- said Barry Gibb, falsetto - front man for the Bee Gees, who I don’t really like – but I dig their vibe sometimes. Not to mention i've stolen their lyric and thrown it into an ocean of out-of-context-edness. Be that as it may, I don’t really need to talk about the uncanny literal appropriateness of this line. Welcome to New Delhi 2o1o.
Some one who I used to know a long time ago, once told me that one of our more overt inheritances from the British, involved the capacity to talk (read : bitch) about the weather. Not to ‘mention’ it, but to actively engage in conversation about it. How the weather is today, how it was yesterday – and at times, how it was the year before and the one before that. It happens all the time.
Personally speaking, on principle, I try my best to avoid talking about it. If
the weather’s great, you’ll probably notice, even if you’ve been indoors all day. People are just a lot less edgy and a lot less aggressive. I’ll pay the weather gods the occasional one line homage sometimes, but when people spend more than five minutes on it, it usually reflects on the dismal state of.. well, things to talk about.
My family, who love talking about the weather, have managed to carve out a new niche’ for themselves. They like talking about the traffic more. I partake in this family activity – armed with an unmatched ferocity and over 80,000 km on my odometer. The Moon is approximately 38,000km away. I have driven to the f***ing Moon and Back.
Between rehearsals, swimming and just commuting between the places I lived, live sometimes and am going to live (I’m not shitting you), I end spending a lot of time in the car. It being
my one constant stop – I end up stocking it up with things I need. Everything from a toothbrush – to spare cables for instruments, to instruments themselves and even a full formal get up. Top to bottom. You get the idea, a lot of time in the car and a lot of time in traffic.
I know there are a lot of people like me, who get stuck in traffic and they’re not on the verge of snapping (or blogging about it) – but I think it’s less about the cars as such – and more about what you see when you’re in traffic.
There was this great twilight zone episode, from a long time ago. It’s based in an American suburb during what is supposed to be the peak of the cold war. It’s like a loose rendition of the three little pigs. The most conscientious one, builds a good bomb shelter, while the other pigs, basically tell him he’s an idiot and they laze around. Only difference being, there isn’t a wolf – there’s a bomb scare. And instead of being pigs with blown down houses of straw and stone, there are neighours who in a desperation to save their own lives, start tearing down the bomb shelter – and turn into malicious nutjobs.
Moral of the story, people are monsters – who barely need an excuse. Mob mentality/rioting culture/survival of the ‘I’/different names for the same game.
I digress though, the reason why traffic in Delhi bugs me, is because you see hints of the same thing on the road. There isn’t any love or compassion.(well, I don’t really go driving looking for love and compassion). For the record though, I love smiling at people in the other cars. It freaks the daylights out of people.
The thing is: With every guy who cuts you off, or doesn’t give you room to pass when that special car infront of you breaks down; every dude who blinds you shitless with his beams and every sadistic psycho who keeps trying to push you off the road into that cement mixer – there’s just this looming idea of what we’d be ready to do to each other when that big piece of shit heads for that conveniently placed fan.
But hey man, It’s a great time to listen to the Offspring!
J
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