, while simultaneously swearing at an errant cyclist in the opposite lane, while himself bearing down on a couple of old guys on commuter bikes who are so blinded by his high beam blast that they have no idea which direction they are heading.
By some miracle, the Indica misses the bikes by a hair's breadth and continues on his journey, his car-receiver crackling with white noise.

The basic rule of night-time commuting in Chennai: when you cannot see where you are going because you are temporarily blinded, say a small prayer, and just drive straight ahead.

I've had so many close calls, both on car and bike, that I've lost count. Once, when on my bike, I was assaulted by an autorickshaw coming towards me with, you guessed it, high beams on. I slowed down and started to move left and away from the auto. Just as it passed me, I realised there was another auto with no headlights, right behind this guy and on the wrong lane. After a spot-lesson on bike dynamics following emergency avoidance maneuvers, by god's grace, I am still alive.

Since there is no point trying to ram some sense into people, because they dont give a damn anyway, I have come up with a solution. The companies themselves should arm their new cars with this feature: one that allows the high beam to be enabled only at speeds in excess of 80 or 90 kmph. This way, our problem inside the city will be solved, because, well, who is going to do anything above 60 anyway?
Another possible simpler option is for enforcement. Police catch people without helmets; why cant they catch dumbasses with their cars and bikes on high beam? Its much much more dangerous than the other stuff the safety-preachers talk about, and its happening everyday.

Something has to be done soon.

Power

I wish I could do some muscle-flexing once in a while. No silly, not that way.

You know, order people about, get things done for me by people who try to fold their hands and cover their mouths at the same time when they talk to me, have people fighting with each other to make me a cup of coffee, and have people book hotels and flight tickets and concert entry passes whenever and wherever I wish to go.

The other day, I was making my way back home on my motorcyle in a sedate manner after I had filled it up. It was rush hour. I was occupying a lane nearer to the left corner of the road, and minding my own business. When I heard a siren.
Thinking it was an ambulance, I moved a bit more towards the corner of the road, in the pretext of making room for it. Which is when I saw two lights twenty feet off the ground and a siren coming towards me at about mach 5 in my rear view mirror. And it didnt look like it was slowing down.
I swear, I have never made such a fast and dangerous lane changing maneuvere in my life. It was a suicidal move in order to avoid being killed. And then it passed me. An entire motoring cavalcade.
The vehicle that had prompted me to change lane was a Mahindra Bolero, which was filled with about 100 people having machine guns in their hands, leaning out of the window screaming at everything they went past, including me, other motorists, empty vehicles by the side of the road, and I think I even saw one or two of them shouting at compound walls.
It was followed by another similar jeep, and another, and another, and so on, and in the middle, there was this swanky Mitsubishi Pajero, followed by some 55 more jeeps.
Like moses, they parted the sea of motorists within milliseconds. Without anywhere else to go, I had to pull up near the divider in the middle, and kept getting screamed at even then by every jeep passing by.
The scary part is that for not a single moment, the guy piloting the frontmost vehicle (which, if you think about it, literally decides how fast the cavalcade is going) ever slowed down, even when motorcyclists and others were within inches of the jeep's bodywork. I do not know what he eats, but it sure aint normal food. He must certainly be a suicidal cannibal. (there I am, my second contradictory sentence in this article)
It was a nerve-wracking experience, and the funny part is that it lasted no more than ten to fifteen seconds. One might question how so many vehicles could pass by in such a short while, but it did happen.

It was a crushing display of power, because it is no mean task to part a wide clearing in Chennai rush hour traffic, you need some real power for that kidna thing.

Yes, forget the other trappings of power, just a motor cavalcade wherever I go will be fine.

Mobile Phone

I never really wanted a cell phone when I was in school. I thought they were unnecesary, ornamental, pointless devices which, in a school-going kid's hands, were nothing more than a gamble of many thousands of rupees which his/her parents were brave enough to take.
Really, where was the need? There was a phone (two, actually) ready to use whenever the students wanted to contact their folks back home, and one couldnt complain that the campus was too big to walk all the way to the office, because it really wasnt, and it wasnt like locating a friend was such a herculean task, because of the aforementioned, so the phone held no use in both these regards.
Moreover, there were lowlife criminals in the guise of decent students ready to flick the costly instruments these people carried, causing tears, empty pockets, and wastage of energy through shouted words.
Rather hopelssly, the teachers would occasionally ask the students carrying phones to hand them over, which is like addressing a crowd of people in a market-place and asking all the pick-pockets to please step away from the rest. Completley, and utterly pointless.
So I really could'nt see the point of taking all that risk for no gain. Moreover, my parents wouldnt get me one until I finished school, so there.

So once I completed school, I was entrusted with this beautiful phone that my father had been using for a while. It wasnt the latest model, but it was big, had a keyboard, and was as solid as the western ghats. You could hurl it at a wall and nothing would happen to it. It laughed away all the bashings and shocks that the daily usage of a careless student threw at it, and did not give a single problem, and didnt seem like it was ever going to. I vowed never to let it go, swore that it was going to be my phone forever. Then I caught a bus to bangalore, rode 15 hours in a car to Goa, lost it, and came back. And felt like I was a bit dim.
Then I persuaded my father to buy me a new phone, and he did, and it was a Motorola, and it looked fantastic, like it was very costly, which it wasnt, because it was an absolute bargain. And, sadly, it isnt very good.
It dosent have a keyboard, for starters. So the messages have to be typed out using the number pad. Which is a bit of a problem for me. While my friends could type messages as long as the entire 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' in about 5 seconds, I fumble, search for keys and dither around in my new phone. And the fact that it has a bumbling, dimwitted sofware dosent help either.
And recently, the phone has started hanging, and switching off, on its own accord. In other words, its started being an absolute pain in the wrong kind of place. When it works, its frustrating, and slow, and gets on your nerves. When it dosent, well, it dosent.

I want my old Nokia 6800 back. If you have seen it, do tell me when and where.

L-Board

DISCLAIMER: The article below is written after the author has endured 10 challenging sessions with probably the most paranoid driving instructor yet, and was written in a state of acute mental disturbance. The views expressed below might change with time, and any unpleasent/offensive references to any single person/group of people, is unintended.



Are you just waiting to piss someone off? Are you in in that particular kind of mood in which your sole objective is to instigate anger and irritation in the lifeforms around you? I get into that kind of mood after Ive eaten too much cooked Carrot sometimes....

As I was saying, if you are in that kind of mood, and, by some startling combination of lacklustre imagination and a general mental laziness, are not able to think of a single plan to undertake your initiative, then fret not: I have got a solution which can not only be initiated very quickly, but guarentees some pretty amazing results.

Heres the deal. Go to a driving school, tell them you want to learn to drive a car, jump into one of their vehicles with instructor in tow, and get going, making sure you never ever use your indicators and only use the frantic waving of your hands as turning signals.

Those self-obsessed primates piloting fleet Qualises and Sumos will do all the honking and flashing that you will ever hope to do in your life, and will smother you with choice swear words as they pass you after making a seemingly impossible overtaking maneuvre.
People piloting privately owned Scorpios with fast-paced rock-n-roll music reveberating through their diesel-glugging behemoths have their own equally high-up-there attitude (though, as far as physical meaning is concerned, they do have a point), and make sure they pass you, and cut you off abrubtly, after performing the customary honking-flashing sequence.
Its the same with Ford Ikons, and Hyundai Accents. Same old attitude, same old everything.

The autokarans refrain from honking, but find it neccesary to pull up alongside you at traffic signals thoughtfully proferring valuable advise on how to pilot a motorised vehicle, failing to realise that there is a trained driving instructor on the other side of the car.

What all these people fail to realise is that the poor soul behind the wheel of the vehicle is not going beyond 35 because he or she isnt allowed to, because his/her driving instructor said so. He/she SHALL change to third at 5 kmph and he/she SHALL let go of the throttle 500 metres before every turning, the instructor's intention being coasting slowly to the turning at about 10 kmph, so that by the time one approaches a turn he has half of the city's motor vehicles waiting to pass him/her, and is doing zero kilometres an hour by the time he/she has come to the turn, and is turning the steering wheel in a vain attempt to get the car to make the turn while remaining still, all the while enduring the curses of the instructor who still keeps mouthing the immortal words "dont touch the throttle" like a mantra.
And then there is the other problem. The driving instructor alloted to me, found it ok to teach me the nuances of clutch operation when getting the car off from a standing start in first gear, for the very first time ever, mind, at a traffic signal.
Obviously, the car lurched forward for an instant and stalled with a sickening grunch. Obviously, the instructor was nettled because there were people waiting around me, with their appointments to keep up. Obviously, I did it again after my second attempt. ( by this time, the instructor was telling me how I must try not to obstruct traffic) Obviously, I was more frantic when I tried the third time (As things were getting really ugly at that junction), and, once again, the same results. The instructor was really mad by now, and realised that he'd better do it himself, rather than me.
It was what he asked next that will remain seared in my memory forever.
Pulling away finally from the chaos, he turned a sweat-stained face and glared at me. He seemed to be unable to speak for a split second, and then he spluttered out (I swear this is true) " Are you doing this on purpose?"

FOR WHAT JOY? Being screamed at by most of the city's mobile population for blocking a traffic intersection first thing the morning? For the thrill of listening to a piece of machinery being forcibly shut down by an inexperienced piece of handling by a rookie?
Why couldnt he have taken me to an empty street and taught me this particular thing there? Why introduce me to it in a crowded intersection, and expect me to do it right first time?

Of course, not a single trace of these underlying thoughts was ever shown by me, and I managed with a sheepish grin.
The funny thing was, the minute the ignition key was turned off, the instructor autmotically transformed into a kind, mild-mannered man. And the minute it was turned back on, his driving-instructor instincts would switch him back to the old, foul-tempered, paranoid mode.

You cant really entirely blame those angry motorists, can you? Cant forgive them altogether ( a little more patience wont hurt anyone), but even I used to get irritated with driving school cars stalling in the middle of the road.

'Used to'. Note that word usage. Now, I wouldnt mind so much, because I might at least understand the helplessness of the student behind the wheel, and not just with reference to his/her inexperience.

English Exam. The horror!!!

Sometimes I think that it is Mother English's way of taking revenge.

I have now passed out of school, and, till now, have avoided all nostalgic references to it, because of the understandable reason that I am not quite old-crock enough to do so.
But there is one aspect (and I have no doubt I will find more) which I defenitely would like to talk about.

English classes were always the best part of the day, at least on the days which didnt have PT classes. Our teacher was such a kind and nice person that her protestations and anger would have absolutely no effect on our talking and behaviour. We still would beat each other up, we still would spew abuses across the classroom, and we still would poke fun at the lessons we were made to read.
For many people, such a thing as an English notebook was non-existent. For me, I possesed only one out of the three text books I was supposed to possess.
So, as you might imagine, English was a pretty laid-back and unimportant affair, something we never took seriously.

I think English had us back on the day of the exam. And no, the exam was never difficult, I am not referring to difficulty here, I refer to another factor which is chilling. The Boredom.

3 hours. 3 horrible hours sitting in an exam hall, after having rushed through the passage excercises and prose section at top speed, we come to the writing section, where we are asked, for example, to write an essay on how the tourism in Thailand has progressed since the advent of electric tuk-tuk's, or how the 'ancient culture' of India has been rendered meaningless ever since the youth started wearing 'jeans and t shirts', or how agriculture has progressed since the advent of scientifically modified seedlings, or how 65% of students between 14 and 16 years old eat more potato chips than their counterparts 20 years ago.
Sometimes I think they select the topics on purpose. They sit down huddled in a tight group aorund a small table, passing around chits with names of boring topics written on them, and chuckle to themselves each time they come across a particularly boring topic. " Imagine the look one their faces when they come across THIS one!! Oh, WONT they be crying with despair, haha!!", and in such a manner they will converse.

So I sit there, my mind blank, trying to think of a way to pass the time. The invigilator has started to yawn helplessly, and stagger around in a sleepy stupor. Obviously, the effect has started rubbing off.
I try to stare out of the window. The invigilator, sensing this golden oppurtunity, rushes at me with an animal roar, telling me to look at my paper and nowhere else. Foiled.
I cant even hum a tune. I feel lazy to think. I cant lie down, because the invigilator will think I died, and call the authorities and rush me off to the office. I cant doodle fantasy cars, because I will be shouted at. How DOES one pass the time?

The 3 hours eventually pass. I while away all the time until the last ten minutes when I realise that I have 2 letters and an essay to do, and start scribbling away frantically, snarling at the invigilator for additional sheets. I set one or two on fire, and fling them away, and ask for replacements. My mates aroudn me point at me, the thought foremost in their mind being "Boy, look at Hari. He really must have studied like hell. Look at him go!!"
The bell rings, far too soon. I am still writing frantically, my pen is a blur. The invigilator starts threatening those who are still writing. I manage to finish just when they start telling us they cant accept our papers anymore, get up, rush towards them, and give them the paper, muttering about how they really should give us more time to write english exams.

Outside, I am all professionalism, complaining about the lack of time, musing about whether I should approach the authorities telling them to give us more time. Of course,all that is forgotten in half an hour, and yet another terminal english exam passes.

Sometimes I think it is Mother English's way of taking revenge

My First Crash

Everyone has one. When one is a few months into riding/driving, and obtains a fake confidence that he or she is completley aware of their vehicle's limits, and feels that his or her driving skills are unsurpassed as far as driving their machine is concerned.
When the vehicle is generally a safe one, and has a depth of ability that most sane peole would not dare to venture into, there isnt a problem. When the pilot is a bit lacking in mental ability and in posession of a safe-handling vehicle, a serious crash may result.
That possibility was ruled out in my case because (a.) I am certified to be sane and in possesion of a brain ( the latter qualifying the need to include the former) and (b.) My vehicle's limits, though not very clearly defined, are not that tough to reach. Which means I wont crash at a million miles an hour.

So to the incident under discussion. There is this place where I turn off from the main road into a street which I must travel through in order to reach my house. In my beginning days, I would attack this corner with utmost caution, nursing my 2-stroke scooter gingerly through it.
As the days (and 2 months) passed, I became more and more confident. And failed to comprehend that there might be a limit to the cornering speed (as my Physics teacher tried to explain to me on numerous occasions) and that the vehicle's handling may be severly compromised once water on the road were brought into the equation.
So I entered the corner at 25, which isnt too bad if you think about it (even though it was a 90 degree blind turn). The stupid part was, I gave full throttle in the course of my cornering procedure, sending my scooter's rear end swinging sideways in a pendlulum effect. It was pointless to try and control the spin, so I concentrated on keeping myself unhurt. Which I did, when I skid along the ground to a noisy, grinding halt.
So I was getting up and dusting myself off and convincing myself that I was not broken and the bike wasnt, when I heard barking.
And there it was, a scraggly looking street dog barking his dirty little head off at me. He obviously did not like me intruding into his area in such a ghastly manner, and was registering his feelings most vehemently. I had a hunch that this dog backed his barking with a strong bite, going by his threatening advances, so I made haste to pick by bike up and get going. Thankfully, I found the engine running, and was off before you could say "bengalooroo".
The dog gave chase, as I accelrated away in a medley of dust and engine roar. I ws sure he would catch up with me in no time (dogs have a 0-40 time of an incredible 1.7 seconds), but, luckily, a passing good samaritan found the time to divert the dog's motion by shooing him away from his desired path.
Freed from canine danger, I fled. And learnt a very important lesson.