They asked, “Why do you travel in rustic, crowed public buses to office when you have a bike?” Bike, any day, is more convenient and cheaper. You can travel faster, at any time you wish and save money too.
Pressed by some logical arguments, I tried. I did commute by my bike. And I think I did it right for now I have reason for their reasons, logic for their logics. Now I can tell how wrong a decision it was, based on experience and not only theories.
Driving a bike on Bangalore roads, or any metropolitan city of India for that matter, can be… well a feeling of nirvana. You’ll feel all this is so useless, you’ll wish if you could leave all these and escape. You don’t have to commit lots of sins and die to see what ‘hell’ is all about. In a travel of home to office, you can get a sneak peek. When they say, “its hell out there”, I didn’t know they mean it.
Thanks to pollution and shrinking green cover of our cities, the weather is invariably hot. Wearing a helmet…!! well if it was not illegal, you’d surely want to skip that. After heat the most striking feature of your travel would be the beautiful road and traffic sense of your fellow roadsters. I thought, nobody like to be in office, then why is everybody in freaking hurry to reach there? They’ll break lanes, drive on the footpath, jump the traffic signal all at will. They’ll try to sneak in a SUV in a space where you would think twice to get a moped. They’ll overtake you from left side and still stare you back. Your blood boils. And the beating sun only helps the purpose. You abuse almost every second minute, sometimes loud, sometimes its lost within the helmet. Sometimes others, at times yourself.
Just when you were getting used to of these creepers on the roads, there will be these kings of roads to deal with. Pedestrians. They, like a messiah, will raise one hand to you, assumable asking you to stop, and start walking. Straight into the heavy traffic. Without giving a second thought. Sometimes you feel proud that a common man of your city is so brave. But mostly you’ll be disgusted. You’ve two simple options; press the brake paddles with all your might and save the messiahs or pull the throttle and finish it once and for all. How do you wish you could choose the second one. But isn’t life a big mess already to add salt to burns, you think and invariably choose the first one. Every time. You apply brakes and stop inches before the messiahs. You abuse again. Sometimes loud, sometimes its lost within the helmet. Sometimes others, at times yourself.
You stop at a traffic signal, which you do very frequently, you try to relax. Try to. You switch off you engine and stretch the tiring muscles. Just then the auto-rickshaw behind you starts honking. “What the &*%^…!!. Can’t he see its red signal. Can’t he have a little patience? Can’t anyone have a little patience? Why is he hell bent to jump the signal? Sometimes you give in to the honking and give way, sometimes you don’t and let the honking get louder and your temper higher.
After some 11 minutes you finally manage to cross that dreaded signal. You have driven only a few minutes and the traffic gets thick again. “What is it now…??” you frown. There isn’t a signal here, why the traffic is slowing then. Is there an accident? You cannot decide if you are sorry for the accident victim or sorry for yourself. When you finally manage to sneak through, you cannot believe what you see. It was not an accident. But a family of cattle that decided to have family get together right in the middle of the road. “Where the hell is the traffic police. How can they even let this happen. These cattle, if they are stray, should be killed and made shoes out of. They call this a metropolitan city…?? Its worse than a village.” Your helmet is almost blown by the heat you head has generated in last 20 minutes.
You read in the newspaper 10 months ago that they are planning a flyover over that major junction on the way. A flyover that is expected to ease the bottleneck for ever. Well for next few years at least. You felt good thinking of the smooth days ahead. You felt even better when the construction actually started. The end the menace at the junction was near. They cut down quite a few trees to widen the roads, and construct the flyover. “Well that’s for better traffic flow in the city” you assured yourself. If only you knew the flyover construction would be a bigger, far bigger menace itself. The land acquisition row has delayed and painfully slowed the construction. The junction is bottleneck, more dreadful than ever. The junction that took 10 minutes to cross, not takes 20. And the reduced green cover on the road hasn’t done anything to cool you down in the scorching heat. You curse the government. The system. You curse almost everything you see around.
By the time you reach the gates of your office complex, you’ve abused (and very badly at that) at least 50 times, cursed at least 50 people and wished you could escape from this life, at least 50 times. And you are not immortal. On the roads you must have done something to annoy someone as well and you might have been abused by some 50 people as well. Whattaa way to start your day…!! You thought despite this ridiculous ride, at least you’ve come early to office. Something to write home about. But you realize your tryst with destiny is not over. Not as yet. You are not as early as you think. The parking lot is full. You hover 3 times all over the parking lot to find that one elusive space to park your bike. And finally find one at the extreme corner. A corner which seems to be in a different city. The big office campus your company is so proud of, starts to feel like bad idea. A single building with parking in the basement was far better option.
You enter the elevators, after waiting for 6-7 minutes in the queue that is. You look yourself in the mirror on the walls of the elevators. The pollution and dirt has taken its toll. Your favorite white shirt is neither white, nor your favorite anymore. All the face wash you applied on your face could not avert the horrifying look you’ve on you face now. Your 300 rupees worth haircut is looking a battlefield. All this to come to this place… the place you never liked. The place that makes you do what you don’t like. The place you want to leave at the first reason you find. The place called OFFICE.
You come out of elevators. Oooo…. its her. The face that makes your day. You saw her before entering the cubicle. Something good happened this morning. Finally. But like always, she didn’t even bother to look at you. You are in no mood to take a royal ignore. “What the hell she thinks of herself, who cares if she didn’t looked at me. I wont look at her either, not anymore.”… Nothing good can happen today. You stride past your colleagues without wishing them a good morning. You are sure nothing good will happen today. A day in you life is ruined.
Bike ride to office. Not worth. I saved 15 minutes of traveling time but wasted my whole day.
Next day. No prize for guessing, I took a public bus.
No comments:
Post a Comment