One day in Bangaloru

Recently I went on a trip to Bangaloru to meet my friends. The pathetic infrastructure of the city only frustrated me. The city was built with the idea that the only moving object that might come out on the road was Charlie Chaplin walking on a straight line. Little did they know that there were objects called vehicles and occasional visitors like Tusnin who might as well come out on the roads. Unlike the development authority in Hyderabad, which is expert in applying cut-paste technology on roads, the authority in Bangaloru is more orthodox and determined not to touch the roads. On the other hand, they come up with innovative ideas to tackle the traffic, like vehicles with odd and even registration numbers to run on alternate days, but never with an effort to improve the infrastructure. I had no intention spoil my trip and get caught up in a traffic which moved slower than Atal Vihari Vajpayee’s speech. So I decided to stay indoors, doing what I was best at; watching TV!

Away from home with nothing to do, I decided to do some research on the available TV channels. I am really impressed with the recent makeovers of the channels and the programs. News channels, which were merely source of information a decade ago, have become entertainment channels as well. Every time I browsed over the news channels, I found news on Rakhi Sawant’s changing statistics or news on a sting operation by a second news channel which revealed (don’t ask how?) the actual statistics of Rakhi Sawant, which a third TV channel claimed to be false. With news channels covering Rakhi Sawant 24/7, who wanted an entertainment channel! But this was not the end. There were continuous debates on critical issues like marital status of the girlfriend of a Prime Minister of a country visiting India, whether Banta Singh called Santa Singh a monkey or actor x was going around with actress y, who was an ex-girlfriend of actor z. The discussions were dramatized by calling eminent people from different social and political circles and letting them decide the appropriate statistics for Rakhi Sawant.

And if you are a public figure and in the look out for an advisor for your public life, you better leave your public life at the hands of the news channels. They will tell you from whom-you-should-date-to-what-you-should-do-when-you-are-out-with-your-date to which-part-of-the-body-you-should-get-a-tattoo-done to which-underwear-you-should-wear. And if you don’t, you better watch the news channel to discover that your eyes are not symmetrical. With all these going on in the TV at any moment of time, I can’t help getting glued to the TV with the hope that someday I’ll be covered in any of these news channels for being the most dedicated viewer.

With news channels filling in for entertainment channels, entertainment channels had to go ten steps forward. The Saas Bahu serials still rock. Every time I browsed through these set of channels, I came across some constipated face turning three times along with some sound effect-bang, bang and bang followed by some startling revelation like “KavyaKalyanjali’s mother KusumKali having an affair with some Kumar Singh Zindal”. Though these serials appeared to be simple, they ran quite complex set of relationships. After years of research, I have finally come up with a template to create a Saas-Bahu Serial. The serial begins with main character X getting married to character Y. Character X is welcomed by character Z who is the mother-in-law of character X. After 50 episodes of happy married life character X finds that character Y has been previously married to character A who is the best friend of character X. X also finds out that Y is currently seeing his personal secretary D who happens to be the sister of A. To save her husband from the evil hands, character X starts prayers to God. On the other side, character D plans to kill character X in order to marry Y and to inherit the property of Y. Character D teams up with character Z to kill character X, which they finally do. But character X reappears in the next episode. And this goes on in cycle. No wonder these serials are the biggest money generator for the channels and my core area of research.

Even if the Saas-Bahu serials rule, there is a spur of reality shows across the channels. Reality shows on dancing, reality shows on singing, reality shows on relationships, reality shows on survival and reality shows on reality of reality shows – you name it, you get it. The reality shows are a golden opportunity for aspiring talents to find quick recognition and earn some quick bucks. And for channels it’s a gold mine because nothing sells like emotion of the masses. The way suspense is generated in each of these episodes has impressed me a lot. A typical scenario is: announcing the result where some of the participants will be eliminated and some will survive, sometimes with video clippings of their personal lives and sometimes with long commercial breaks. The anchor comes up with the result and starts a normal countdown. The heartbeats and the palpitation of each of the participants are recorded on an ECG machine. Their life-less faces are closely monitored on the camera. By the time the count reaches zero, the anchor gets a call from his girlfriend who is attacked by a cockroach in her kitchen. To save his beloved from the clutches of the dreaded devil, the anchor jumps out of the arena and rushes back home. But he does not forget to carry the life of the participants along with him. When he reaches home, he is attacked by a monkey which steals the results. All these events are fully covered on camera and the condition of the hearts of each participant is displayed thoroughly. The veterinary department is called in to hunt for the monkey which is carrying the life of the participants. Finally the monkey is captured and the result sheet is obtained. By that time, the ECG machine has gone out of control. It cannot bear the plight of the participants. Considering all these situations, the producer may decide to declare the survivors provided the stars are properly aligned for the participants. Teary eyes throng the screen as participants are eliminated. It’s not just elimination; it’s the end of hope for them. The simple mantra is the more the suspense, the more the TRP for the channel, be it at the cost of the emotion of the masses. One more thing which contributes to the high TRP ratings of these channels is the conflict of opinion of the judges, to the extent that celebrities start fighting over candidates, to ensure their own position in other such programs.

By the time Bose came back from office, I had browsed through almost all the channels available. My surfing resulted in some interesting stuff, with a series of events happening before me. Check this out

“Zee Movies”

Dharmendra shouting on a dog free zone “Kutte Kamine mein tera khun pee jaunga”

“Animal Planet”

Maneka Gandhi hosting a show for the protection of the rights of dogs and preaching to save them from blood-sucking insects. Some women in the background pampering a few dogs and letting them spoil their white frocks to keep up to Maneka’s love for them.

“Zee TV”

The ad of washing powder ‘Nirma’ with marble-like white frocks hanging to dry.

“some saas-bahu serial”

Two ladies discussing the recovery of a ladies white frock from man’s wardrobe. One of them recollects some incident. Bang Bang Bang

“Local cable channel”

Some desi movie with some desi love scene. I could see two birds kissing each other and a sudden blast in the volcano from nowhere. But, as two flowers came close, blocking my view, I switched the channel.

“star sports”

“Shoooooooooooot ” and I could see the ball in the goal. Man U just did it again.

“Sahara Movies”

“Mein tumhare bachhe ki maa banne wali hoon” screamed a heroine.

“some saas-bahu serial”

Some guy,“Lekin ye sab hua kaise, hum dono to sirf internet friend hai”
Some girl screamed “don’t you remember sending me your love as an email attachment?”

“history channel”

A child with Chinese mustache is born!! The child is named Chengiz Khan.

“Zee Movies”

A Chinese villain approaches the heroine with malicious intentions. The heroine pleads “Bhagwan ke liye mujhe chor do. Bhagwan please mujhe is jalil se bacha lo”

“God channel”

No signal! Please contact your service provider.

“Doordarshan”

Dropadi standing in the royal court with all the Pandavas with their heads hanging down.

“CNN IBN”

Prime minister addressing the nation saying “It’s a national shame”.

“NDTV”

Protest all around India. Medha Patekar reaches the spot.

” Zee Movies”

Dharmendra screaming “Ek ek ko chun chun ke Marunga”

“Asian Tele shopping”

Sorry. You don’t have any option. You have to take the whole bunch.

“Star movies”

Jackie Chan takes up the cowboy look and goes under ground.

“Zoom”

Shahruk Khan “Don ko pakad na mushkil hi nehi, na mumkin hai”

“ESPN”

Michael Jordon flashes his teeth saying “Impossible is nothing”

“Cartoon Network”

Tom made the jump of his life and found Jerry in his hand.

“Some channel”

Some wife screams at her husband“What is this going on? You are watching TV the whole day. I am gonna throw this idiot box away..*&%(*&$*($%*87”

(switch off)

Love-Take One

I am not a love Guru. Also, I did not get a chance to think about love for quite sometime. But after reading one of my favorite blogs where lots of people were exchanging their views on love, I was tempted to re-evaluate my take on love.

Defining love in words is an ambitious effort from a linguistically challenged person like me. According to me, love is a strong emotion which makes us better human beings. And all the negativities that come along with love have nothing to do with the emotion itself. The negativities are more of individual behavioral traits which come out while dealing with this strong emotion in different situations. It is love which takes us to the point of destruction and it is love which teaches us to live our life. It is our behavior and situations which make us deal with the same emotion differently. And, of course, the domain of love transcends the small world of lovers which, I feel, is an endothermic chamber secluded from the realities of life. Love is more generic. I feel love whenever I am writing, I feel love whenever I am traveling, I feel love whenever I am holding the hands of my wife and I feel love doing so many quintessential things. I think love is just a way of life.

Love definitely is a strong emotion and should be cherished by every individual but I am against the glorification of love. Love is not the end of the world. I am against those Karan Johar movies which make you feel that it’s love and only love that makes the world go round. There are so many other emotions which are equally strong and should be experienced by every individual. Unless we experience all these emotions, it’s difficult for us to evaluate the worth of love. Love is important like breathing air or drinking water. But how many times do we spend time pondering about breathing air or drinking water? How many times directors think of making a movie on breathing air or drinking water? I believe we do that only when we go out of breath or feel thirsty. Similarly we feel the need of love whenever there is lack of love in our lives. The feeling of love should be there in every little thing we do. We should fill our life with so much of love that we should not feel the need of love from an external source. Love is generated within every individual.

I am sure I am not the first one to preach such wise words. So, why is there a dearth of love in our lives? I think it’s again the human mind we should blame. Whenever we get something new, we begin to like it. But after we get used to it, we look for something new. We give up our ex-girlfriend for the current one and the current girlfriend for the would-be wife and the wife for the neighbor’s wife (Also applicable to woman). We forget to appreciate the existing things that once used to make us happy and we make way for love to go out of our life. All we need to do is to set our priorities right judiciously and appreciate every little things that makes us happy. Love will just find its way back to our life.

I hope this love gayan has enlightened you to find your daily love potion. Bolo Love Baba ki Jay !!

Public Interest Litigation

My morning starts with picking up the newspaper and a packet of milk from my doorstep everyday. Both these elements play an active role in bringing me to life every morning. A cup of hot milk helps me open my eyes and the newspaper does the rest by filling up the eyes with bizarre news from all over the world. The news at the front page that caught my eyes today was about a minister from AP preaching the tribal groups to (re)produce more babies to combat the high infant mortality rate. Wow!! It was quite an innovative idea of beating the viruses and bacteria in their own game of multiplying. The picture of humans multiplying in a higher rate than the microbes frightened me. It was somewhat like the advertisement of AXE where the guy stood on a deserted sea shore, just to discover thousands of females chasing him. Of course, here with a little twist. Think of each of the woman carrying a baby in their womb! I felt nauseating. Was that what you call a morning sickness? Well, my morning sickness did not allow me to munch over it any longer and I left the tribal group with their own fate.

Anyway, I turned the pages and landed on the entertainment page. I could see only two kinds of news: Controversies about what Sharukh did and controversies about what Sharukh did not do. I wondered how one person can create so much of news by his presence or lack of presence. His latest blockbuster was ‘Om Shanti Om’ and with it came a new set of controversies. One veteran actor who appeared capricious with his hand over his face, threatened to take Sharukh to the court as the veteran actor was shown getting humiliated in the movie.

India is a funny country. You can do whatever you want and still can get away with the nexus you have or you might not do anything but still be dragged in to the court. Look at ‘poor’ Shilpa Shetty. She got dragged into the court for being kissed by an expat actor. Thousands of PILs were filed against this ‘immoral’ incident and it soon became a national issue. The proceedings in the assembly were stalled over a fight among the members to decide whether Shilpa Shetty should be hanged. I am really impressed by these people for showing their concerns against this ghastly incident and being generous in filing PILs. I am also impressed by the same set of people, who manage to hide from the media the adventures of their personal life of wife beating, tax evasion, child labor, murder and what not. But this is not important. The issue is whether Shilpa Shetty should be hanged or not!

Prior to the 1980s, only the aggrieved party could approach the courts for justice. However, post-1980s and after the emergency era, the apex court decided to reach out to people and hence it devised an innovative way wherein a person or a civil society group could approach the Supreme Court seeking legal remedies in cases where public interest is at stake. Since then PIL has gained popularity and lots of good changes have come to the society through PILs. But today, PIL is a tool to become famous. It gives you a chance to draw the attention of the media without trying to steal the sunglass of a politician who is addressing a mass gathering. The only thing it costs is some meager amount of money and one day to spare in the court. And all you need is a bizarre reason to file a PIL against some hot shot personality.

I wondered what public interest was at stake when Shilpa Shetty was kissed by a foreign national. The only thing that came to my mind was the fact that Indian men are gradually losing ground against those foreigners in having the proximity of Indian beauties; close enough to feel their cheeks. The Britishers have ruled us for years, taken away all our valuables; and now the Americans are coming down to get our women. This just cannot be tolerated!! Now that I am writing, I am also going through the realization of this horrible pending doom of all Indian men. My blood is boiling in anger and I also feel like filing one PIL.

I could not find any other reason to file a PIL against Shilpa Shetty. The more I thought of Shilpa Shetty, my boiling blood began to cool down but the desire to file a PIL still remained. So, after reading the newspaper, I realized the best person to file a PIL against is Sharukh Khan – a man whose farthest associations can acclaim to fame. So I thought, I found, and I wrote it here for public interest. I was listening to the song “Deewangi Deewangi” from ‘Om Shanti Om’ and somewhere in the middle it goes like this:

All the hot girls, put your hands up and say Om Shanti Om
All the cool boys, come on make some noise and say Om Shanti Om!

I was shocked. It was complete violation of basic human right! The cool girls and the hot boys were completely ignored in this song. You can not ask boys and girls to say ‘Om shanti Om’ based on their cool-quotient and hot-quotient respectively. What about guys running a fever and girls who have just taken a bath? It’s completely bizarre to discriminate the right to speech based on body temperature of boys and girls. I was damn sure that I have a strong ground against Sharukh and the OSO team to file a PIL. I rushed to my wife and expressed my divine intention to save the interest of all the cool girls and the hot boys.

My wife was ecstatic and was nurturing a similar intention for long. She told me she was going to file a PIL against the husbands who shirk responsibilities and stay away from all the household activities in the pretext of writing article and doing divine things. She wanted to request the honorable court to make it mandatory for all husbands to share 60% of the household work. I was taken aback. Her divine intentions could jeopardize the life of entire husband clan. So, I had to sacrifice my noble intentions and spent the whole day working at home to save the entire husband clan from leading a life, just unthinkable!

Although my desire to file a PIL to claim to fame is still unfulfilled due to my unadventurous personal life, one day I am sure to get my share of fame by using this weapon of guaranteed fame.

Lovely Men’s saloon-A/C

Lately, I was sporting the scary-hair-Albert-Einstein-Look which was somewhat between the crew-cut- Tom-Cruise-look and long-locks-John-Abraham-look. Though it made me feel like a genius, it radiated an uncanny eerie feeling to people around me and I started getting advices to get a hair cut. The situation became worse when my neighbor’s dog fell for my genius hairy look and started barking at me at the slightest sight of me. The worst came when my wife refused to accompany me at any social do. I had no choice but to head towards the ‘Lovely Men’s saloon-A/C’, the saloon I visited almost a decade ago in spite of it being at a stone’s throw from my home. ‘Lovely Men’s saloon-A/C’ was an interesting place manifested with people, who wanted to get rid of hair, and barbers, who were excessively fond of hairs, be it their own or somebody else’s. The queue at the saloon was surprisingly long and I wondered what would be the total number of people trying to get rid of unwanted hair at that moment. Anyway, good thing about the saloon was that you were given a hearty welcome and provided with newspapers and magazines you could not read (or rather see) otherwise at home. The place was also full of interesting characters and I could not help having a close look at each one of them.



The perfectionist psycho type:



This breed is the most difficult one both for the barber and people waiting in the queue. When it comes to perfection, these guys give a run to Amir Khan as they can argue with the barber for hours because of a small deviation on a single hair located in some (x, y) coordinate. It is interesting to know how a deviation in a single hair can turn them to Kader Khan from Amir Khan. What impresses me is the passion with which they keep staring at the mirror and occasionally run the fingers through the hair to look perfect. But the passion is followed by disappointment which instigates the passion more .What follows is another round of argument over a missing hair until the psycho perfectionist is forced out of the saloon.



The big mouth type:



These are mostly the middle-aged businessmen kind of guys. They step into the saloon in shorts, t-shirts and running shoes, probably after a workout session, driving their swanky cars. There is a striking similarity between the wallet they carry and dresses they wear. While the wallet struggles to hold the amount of money which is forced into it, the dresses struggle to hold the fats which are bulging out of the body. To alleviate the pain of the wallet they keep throwing money all the time and, no wonder, they are the most valuable and important customers in the saloon. While rest of the crowd comes to get a hair cut, this breed comes to get a facial, pedicure, manicure and what not. Their flashy mobiles keep ringing all the time as they close deals in lakhs while they have got cucumber on their eyes and white paste on the faces. At the end they leave the barbers happy and the rest of the crowd green.



The metro-sexual dude type:



This one is the smart looking cool dude type who dares to wear pink t-shirt and green pant. Except the spiky gelled hair on their head, they do away with all the hair in their body even from the remote and unreachable corners. It is interesting to see this evolving breed of Indian men, who take up so much pain to part with body hair. No wonder looking ‘chikna’ is THE IN thing.



Abhi-to-main-jawan-hoon type:



This is the late middle-aged lot who must have resembled Jitender or Dev Anand in their youth but age has taken a toll on them now. Dying their grey hair is the only resort for them to look younger again. The feeling of regaining their youth is evident from the smile with which they leave the saloon. Fortunately, I’ll take some more years before I can relate to this kind of a self-admiring smile.



The divine old types:



This lot is the ever smiling old gentlemen with little hair left on their head to avail the services of the saloon. But I believe this is one of the important activities in their daily life by which they can kill some time. Also, for some of them it’s quality time away from their commanding daughters-in-law. They are always smiling, talking to the barbers and fellow customers and giving wise advices to the kids.



The sweet kid type:



The kids that turn up in the saloon always get a special attention because of their sweet antics. They keep telling the barbers how painful it is to bend their heads during the hair cut. The toughest thing for the barbers is to come up with stories to keep the kids occupied while they do their job. On the other hand, there is an opposite kind, who comes up with requests to the barbers to give them a La-Shahrukh-Khan-Cut because some Deepika has joined their class recently.



The-occasional-aunties Type:



The aunties who sneak into the men’s parlor on the pretext of getting their kids a hair cut, have a gala time staring at the handsome-men-in-the-pipeline and occasionally flirting with them. The men too on the other hand show equal enthusiasm to befriend their kids, needless to say why. But one thing I have noticed that the rate of accidents in the saloon go up with the presence of this breed.



Jaldi karo types:



There is one breed which is always on the run and whose life is governed by the ticker of the clock. If given a chance these people will get a shaving done on one side of their face today and the rest tomorrow, of course, if they get time.



I also come into this category but for a completely different set or reasons. Being in saloon makes me really uncomfortable and I want to get things done as early as possible. It is always uncomfortable to find another man’s face right across yours and that too so close. But since I have trusted them with the sharpest tool against my throat, I have no choice but to trust them on other occasions too, even if they are dangerously close to me. It really irritates me when they lower their voice and whisper in the ear “Sir, facial kar doo?” I wonder what stops them from asking the same question in normal voice. There is something uncanny about this whole hairy business which makes my hair go straight in irritation.



Anyway…I am done with my hair cut and it’s another 6 months till I will get the feeling of déjà vu or my surroundings will force me to experience the same glimpses again.

Getting Bored

I look for new avenues of getting bored whenever I am bored of getting bored. I am not sure whether this sentence makes any sense to you but be sure to get bored if you have decided to read this piece. I can foresee that this is going to be one logically challenged piece I have ever scribbled. Anyway, you should not expect logic from a person who is sitting in front of his desk in the office on a Saturday afternoon leaving behind his beautiful wife at home. It’s because of one of my wife’s mother’s maternal uncle who took birth yesterday to be my grand-father-in-law and landed at my house to make my life difficult. I was overwhelmed with joy when I realized some grandfatherly figure is going to invade my lazy world for a week. I tried to play a good husband and convinced my wife to shed all her apprehensions about her mother’s uncle whom she refers as Hitler. But two days after his royal arrival, I am badly manifested with an inflow of grand fatherly commands which I find somewhat difficult to handle. After playing a 24/7 chef, an unpaid chauffeur, a smiling host, I find the command to play the chauffeur to his Golconda trip somewhat difficult to digest. My wife came to my rescue and cooked up a story to save me from his utter slavery. She turned my good manager into a devil who called me up while I was having my lunch with the grand fatherly figure. It was aptly timed to kick in the 'thik-se-khana-bhi-nehi-khane-deta' emotion. I gave a power house performance with a cell phone on my hand and talking to my wife on the other side before I finally agreed to come to office with a disgusted face. It was difficult to suppress the happiness behind a disgruntled face. I never realized I was such a good actor.

So, here I am; in front of my desk; trying to kill my time and to avoid a drive to Golconda fort. But killing time is not as easy as it sounds. Sometime killing mosquitoes could be difficult. Think of a situation where there are no mosquitoes to kill! Right now I am in a similar situation trying to make simple things difficult. At first, I tried to be a normal person getting bored by checking emails and surfing the net. But my life became difficult as there were no emails to read. Monotony kills, even when you are getting bored. I realized I needed some new avenues to get bored.

First, I tried to be creative with the customized telephone directory pasted on my desk. I realized I never had a close look at the list. I used only the numbers which were highlighted and the rest ninety percent of the numbers were never used by me. The ‘Yudhisthir’ in me woke up and decided to make a fair judgment to the neglected ninety percent. I felt calling up random numbers in the office and playing prank was not a good idea. Besides, I was in no hurry to lose my job. So I needed to find some alternate way of using the numbers. I found an online game which asked to assume a number and perform couple of operations with it. It finally told me the number I assumed. I repeated the game with all the neglected numbers in the list. I shattered the logical mystery behind the game and turned it in to something which merely tested the level of my patience.

I was bored again. So I looked for a second alternative and immediately got one.
I thought of measuring the network speed of my office with respect to human alacrity. I gave a print command sitting on my desk and rushed to the printer-room, which was located ten feet away, to collect the print-out. Every time the network beat me and the print-out came out first before I reached the printer. After couple of rounds, I declared myself the loser. Running around to and fro to the printer-room shook up my antique bones and I needed some rest. I was ready for another round of boredom after I synchronized my breath with the ups and downs of my lungs.

After today’s stint as an actor, my confidence level was dangerously high to locate the security camera at the ceiling of the office. It was great to be alone at office and do things you can’t think of doing other times. I stood in front of the security camera and played whole lot of characters from Sanjeev Kumar to Big B to Dharma pajji. I created a whole new movie all by myself. I called it “Office mein akela”. Unfortunately the premier of the movie is exclusively for the security personnel of the office and that too for free.

I came back home at 8 pm. My guest was more delighted than my wife to see me back home. I realized he was getting bored and he needed some bakra to impart his knowledge, which was overflowing for lack of any bakra in the past three hours. My wife was clever enough to avoid him the whole day with some excuse and gave all his gayan a miss. He made me sit with him and ordered my wife to get me some tea. After that, it was a grueling session on religion and politics, which was of no interest to me at the end of a tiring day. But I had to make an inquisitive face and occasionally nod on what he said when I was actually thinking about the moment ordeal would end. I was finally released when I made him understood that his speech had really enlightened me. With the satisfaction of having enlightened me and having imposed his self created authority over both of us, the old man left the next day still making it very obvious by the expression on his face that there was a glitch in the hospitality somewhere.

Well, I am bored of writing this piece. And I am sure that you are also bored of reading the same. “akhir ek bored hi ek bored ko samajh sakta”. So stop reading this crap and look for some new avenues of getting bored.

A Preoccupied Me

My wife's repeated attempts to delve into my mind only frustrated her and one thing she could conclude was that she was the last thing on my mind. It was not only my wife but thousands others, including my neighbor's dog, who realized that I was preoccupied with something –something grave and unknown to the human world. It was my aloofness that invoked such an intense interest on an otherwise-tasteless-me from my surroundings. This extensive thought process jammed my nervous system the very moment I woke up in the morning. It continued to affect my normal humanly behavior through out the day. I realized it was high time I gave a vent to my noble thoughts before my wife kicked me out of the house, or before I lost my job, or before I found myself again on the roads of Hyderabad, extolling the extraordinary traffic situations which was the one and only one good thing left in this world that made me think. The traffic in Hyderabad had something extraordinary in it which inspired me to write about it again and again.

When it comes to the traffic in Hyderabad I love to think in the Jerome.K. Jerome way-"Traffic in Hyderabad fascinates me; I can stand and watch it for hours". One day on the roads of Hyderabad can make you so rich in knowledge that even the top B-schools will fail to impart. There is so much to learn from every little thing that happens on the roads of Hyderabad. Like freedom of speech, Hyderabad gives you the freedom of driving. You can continue to talk on the cell phone when you are driving. You can be lost on the eyes of your girlfriend sitting next to you while you are driving. You can even take a quick nap in case you could not sleep the previous night. It is the duty of hundred others on the road to adjust them and make way for you. You are free; free to make your own rules on the road of Hyderabad. If you are stopped by the traffic police, just report it to the media. Next day stories of traffic police brutality on the innocent riders will be published on the front page of newspapers.

The traffic in Hyderabad challenges your driving skills and takes the best out of you. It teaches you how to plan, how to take risk and come out as a winner. People show extraordinary skills on the road the way they control their vehicle. You can expect any vehicle to come and hit you from any directions. All you have to do is to keep your eyes open and move them like radar to detect any incoming object. It's simple. I have read an article about the cabbies of New York City which states that the average intelligence of the cabbies in New York is very high as they have to constantly calculate the shortest possible road between the complex grids. I am damn sure the author has no idea about the traffic situations in Hyderabad. If the same survey is conducted here, Hyderabadis will come out as winners.

The traffic in Hyderabad teaches you to be socially responsible. You'll find ghostly nocturnal riders, who run at full speed with the headlights off. It's only a full-fledged campaign to promote "Save Energy". I wonder if people switch off the lights at home when they go out, but they definitely take the initiative to promote such noble causes like "Save Energy" while on roads. There’s a me-first-attitude that exists among the drivers. And, be assured, it is not to let you down but for your safety only. As everyone knows there is danger in every step, people make sacrifices by taking one step ahead of everyone and letting others know about the impending dangers ahead of them. People park their cars in the middle of the road just to make sure others slow down and relax a bit. Size does matter in Hyderabad. Public transport buses make sure you respect their presence on the road. They are the biggest contributors in slowing down the traffic and ensuring public safety.

Even though the elephants rule, the foxes (the autos) make their presence felt in unique way. Autos are the ideal way of transportation when time is a factor. These small vehicles are specially designed to jump signals, jump dividers and use customized roads to reach the destination in the quickest possible time. These are equipped with latest technology to fly out of the traffic jams with a sudden twist and make way for themselves. Hyderabad would not be Hyderabad without these tiny flying machines.

Traffic in Hyderabad teaches you innovation. When I first came to Hyderabad I realized that 'Overtaking' is a crime on the roads and no one encourages overtaking. Every single vehicle on the road makes sure it does not give space to other vehicle to overtake it. So people in Hyderabad came up with a new innovation-'Undertaking'. When you prevent vehicles to overtake you from the right, vehicles undertake you from the left. When dividers are placed to control traffic movements, people remove them the very next day to make customized road for themselves. People have invented ways to take a right turn on the intersection where it is strictly prohibited. Instead of going left or straight, riders join the traffic coming from the left to take a right turn as the green color blinks. Some of them even stop on the middle of the intersection and use their persuasion skills to convince the traffic police to allow them to take a right turn. Innovation is a part of life on the roads of Hyderabad.

The best lesson is, of course, taught by the traffic police. They are the real mentors and highly skilled in their field. Their one and only one motto is "Spoon-Feeding Kills; Stop Spoon-Feeding". Instead of guiding the drivers to find their way out, they leave it to the drivers to learn how to come out of a mess. The best lesson is learnt when it's learnt by yourself. But of course they keep a close eye on you from a nearby beetle shop. Even if they take a step backward and promote self learning, they become very active at the end of the month by participating in the cat and mouse game with the rogue riders and by levying fine on them. Of course, the fine part includes two sections-an official fine and an unofficial fine.

This is my humble attempt to let you know what all you can learn from the roads of Hyderabad. It's an ocean of knowledge and it's not possible for me to teach you everything. If you want to learn, you have got to spend more time on the roads till one day you get washed away through an open manhole. Wow!! Open Manhole!! I guess I have got something interesting to think about apart from the traffic. Hhhmmmm...Open Manhole!!! Let’s start from the definition of ‘Manhole’!!

And the story continues...

Sunset

Whispering breezes bring up the past

through the crushing waves of the ocean

Fading sunrays struggle with time

As castle of sands get sweeped away

Restless waves kiss the feet

but fail to reach the heart

Shadows still remain at a distance

Silence reigns as they look on

The sun closes its eye.