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Journalism of Courage
The Gandharva channel on World Space wakes me up with Bhimsen Joshi singing a sublime morning raga. A shrill 8216;have a nice day8217; filters in as my daughter dances her way to the car pool below. The cup of tea could be wah-taj, except that it is bed-red. The leaves of the peepal are beginning to lose their translucence. The day begins slow, everything is in harmony with the Force. I feel the Oneness of all things, human, trees, earth, air8212;all creatures and non-creatures. It is yet another calm morning.
And then I hit the road.
I can see very clearly that the motorcycle is not planning to stop. He is gambling that I will. I don8217;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 it8217;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. It8217;s so easy to lose the civilised man in a metro.
It is the devil8217;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 right8212;it8217;s really hard to be a saint in the city.
