Driving Blues

It is a bright sunny day. In the fifth gear of your car, you are swiftly and smoothly driving on the city roads in your best ever humor. Your favorite music is giving repose to your mind and body. You are engaged in an animated conversation with your partner on next seat. There is no sound but the sound of music and your conversation. You can’t help yourself to step on the accelerator more and more as you see wide, unhindered and spotless road in front of you. Outdoor scenery is giving solace to your eyes and you just wish that this could go on and on forever.

Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Abruptly, you break out of your reverie. It is a bright sunny day, but even the air conditioner is not helping to cool you of the tension. Although, you have your car stereo blasting away, the only sound you can hear is roaring of engines and incessant and unnecessary honking. The person on next seat is speaking something but you are so diverted to avoid hitting somebody that it is impossible to hear her. You are stepping more and more on brakes than accelerator. You can’t remember when was the last time you were driving in your best ever humor. Wide, unhindered, spotless, smooth, swift etc; those adjectives are no longer understandable by you. You just wish to reach your destination as soon as possible. Hence, you break out of your reverie and you recognize that you are in MUMBAI.

I love Mumbai. I really do. But whenever I’m out on its roads, nobody can help me cursing everybody and anybody that is around. I have lost the will to drive long way back. For me, commuting is the best way to practice new ways of cursing. You just can’t help yourself to say some offensive words to that BEST bus that is continuously honking behind you or to that auto-rickshaw driver who has just made a daring cut in front of you.

You want to drive on Mumbai roads. Keep in mind following tips:

1. BEST is the king. If you notice a BEST bus picking up passengers on a bus-stand while you are driving towards it, slow down. You don’t want to bang straight into this red beast as it makes a straight 45 degree turn coming out of the stand. They are the kings and you always make way for the kings.
2. Earplugs at traffic lights. You have stopped on a red-light and so has dozens of two, three, four or six wheelers around you. Don’t forget to plug your ears before lights turn green. You don’t want to turn deaf by honking that will start as soon as it happens. Apparently, the honker behind you believes that by some miracle honking will clear the road in front of him.
3. Auto-rickshaws cum Ferraris. Although it is rare, you may sometimes find an open road in front of you. But don’t be so happy because as soon as you have speed up your vehicle to 80 kmph, you will find a slow-moving auto-rickshaw in front of you pulling you back to 20 kmph. It’s not their fault. They are under impression that those tiny black things are miniature versions of Ferrari and nobody can overtake them.
4. Schumachers in taxis. Yes, that is true. The khaki dressed taxi drivers that you notice on Mumbai roads are actually clones of Michael Schumacher. Only the world Formula 1 champion can beat their skills of cutting across the lanes, swirling around in chaotic traffic or making their way through two vehicles. If only they are given a chance.
5. Holy roads. No, they are not blessed by almighty. But they are without doubt blessed by the BMC for creating so many pot-holes that your car can vanish in it and never be found till eternity. Dig and dig and dig and never fill up, is their motto.

And even if these aren’t helpful, come to me. I’ll give you a crash course on Best Practices for Driving in Mumbai. All you have to bring along is your driving license and a declaration, duly signed, that under no circumstances the trainer will be responsible for any unwarranted consequences during the tenure of the course. Optionally, if you know driving, that will be helpful too.

World Cup Dreams

A news channel was showing a story on India’s world cup win in 1983. I watched images of Kapil Dev lifting the trophy and thought to myself would I be lucky this year, to see same kind of footage but live on my television. Would team India be able to achieve the glory that they are seeking and that we, Indian cricket fans, are hoping after every four years? This was 17th March, 2007 and India was scheduled to play their first match.

10 days, thereafter, as the Indian team is knocked out of tournament, I am sitting here totally disappointed. It is not that I'm a big cricket fanatic. I rarely watch cricket matches on a regular basis. I prefer watching Formula 1 instead. But as the World Cup arrives, my interest in cricket regains. It is just the whole excitement that is built around this major tournament, which gets me into cricket gear since 1992. But this year has been most terrible. Although, we haven't won any world cup since 1983, but Team India had been able to show some good cricket reaching finals, or semi-finals. But nothing like this year, when they pathetically got knocked out in the first round of league matches.

The start of the tournament was itself a no-show. Loosing to Bangladesh, the team which ranks way below India, was the first sign. The whole team was lacking the main thing that is needed in modern day cricket - aggression. It was visible from the body language of the players on the field when they were trying to defend a pathetic score laid by poor batting performance. I wasted my whole night hoping that next delivery will do the tricks. But as I said it truly turned out to be shear waste of time.

Even after loosing, hopes were alive. So many calculations were done as to how India can reach the next round. Now, it was nothing but game of run-rate. But before that they have to beat Sri-Lanka. Playing against the first time entrant, Bermuda, the results were predictable. The team put up a great show that day beating and breaking many records. World Cup dreams were alive once again.

I was sad; I had to travel on the day of Indo-Lanka match. I followed the score as long as I was receiving signal on my FM radio while traveling in train. Late at night, I also came to know about the target that India had to chase. I became a little skeptical at that time only. I had expected a much lesser score. But hoping for best I went to sleep. As soon as I woke up, I took my mobile and send a request for score. SMS came, I read the score and it was all over for India. Now I was glad, I didn't cancel my trip to watch the game.

On reaching my destination, I got busy in other work that I was not able to follow the reviews and comments on newspapers or television. Neither, I wanted to hear or read it. But I did laugh a lot on hearing that some people died due to depression. Such is the craziness for this sport. For me, I was looking forward for some real good cricket by some of the best teams in world fighting in the next round. No matter, if our team was there or not. If we love cricket, we should enjoy it fully.

I was also well amused on hearing some reports that people were hoping that Bermuda wins over Bangladesh. C'mon people. Grow UP!!!