When Teddy Bear called to announce his arrival in Chennai, I was busy directing traffic around my car, in the middle of a busy ring road near Koramangala!  His call was a reminder that I had not posted a blog in a long while!  Inertia...ennui..whatever….!!! As I spoke to him letting him know of my predicament, I figured out that life was not going to get any more interesting than this…and what was happening, was certainly blog-worthy!!! 

Driving in peak-morning traffic in Bangalore is a masochist’s delight!  And the misery is compounded when you are not familiar with the roads!  Miss a turn and you’ll find yourself hopelessly lost trying to negotiate your way back to your destination!  And so, when my friend offered his car to drive down to Jaya Nagar from the airport, had common sense prevailed I would have turned down the offer!!! Instead,  I allowed myself to be convinced to take up the offer…straight road, you can’t miss it…you are starting quite early…even if you drive slowly you’ll make it with plenty of time to spare…were the arguments put forth. It was very reluctantly that I made this decision!  I had one last shot at backing out when I saw the battered old Esteem!!! But then, there are some days when you don’t listen to your instincts…and pay the price!!! Vinashakaale vipareethabudhi!!!  Little did I know what was in store for me!!!

With great trepidation, I started off, turned into airport road, and was immediately swallowed into the big, long bottleneck that is Bangalore’s roads! The deed was done…too late to go turn back now.  So, in start-stop-doze-off-wake-up-start-again traffic, I made slow progress until I reached the left to the Koramangala Ring road.  The traffic eased a bit and I actually managed to get to third gear before we reached a traffic light.  There was a long line of cars ahead of me…and I settled down to some more of the start-stop…routine. The lights turned green…and then it happened!  The car suddenly stopped.  I switched on the ignition again in hurry; a rasp and sputter that followed were the death spasms of the battery! My car would not start!  My worst fears had come true!!!

How often have I honked the ears off a hapless motorist whose vehicle stalled or stopped after the lights had turned green?  And today I had my comeuppance!!! I turned on the hazard lights to indicate that I was hopelessly stuck.  Fortunately for me, the lights at the signal turned red again.  A few cursing drivers slowly maneuvered their vehicles past mine.  I tried turning on the ignition a few more times…it was getting stuffy inside.  I tried to roll down the window.  Power windows…no power…windows don’t work!!! I took advantage of the red light to get out and inspect the situation. Looking back at the turn of events, I can quite confidently say that that’s the exact moment when my fortunes turned!!! Do they not say that it is darkest before dawn!!! Well, I had just hit touched the nadir - From this point on…anything that could happen could only be construed as good!!! And that included what I wished hard for….that the earth would open up and swallow me quietly!!! I had gotten out of the car, closed the door…and heard the automatic lock go on!!! I had locked myself out of the car in the middle of a busy intersection!!! J  A goli in a goli-soda…that’s what I might have looked like to a satellite taking a picture of this road at that moment!!!

Quickly surveying the situation, I surmised that the path of least curses lay in giving other drivers advance notice about my car, so that they could negotiate their vehicles around mine!!!  I called my friend to let him know of my predicament!  He promised to get there in the shortest possible time – in about an hour, I estimated – two kilometers on the airport road and two more on the ring road!!! Wearing my best plastic smile, I stood behind my car, diverting traffic.  I wish I had joined the Road Safety Patrol while at school!  Some drivers got too close before they figured out I was not standing there trying to cross the road!!! And a honk and a glare later, they swung their vehicles to the left or to the right, getting dangerously close to some other vehicle!  I shudder to think what might would have happened if they had actually collided with another car while negotiating this obstacle!

The phone call from TB turned out to be a blessing in disguise!  It gave me an opportunity to look at the funny side of what was happening!!! One interesting observation:  In all the time that I stood there (for more than an hour), there was just one good Samaritan who offered to help move the car to a side. He must have thought I must be one weird guy, when I explained to him that it was not possible to move the car, as I had locked myself out!!! For the rest of the road users, this was just another obstacle in their daily ride to office which had to be surmounted…what is one more bottleneck when the entire road itself looks like a long bottleneck!!! 

Relief finally was at sight…at a distance, standing at a vantage point (atop the median) I sighted my friend coming on a scooty!!! He parked the vehicle and waded through the traffic holding a duplicate key in hand; we opened the door, released the hand-brake and moved the vehicle to a side!  Shortly thereafter, he was followed by the owner of the scooty – who arrived in an auto – to claim her vehicle!!! I helped push-start the car; happily relieved of my traffic duties, I got into the auto and resumed my journey… a couple of hours late for my appointment!!!

Markatasya sura pana (monkey gets drunk)

madhey vrushchika darshanam (scorpion bites it)

tan madhey preatha sancharam (on top of that, the devil gets him)

yadwa tadwa bhavishythi (what do u think can happen to the poor monkey)