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Monday, January 30, 2006

Life is an Xbox

ah! atleast, here is Chennai...


Okay, I am not a video game buff, but it won't take much before I will be in a league of the pros. All I need to do is just follow the rhythm of the day and do the daily chores to appreciate the unappreciated way of life. You step on the road and you realize that you have entered the Matrix and there is no turning back. It is the red pill you take everyday to explore the unimaginable and unprecedented experience on the Chennai Roads.

I tried; I failed; I tried again; I failed with a reclusive bent. But I couldn’t figure out what to expect when I take out my car and drive it down on a so-called highway to my office. It’s a stretch of 14 kilometers that I cover in 35 minutes with all the bashing and scolding on the floor. You may as well see my eye balls making a perfect 360 in less than a second.

The morning scene is something similar to a moment when the gates are opened for the post Thanks Giving sale. It is the time when you forget all the gratitude and respect to others and push your way in to grab a pie and win a race to nowhere. The bus guy had squeezed others to the curb and rolled over in a snake maze. The auto-rickshaw guy had crept to the sides because he just got an urge to take a leek or to grab a passenger. In the meanwhile, you tried your ass off to save your car hit the curb or a buffalo who was sitting oblivion to what was going in around the space.

The best part is that how ever much you honk it won’t sound music to the deaf ears. The thumb rule is that if you are on the road and have paid the road-taxes, than no one in heaven can push you to give a way to a speeding car. You can just drive while happily chatting with a driver in the adjacent car, who, by the way, has also paid the road taxes. After crossing all these hurdles, you will hit the analytical puzzle where you will need to cross a cycle rider who is riding in the middle of the road. You have to make a split second decision whether to overtake him from right or left or to loose points by hitting him at the back. Or, to save a lady who has just decided break Maurice Greene’s 100m record by running across the road after judging the speed at which you are coming.

Now you have just realized that you are kinda late to office and there is no fun following the speed limit, which usually leads to a shaken mind and a disgusted soul. So you shed off all the fears and became a part of the Chennai traffic, which, I feel, is the best way to drive. You will find an easy way ahead between the Xs of the rickshaws that crossing from left and right.