The devil’s gladiator

The horns are muffled somewhat by J.J. Cale’s Grasshopper, but the noise within can’t be controlled. It’s a volcano that explodes, bringing out hot lava, turning peace, joy, compassion into ashes. There goes a big car, jumping the red light, preventing me from taking the right turn. The burning comes to my eyes, then hands and legs and finally the devil in me takes over.

I can see very clearly that the motorcycle is not planning to stop. He is gambling that I will. I don’t. My foot steps on the accelerator and he barely manages to stop in time. The devil smiles. A deep delight escapes me in form of a satisfied sigh. But the morning victory would well have been a mourning defeat. The day will go well, I think. Road rage brings a unique peace, a fulfilment, a feeling of achievement.

The pressures of prosperity get heavier at every traffic light, on every flyover, in every parking slot. The man who got up to spiritual inspiration ragas ends up a mere mortal. A 15-second waiting time, a 5-second brush with an equal or smaller vehicle, a 30-second frustration with an overpowering SUV, and it’s all over. That cab, this bus, he chatting on the mobile phone, she wasting precious seconds with a red lipstick on a green light. It’s so easy to lose the civilised man in a metro.

It is the devil’s arena, this driving. We are the new gladiators. Our weapons are not merely the skill of accelerator-clutch-brakes balance, but the lava that fuels it. To find god in all this, ha! Springsteen was right—it’s really hard to be a saint in the city.