The Rush Hour…

Cold December morning, the wind cuts into the face. The lips quiver and the fingers go numb inside the gloves. The jugglery with gear shifts, throttle and brakes leaves one gasping for air. The tyres groan at the sudden jumps and the body wiggles and wobbles as you attempt snaking through the morning traffic. You avoid crashing into the milkman on his ‘Rajdoot’, save a few monkey cap clad apes who just jumped off from the moving bus ahead, take the call from office with the phone tucked in the helmet or curse the other biker who ‘won’ the race to the next traffic signal and it charges you as nothing else can..

I ride from my place in Gurgaon to my office along the Noida expressway on a daily basis. The 42 km long daily ride (one side) fluctuates between 40 minutes on an easy day to about 90 minutes during the peak hours. I know the roads and I am acquainted with all the potholes along my route too. Yet, every day it’s a different ordeal, a new adventure.

There are unruly bus drivers to negotiate and wilder fellow bikers to counter. There are lean and pale looking cyclists bobbing along the sidewalks and there are pot bellied, balding middle management staff in their hatchbacks talking incessantly on their bluetooth devices (while driving of course) to watch out for as well.

Every day some bus driver attempts to run me down, some car wala thinks that he can jump over me, other bikers invite me to race along the expressway and cyclists and rickshaw pullers challenge my sudden braking skills. The adrenaline rush is simply amazing.

I guess no where else in the world would you find more spirited (often literally) people on the road. The red lights are just an indication to go full speed. India might not see a F1 racing star for another hundred years but every day, thousands of Delhi dwellers dream and aspire to compete with Schumacher (even if he has long called quits) on their ‘Furraris’ (read WagonRs, Santros, Estillos, Altos and even 800s). The countdown timers at the traffic lights are installed only to indicate ‘Get, Set, Go..’ for all our budding Grand Prix champions. It is also legal to stand in the extreme left lane and zoom to the other corner to turn right.

If you still do not know why did the chicken cross the road, try and figure out why do people attempt walking across the road at all. With the recent new found success at the XIX Commonwealth games and the Asian games, more and more people have started seeing the road as a spot to practice track events. Age, caste, creed, gender – the road discriminates none. Everyone is allowed to run as they please across its breast.

Now try and mix a Grand Prix aspirant in his super cool Alto (with Ferrari stickers on the door and super woofers blasting “Main tera amplifier..” ) with a budding Milkha Singh on his daily road running routine and garnish a few Jason Statham (Death Race) type blue line bus drivers, a few AK Hangal type cyclists, Rajnikanth Auto-Rickshaw drivers and you have the stage set for the new XBox 360 game called ‘The Office Goers Challenge – Race for Survival’.

To cut the long story short, I am currently playing at the expert’s level.

If you think you can better my score, meet me tomorrow when I start for the office and let’s burn some rubber on the tar.

Vrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooommmmmmmmmmmm for now…..