I was hit by a car at the traffic lights of sector 20 a few days ago। Like a good citizen, I proudly stopped my wasp ‘behind’ the pre-zebra crossing line—I always do that and always feel good about following the traffic rules; apart from the fact the pollution-check certificate of my wasp expired months ago—I was waiting for the light to turn green when suddenly something happened। For a fraction of a second I was air-borne, my wasp took off without me and in another fraction of a second, came crashing down on my guitar। Lying stunned on the zebra crossing, I looked at my scoot that was resting on my guitar a few steps ahead of me—“Had Jesus returned” I thought to myself. Maybe he took me with him, but then just remembered something bad I’d done and threw me back. I sat there and gazed heavenwards for 3–4 seconds, not realizing that everyone around was staring at me. I was too stunned, to realize what had happened. Then I turned around and looked at a girl standing next to her car, she was shivering like a leaf and was continuously mumbling “I am so sorry.”
Oh! So it wasn’t as bad as I was thinking, I had just taken a hit on the rear by a woman driver, rather, she had driven into me; I was relieved. She helped me pick my wasp up, all the while she kept saying, “I’m so sorry.”
Then I realized that my brand new, hi-end acoustic guitar had taken a hit and that was it, I lost my temper. I roared at her “that is a very expensive guitar miss, you’d better wish its safe” as I took the guitar out of the cover. The guitar was badly grazed; thankfully it wasn’t broken and its neck was in place—good quality pays off. She kept saying “I’m so sorry” so many times that I couldn’t think of anything. The wasp’s clutch lever broke and the left shield got buffed by the road. Only one thought stopped me from letting my anger out—I’ve been teaching a friend how to drive lately, I wouldn’t want anyone to be nasty to her, if she were to be in the same situation. In anger and frustration, I could just utter these words in a very threatening tone with clenched teeth, “you better get lost from here” the message was conveyed. She obeyed and in a second, was nowhere in sight.
Onlookers stared at me—many of them in amazement—that I had let my assailant go so easily and quickly, without asking for any kind of compensation. I just picked my broken wasp, grazed guitar and a slightly grazed right arm and rode back home!
Today I got my scoot repaired and for a few hours, it performed like a hot knife slicing through butter…and then….the new clutch lever broke…I don’t know why…and my wound is going from bad to worse…it refuses to heal! Now I am really angry at that woman.
I just remembered a dialog I heard in the movie Titanic, “Women and machinery don’t mix।”…listen to the guy, he wasn’t joking!! At least quite a few of them don't.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
What have we become?
At school, we read of the revolt of 1857; we read of the world wars; we read of the various revolutions. We also read of the various architectural marvels of the modern, medieval and ancient world.
Let me conjecture about what our children will read in modern history:
They’ll probably read about Kanshi Ram’s imposing statue in UP; Mayawati has clandestine plans to capture some area and build a statue of Kanshi Ram (a few inches bigger than the statue of liberty). Where’s her sanity? Where is the sanity of the people who adulate such politicians and elect them to power? UP already has a surfeit of statues and foundation stones laid by previous politicians in power! We Indians don’t understand UP, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and others are not independent countries but a part of one country. Lets face it; most of us are not die-hard nationalists (not even moderately so)…what have we become!
They’ll probably read of the time when the muslim world declared war or other faiths (and in many ways vice-versa). Hey, the crusaders were just as bad. Hope fully by that time all the faiths of the world would have made peace with each other by then and there would be other more grave problems facing humankind as a whole. Tomorrow if a substantial portion of the world’s population is wiped out by some disease, you’ll probably forget that I’m black and you’re yellow, white or purple (unless you’re one of ‘those’ types); all faiths, creeds and races will join hands to counter a problem like that…why do we have to ask nature for such a calamity to bring some sense into our heads? There are ample of ‘more important’ problems facing us even if we give fighting and wasting away because of the differences in ideologies. Why don’t we look at the bigger picture right now? Why not create beautiful and purposeful things now so that we’re ready. Why lead a wasteful, superficial and a negative life? We’re growing in numbers and so is our fear of each other. What’s wrong with us? What have we become?
We’ve always been like that; history vouches for it. Now we need to evolve in to better beings. Someday we have to leave this planet and move elsewhere. But you probably don’t see that coming…do you?
Let me conjecture about what our children will read in modern history:
They’ll probably read about Kanshi Ram’s imposing statue in UP; Mayawati has clandestine plans to capture some area and build a statue of Kanshi Ram (a few inches bigger than the statue of liberty). Where’s her sanity? Where is the sanity of the people who adulate such politicians and elect them to power? UP already has a surfeit of statues and foundation stones laid by previous politicians in power! We Indians don’t understand UP, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and others are not independent countries but a part of one country. Lets face it; most of us are not die-hard nationalists (not even moderately so)…what have we become!
They’ll probably read of the time when the muslim world declared war or other faiths (and in many ways vice-versa). Hey, the crusaders were just as bad. Hope fully by that time all the faiths of the world would have made peace with each other by then and there would be other more grave problems facing humankind as a whole. Tomorrow if a substantial portion of the world’s population is wiped out by some disease, you’ll probably forget that I’m black and you’re yellow, white or purple (unless you’re one of ‘those’ types); all faiths, creeds and races will join hands to counter a problem like that…why do we have to ask nature for such a calamity to bring some sense into our heads? There are ample of ‘more important’ problems facing us even if we give fighting and wasting away because of the differences in ideologies. Why don’t we look at the bigger picture right now? Why not create beautiful and purposeful things now so that we’re ready. Why lead a wasteful, superficial and a negative life? We’re growing in numbers and so is our fear of each other. What’s wrong with us? What have we become?
We’ve always been like that; history vouches for it. Now we need to evolve in to better beings. Someday we have to leave this planet and move elsewhere. But you probably don’t see that coming…do you?
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