The Road to El Dorado

So the other day, a butterfly or a wasp, (to be honest I don’t know what specie of monster it was) flew right into our home. That is completely okay for normal civil people. But as the soft fluttering of its wings whirred in my ears, I shot a quick look at the tube light and left the house like a mad woman. Yes, I rushed outside the main door and waited patiently in the lobby till my folks let the creature out.

  

Phobia. Pain. Psychotic attack. You name it..!

I can’t stand anything with flapping wings. Scares the hell out of me.

 I was returning from work today when the same nausea enveloped me again. This time it was full of incessant horns, impatient turning of the wheels, hasty changing of gears, the war melody rising out of accelerator-clutch-break symphony, the doglike diagonal moves of lane changers, the truck drivers who mistook the highway for an F1 race, the drivers going against the flow thereby on the wrong side trying to kill us, the dead stray animals run over by vehicles from weeks ago, the crazy un-athletic public trying to cross ways on a freaking highway and then finally the safe service road where surprisingly everyone went in one direction and thankfully for me, it led to home.

Five more minutes, I think I would have stopped, abandoned my vehicle and hailed a taxi. I often wonder where exactly is this mad rush heading to? Is it time for the winter session of the Parliament already? Because by the look of it, it appears to me these rash drivers have somewhere real important to go to. Perhaps, they have been constipated far too long and suddenly there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. (zhandupancharisht comes to mind). But dear driver, if this isn’t the case you seriously got to be kidding me.

While some days, my good deeds of past life reward me in the form of slow but steady traffic, humans who halt to let people cross roads, humans who actually understand that horns are meant for alerting and in case of emergencies, they are not to be confused with air that we breathe, which is renewable and plentiful.

It is crazy that pedestrians walking on zebra crossings have to actually use hand gestures to stop vehicles from running them over. Isn’t it common sense? Thailand has been the only stamp on my passport so far, and I am always going to cherish the days when the Thai citizens stopped to let you cross the road safely. If we halted for a bus to go, the driver peeped out the window and urged us to go first. After my warm display of flying kisses to absolute strangers in cars and buses of Bangkok, I pledged to do the same when I am behind the wheel. I wish people showed some mark of respect for the ones walking on the streets.

I know that we all feel frustrated because someone else cut your way, they changed their lane and got ahead of you... just when you could have made it, the signal turned to a quick red from the lethargic yellow. However, just once, trying to keep cool and having a relaxed, non-Schumacher drive could add to a peaceful sleep. 

Let us be the pretty torch bearers of something beautiful.