To be rich is achievable, to not be stupid when rich is a talent — Anonymous
These words ring the bell and horn in my mind everytime I hear it or read it! Bangalore has a lot of rich people, people with a 5 storey houses and people who have 5 different stories to explain how they became rich (the hidden truth mostly involves inheritance or bribes). Along with the number of rich people, the number of cars and ultimately the number of idiots driving cars on the road has increased 10 fold since the inception of Electronic City and ITPL [the local dumping zone for engineers in India]. From the din chik of the loud cars to the almost unheard bell of a cycle, Bangalore traffic has a lot of variety and entertainment for the daily commuter.
One fine day, I decided to head back home a little late and my colleague who has also been my childhood friend offered to drop me, alright I asked him to drop me! Happy? He agreed to drop me and we left for home from work at around 6:00 PM. There is this epic place called tin factory in between our respective residence and office, the jam over here demands 10 loafs of bread! It takes around 30 minutes to cross 200m. So we were stuck here, my friend promptly switches off his car owing to his green attitude which I believe every Indian needs! Having a light conversation, it was a cool and calm evening sky and it looked beautiful. We were surrounded by vehicles in all directions, left right front back below, you name it! There was a Toyota Etios up ahead, a goods carrying auto rickshaw to the left, what was to the right is not important here. In front of that auto was an Maruti Suzuki Esteem, Silver color. Suddenly the car started moving behind, agonizingly close to the auto behind when the auto guy jammed the horn to wake up the driver of the esteem! This is a usual scene in Bangalore where there are signals in slopey areas, yes most Bangalores let the wheels roll in the wrong direction when its supposed to stand still. Generally this is what happens,
1) Car moves back
2) It comes too close and the driver of the vehicle behind jams the horn
3) The driver rolling suddenly hits the brake hard
4) Looks out of the window
5) The driver behind showers a few praises
6) The driver in front drives ahead once the traffic clears
But, here is what actually happened with the esteem and the goods auto
1) Car moves back
2) It comes too close and the auto driver jams the horn
3) The driver rolling suddenly hits the brake hard
4) Gets out of the car
5) Showers praises to the auto driver
6) Asks the auto driver if he is mad for honking when the signal is closed
7) Auto driver says you came to close
8) Car driver says there is so much distance in between (it was hardly 3 inches)
9) People around look at the driver in disgust
10) Drivers gets back into car and auto guy and people around signal that guy is mad and have a good laugh
Was the car driver trying to show his dominance because he is more rich than the auto driver? To be honest this auto driver has to be praised for his calm behavior when the lunatic was screaming! Any other auto driver, as I shall have to remind myself of incidents i’ve been part of abuse you to the extent that you feel cheap and violated! This auto guy realized something was wrong with the car driver and let go. If the car driver had hit the auto, the auto guy would have started a fight and asked for 5000 bucks for a scratch that is invisible and halted the traffic behind for at least an hour before a traffic cop would intervene.
Nevertheless, this is not a rare occurrence in a city where people are judged by their cars and not their character, everyone is in a hurry! So am I! Arrogance is not!
To finish off the post with a nice pic I found recently depicting the situation with Bangalore traffic
Bangalore Traffic!
Aadi's Blog 