Stayin' Alive!!!

Saturday saw me and A embroiled in an involuntary adventure of sorts! While setting out to visit my aunt, little did either of us think that we’d be almost compelled to count, what felt like, the last few precious moments of our lives!

After setting out of our house, we settled into a wait for an auto rickshaw that would help us reach our destination, without us having to pay an arm, with a leg also thrown in for good measure! Quite annoyingly, there seemed to be no ricks without any passengers that fateful evening. Or, if there happened to be a trifle few empty ones, they refused to make the distance to my aunt’s place, without, like I’ve already mentioned, making sure that we part with at least a few body parts! Little did we know then that this figurative losing of an arm and a leg would soon turn into an almost literal losing of them!

After what seemed to be an interminable wait, finally, an auto that we hailed, very kindly and generously agreed to take us to our desired destination, and surprise of surprises, the driver didn’t ask for even a paisa more! Highly grateful, we clambered into it, and what then entailed can only be described as a ride in a death cab, or in Lord Yama’s private vehicle itself! Our man, the driver of the auto that was apparently a vehicle to transport us to the world down under itself, thought it absolutely unnecessary to have any concern for his or our safety! The speed with which he sped by other paltry vehicles, lampposts, signals, and huge, thundering trucks even, would have put to shame any self respecting formula one participant! Speed breakers hardly deterred the brave soul! He must have thought it blissful fun to brake at the very last moment when encountered with a speed breaker, leaving the tires to screech wildly, and us, inside the vehicle, to sickeningly careen from one side to the other! He didn’t even bother to stay on the road most of the time! Skilled as he was, the pavement/sidewalks/dirt roads were absolutely great to drive on, too!

His skill and speed, coupled with the amazing control that he had over the vehicle, got us to our destination in 15 minutes flat; a journey that usually takes a good 30 to 40 minutes! I must admit he quite efficiently nullified all our waiting time; not to mention the worry that we were running late!

Throughout the ride, all I could think of was how I had so many things I still wanted to do in this earthly life! Also, although throughout the ride, we were almost laughing our heads off at the way we were being transported to what we could only think of as our death beds, the recklessness of such auto and cab drivers is a continuous menace in this city, as it is in other cities in our country, if I’m right!!! There’s nothing left to be written about this topic; a lot has already been mouthed and penned down about the same! I wonder what it is that drives such people to put on risk not only their own lives, but also the lives of innocent passengers; and being someone who has been through a more than fair share of accidents, I can vouch that life, for a few months after an accident, is not pretty at all!

Asking them to slow down, talking in polite terms, shouting; nothing seems to work! They still seem hell bent on breaking all traffic rules and human levels of tolerance by zooming forward at breakneck speeds; all for saving some time and earning a few more rupees at almost the cost of another passenger’s limbs or life?!!? How fair is that?!?