I live in 1 city..drive in 5 countries
Man is a creature of habit. (I believe there is a raging debate on, on whether I am man or wolf, but we shall ignore that here). I have often been accused of being fixated with life as it comes. Not true; the options that people come up with are just not challenging enough. A careful analytical study (completed in precisely 10 seconds) of how the typical week day is spent throws up the following results:
1) Total TP (browsing, bloging, listening to music, chatting with pals; online and offline, lunch break, ….. blissfully occupies about 7 to 8 hours daily)
2) Work (necessary evil…usually less than ½ an hour; strictly 5 days a week only)
3) Driving (good for the soul.. releases negative energy… daily 2 hour rally)
4) Hygiene (Social grace demands this action on week days.. involves brushes and water, laundry soap et al. Not necessary and often ignored on weekends….in any case not a metered action. Wolves I know for a fact do not have such ridiculous expectations thrust upon them; the occasional swim and tongue kinda addresses these needs)
5) Sport (good for the body and mind…probably don’t get enough live action or for that matter tube action)
6) Sleep (yes yes… we will all sleep when we are dead, I am just rehearsing)
As and when I obtain the good sense (too much hard work involved here..) I might re-jig to improve to accommodate more TP and Sport. But that’s not what we are here to speak about.
To get to the point (finally you must be saying, and you can stop holding your breath…if you were in the 1st place) this is a sojourn about my tryst behind the wheel. This daily romance typically begins while I am forced to drag myself to work (I tell everyone I don’t do anything and don’t have to go to the office unless I have meetings to attend… but somehow end-up leaving for the place every mng like clockwork. In any case since no one really ever comes here my secret is safe and no damage done). Driving is a nothing more than a mechanical reaction to various stimuli that the road throws up. And for those of you who are probably too dense (probably 100%, else you would have left by now) to have figured what this post is about; its going to take you about our great city (Mumbai meri jaan) from the perspective of a madman behind the wheel. So is this admission of insanity? Yes. You need to be crazy to want to drive in this city.
Home they say is where the heart lies, so lemme start with giving you the lowdown on how things operate here (Am guessing all of you for whom existence depends on reading this space know the coordinates so will skip that detail here..:). It’s the existence of people like me that keeps the semblance of order here. Stop I do for crossing pedestrians (am accused of stopping only for the fairer sex, but again not true), but this good habit I practice only in Bandra and fortunately observation shows me that I am not the only one to indulge. Don’t be fooled into believing that this makes for pleasant motoring. The signature ‘Dhoom - fast bikes’ and Furious Zens all powered by nitro drugged teens can make these pristine streets the “Road to hell”. Come the weekend and festival season and my advice is walk. In any case I counsel you to walk when here. The monsoon exposes our town-planners incompetence yet again. A pleasant shower and you and chariot could well be stranded. Like most of this city its rather unfortunate that quite a few ‘innocent’ residential by-lanes have morphed to trunk lanes; especially during peak hours. Horrendous!! Have ‘encountered’ the official order brigade just once here (this activity mostly undertaken by locals with time on their hands; till boredom strikes) and a display of the license resulted in being waved away; so cant comment on the official rate here. Keeping with the trend that one observes here as a driver one is reminded of that evergreen hit “With or without you” by U2. (would be nice if you read this statement in the ‘whose line is it anyway’ spirit). This country I now Christian as ‘Zooropa’
Shucks…this post is getting tooooo looooong….and we have quite a bit to add (yes; lots of time for the mind to wander). We do care for our readers. So next 4 countries next time. Till then
1) Total TP (browsing, bloging, listening to music, chatting with pals; online and offline, lunch break, ….. blissfully occupies about 7 to 8 hours daily)
2) Work (necessary evil…usually less than ½ an hour; strictly 5 days a week only)
3) Driving (good for the soul.. releases negative energy… daily 2 hour rally)
4) Hygiene (Social grace demands this action on week days.. involves brushes and water, laundry soap et al. Not necessary and often ignored on weekends….in any case not a metered action. Wolves I know for a fact do not have such ridiculous expectations thrust upon them; the occasional swim and tongue kinda addresses these needs)
5) Sport (good for the body and mind…probably don’t get enough live action or for that matter tube action)
6) Sleep (yes yes… we will all sleep when we are dead, I am just rehearsing)
As and when I obtain the good sense (too much hard work involved here..) I might re-jig to improve to accommodate more TP and Sport. But that’s not what we are here to speak about.
To get to the point (finally you must be saying, and you can stop holding your breath…if you were in the 1st place) this is a sojourn about my tryst behind the wheel. This daily romance typically begins while I am forced to drag myself to work (I tell everyone I don’t do anything and don’t have to go to the office unless I have meetings to attend… but somehow end-up leaving for the place every mng like clockwork. In any case since no one really ever comes here my secret is safe and no damage done). Driving is a nothing more than a mechanical reaction to various stimuli that the road throws up. And for those of you who are probably too dense (probably 100%, else you would have left by now) to have figured what this post is about; its going to take you about our great city (Mumbai meri jaan) from the perspective of a madman behind the wheel. So is this admission of insanity? Yes. You need to be crazy to want to drive in this city.
Home they say is where the heart lies, so lemme start with giving you the lowdown on how things operate here (Am guessing all of you for whom existence depends on reading this space know the coordinates so will skip that detail here..:). It’s the existence of people like me that keeps the semblance of order here. Stop I do for crossing pedestrians (am accused of stopping only for the fairer sex, but again not true), but this good habit I practice only in Bandra and fortunately observation shows me that I am not the only one to indulge. Don’t be fooled into believing that this makes for pleasant motoring. The signature ‘Dhoom - fast bikes’ and Furious Zens all powered by nitro drugged teens can make these pristine streets the “Road to hell”. Come the weekend and festival season and my advice is walk. In any case I counsel you to walk when here. The monsoon exposes our town-planners incompetence yet again. A pleasant shower and you and chariot could well be stranded. Like most of this city its rather unfortunate that quite a few ‘innocent’ residential by-lanes have morphed to trunk lanes; especially during peak hours. Horrendous!! Have ‘encountered’ the official order brigade just once here (this activity mostly undertaken by locals with time on their hands; till boredom strikes) and a display of the license resulted in being waved away; so cant comment on the official rate here. Keeping with the trend that one observes here as a driver one is reminded of that evergreen hit “With or without you” by U2. (would be nice if you read this statement in the ‘whose line is it anyway’ spirit). This country I now Christian as ‘Zooropa’
Shucks…this post is getting tooooo looooong….and we have quite a bit to add (yes; lots of time for the mind to wander). We do care for our readers. So next 4 countries next time. Till then
penned by Sanjay at 1:43 PM
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