Even if you do not believe it, there still are cars on Delhi roads which have people on the wheel - not an impatient, arrogant, irritating, swearing, finger pointing, dirty glancing, speed honking, road raged animal. However good drivers are as rare as sensible BJP members. But lets not get political - as it is its of no use being political these days. It gets you nowhere. Only thing that can get you somewhere is if you know someone at 10 Janpath - even the first cousin of the nephew of the elder brother of the second cousin of the neighbor of the lawn mower manufacturer who has supplied gardening equipments at 10 Janpath would do.

I am not related to 10 Janpath in any way, except that I like espresso coffee. And yes, I have seen Kuch Kuch Hota Hai 4 times  (”Rahul, Naam to Suna Hoga”.  )

But today, I  do not want to talk  about 10 or 11 Janpath -  I am more concerned about what runs on Janpath, or any other “path” for that matter. Have you recently noticed that Delhi roads have become more entertaining than the promising blockbusters which go bust. There are characters on that road which can entertain you for hours. I will discuss those characters today, but later in this article. But first, I would like to discuss one important question  -

How can few mm’s of rainfall create potholes of the dimensions of few meters ?

Think about it. While my country fights withe drought, my city is fighting with the potholes created by 5mm of rain ! This is a topic which needs some detailed investigation  - I think I can write a set of motivational books on this topic -

• “The Monk who sold his Ferrari because of the potholes” ,
• or “You can sink” ,
• or “Who moved my road ?”,
• or pulp stuff like - “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and potholes are from Moon”.

But I will save those skills for later use.
Let me come back to the road. Literally.

I have been driving on Delhi roads for some 20  years now. I have been on the roads of Delhi with a bicycle, a gearless two wheeler, a clutchless yet with gear two wheeler, a  Lamberetta, a motorbike and a three cars - including a Premier Padmini Fiat.  But there are still things about Delhi roads which amaze me. And I would like to share those with you today.

Pedestrian Outside a Subway Crossing
If you have ever driven in Connaught Place, you must have regretted paying income taxes for Subway constructions. In spite of having the most impressive pedestrian subway network in Delhi, Pedestrians almost always prefer to stay at the ground level. You can see them running across the outer circle road in frenzy - docking a bus , waiting for the Mercedes to pass by and final stopping in front of your car. When I run into such a pedestrian (figuratively that is) - in a split second I do the following stuff simultaneously -

a.. Apply beaks, as hard as possible
b.. Honk, as loud as possible
c.. Listen to horns behind me
d.. Look angrily at the Pedestrian
e.. Make sure my laptop has not slipped from the backseat to the floor of the car
f.. Check my rear view mirror to ensure the car behind me is still behind, and not into me.
g.. Swear

All this because one dude thinks that his life is less worthy than his time and energy. Also, he (or she) thinks that taking stairs up and down is something for kids and senior citizens. I would like to tell all such pedestrians that its better to be under the ground than being under a car. And what the heck, you can even buy watches, posters and key rings for your loved ones inside those subways.

Animals on the Road
Cattle on the road is a thing of the past. Not that they are not there anymore, but talking about them is a thing of the past. Enough people with really low sense of humor have talked about this phenomenon on Indian roads. Hence, I wont. But I would really like to mention an original amisax quote here (for self praise, what else ?)

“Cattle on the road are like bosses - you have a tough time getting your thing past them, and if you hit them, the whole place stinks for days”

Now that I am done with self admiration, let me come back to the animals. As I said, I would not talk about cattle on roads - the new thing is dead dogs. Why do dogs cross roads - that too roads like Greater Noida Expressway ? I myself have had speed breaker like feeling with dead dogs on the road, and have never been able to understand why that jumped to a conclusion.

One day I sat down with a pen and paper and tried to come up with the reasons for why a dog would do such a gross thing ? I thought for more than 4 hours. During those 4 hours, I did not take any phone calls, nor did I get up for coffee - I did not even check my Facebook account! But still, I could not come up with any reason - just proving that I can never think like dogs. Which is good.

The Two Wheeler Rider
Another phenomenon I would like to discuss here is a two wheeler rider. I have driven a two wheeler too. But I never used to think that I was invisible and invincible. A speeding motorbike rider would automatically assume that it is his right to rush past my car when the light has just turner red. Of course the rights definition charter includes the fact that he can hit my side view mirror while he is jumping the light. While that happens, the pillion rider has a right to look back and smile at me - rather laugh.

There are still more stories about perpendicular motor bikes and parallel cars. In fact I was hit twice by cars who tried to save a scooterist from death. The scooter rider, in both cases went off smiling. I always knew that God sent me here to bring cheer to people.

The Graduates
Then there are car drivers who have just graduated from being  scooter riders. They still think that their car is a scooter- only a lot safer. If you ask them why the government spends millions of rupees painting the road with white lines - they would just agree with you. Inside a car, these drivers seem to think that there is absolutely no one else on the road, except themselves. Not their fault, they cant even hear other cars’ honks because of the loud Bhangra music they are playing inside the car.  Some of these further graduate to become bus drivers. These are the people who are instrumental in solving the over population problem in India.

Wrap Up
I could have gone on about Autorickshaws and Santro drivers. But then there is only so much I can sleaze in a day. But next time you hit that road, make sure you hit nothing else. I have an Indica, which has several dents on its sides and back. I also have an Optra, which has been dented by an Auto, a Car and a Truck. There is another dent on the right side, which is there because a cyclist in Bhangel is still alive. I was even hit inside a parking a lot -twice, because the driver who parked beside me was Abhimanyu’s descendant - he knew how to enter a parking lot, but did not know how to get out of it.

I am not proud of those dents, as they were a gift from the characters of the city I drive in. Most of them were not followed by apologies.  I think I deserve a life where car dents are not such a matter-of-fact things. I think I deserve a life where driving could be a stress buster.

A final word of advice - There are video games and go karting for the excitement. Let the road be for commute.

The Last Jet Engine Laugh

Ruchir Joshi.

All the  ”let me take you to the future” stories I had read before reading this book took me to unknown planets, nuclear holocausts, rogue machines, and weird alien galaxy presidents with three heads.

However, this one took me to Calcutta in 2030, where the preferred mode of transport is no longer the famous Metro trains or the infamous trams, but low-flying copters. They are faster, cheaper and the more popular mode of public transport in the city.  And of course, as with any public transport in India, there are people hanging from them!

Before the details-let me tell you what the book is about.

It is about three things:

• Photographs
• A non-violent photographer in a permanent jet lag-of about 50 years.
• Violence in a very non-violent way.

Now the details-speaking of which, Ruchir is an expert at details. His detailed and vivid description of photographs is so precise and exact that you often feel that you are holding not the book but the photograph itself.  His description of his “old” espresso maker that runs on “real” water makes you start craving for coffee! Therefore, a word of advice: read this book at a time and place when and where coffee is available.  I read it on a train, where the only coffee the crapulous self of mine could get was from broken plastic “thermos” in mugs bruised due to repeated atrocities.

Now, back to the plot.

The book is written as a memoir of a 70-year-old Guajarati photographer living in Calcutta in the year 2030. Being a photographer, he has a photograph as a starting point of each story. He tells us the stories his parents used to tell him about their contribution to the freedom struggle, and he tells us the stories about how his daughter was attacked by a Pakistani-Saudi space ship, at her space station. These memoirs display the amount of imagination Ruchir has for dinner every day. Some examples:

• Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in a Russian Jail in 1980’s
• Bombay being nuked in 2012, and how the entire South Bombay no longer exists
• Delhi being the border town, as the Pak-Saudi alliance has won over all of Punjab and Haryana in 2012
• The internet aircraft war game between his nine-year-old daughter and a retired American Air force pilot in 2008
• How his father and mother eloped from Ahmadabad to Calcutta in 1940s
• War for water between New Friends Colony A and New Friends Colony B in 2010
• Helicopters used for local transit in Kolkota in 2030
• How his uncle escaped Indira Gandhi during emergency in 1976

All this is fun to read, as it is full of wit and description, despite the author accepting that “English is a @#$x#@ limited language”.

But under all the fun and wit, lies a very dark truth-every incident of his life is about violence. Be it warring nations, be it localities fighting with each other, or Indians being beaten up by British Officers during a peaceful procession.  Ruchir talks about the accession of Punjab by Pakistan in the same wit and importance that he shows for the forced “Chanda” collection for Puja Pandal.

It is about violence through words, violence through emotions (read emosanal atyachar), violence through weapons, and even violence through silence. All this seen from the eyes of a man who has almost never indulged in violence himself-the only time he did that was to save his father from goons, and his karate teacher had downgraded his belt, because he was angry during the fight.

The books make you rethink about non-violence. It makes you think about the freedom struggle of our nation: the INA of Bose and the non-violent army of Gandhi. It makes you think about your actions, words and belief-but at the same time, there is no preach-talk in the book.  While you enjoy the action of words, the thought seeps in.

Final words: this is a must-read book to get a flavor of India, special Kolkota-its past, present and future.  It is a feast of characters, descriptions and imagination. But, reading the book is like traveling in a Himachal Pradesh local transport bus: there is so much to see outside the window, yet you feel somewhat giddy.  So a word of caution-do not attempt to finish the book over a weekend.