Skip to main content

One Way

Post Mumbai our adventures took us by car on the new (err) Mumbai Pune expressway up the hill slope towards Pune.
Way uphill is one way traffic and it has 3 lanes marked on it with 2 of the left ones allocated to heavy vehicles per posted signage. What we saw instead stirred my soul and something more. Since trucks took matters into their own hands all lanes heading to Pune were packed with noxious gas belching lumps that seemed to be suspended in slow motion.

At times we did encounter a truck or two that had lost its will to ascend and has the driver on edge as it gives in to gravity and start slipping backward. Amidst this scenario our taxi driver decided that since he too had command of a wheel of a nimbler vehicle he would impress his visiting guests with driving skills not seen since Ford invented the concept.

This included discovery of a new gap on far left side of the one way lanes (remember traffic in India drives on the left so the fastest lane is supposed to be the one to the right).  Our taxi   found gaps beyond the marker of the left shoulder (also driver seat is on the right unlike States which is on left) that had me suck in my tummy lest I became part of the Sahyadri landscape (the rough granite rock face of the canyon we were climbing through).

Just as we were about to successfully exit the narrow slot and see the misting sky I saw it.  A feeble yellow light.   It grew bigger as we tried to squeeze out.   It was approaching towards us.  But but we were on a one way section so all I should see is red tail lights no?

Mental check revealed I had refrained from alcoholic beverages prior to commencing this trip so the visual cortex ought to be functioning fine.

Indeed it was and indeed it was a Bajaj scooter with two dudes descending the ghat (hillybsection of road) going the wrong way - knowingly - to assist another car stranded on the shoulder.

Our driver pulled hard right missing them and the car crushing behemoth on our right to leap ahead and make the next turn towards the once serene green hills of Pune.

So what 'one way'?  The adage should read - where there is a wheel there is a way.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

But What If We're Wrong?

I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language.  Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds.  The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic.  Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'.  This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...
2 comments
Read more

You are important to us

Followed by piano music.   Followed by 'we are experiencing heavier than usual call volume'.  Sounds macabre like bleeding during menstruation or after a ghastly attack with a weapon on a hemophiliac.  Sorry Mrs. Johnson but it appears little Gertrude here has been bleeding heavier than usual what with her night time activities competing with the woodchucks in your neighborhood. Some services even go as far as to pick a random day to say - 'if you were to call us during the Chinese lunar month when the moon is axiomatically hugging the polar star with Jupiter intravenous when call volume is light'.  Well I will be damned.  I thought  I had checked with my astrologer before I placed this well focused call but  I guess this is what you get for listening to a quack. Umph! I am not sure which marketing genius came up with this personal touch concept of informing the caller that you are really a jackass for actually calling the customer serv...
Post a Comment
Read more

Of Jims and Johns

Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...
2 comments
Read more