She hit me hard, and now I am a rascal

The city of Bangalore has got a lot of attractions for youngsters. The traffic, fashion, dogs, malls, and above all, a plethora of opportunities to start a professional career. From the day one I landed a job in this IT hub, I had been nursing a small dream – I think I am still not capable of dreaming big.

My first office was in the third floor of a building on old airport road. As a fresher, I immediately found out that getting a job is not everything, but getting on with one is. I had got an easy chair, but on the contrary, the job was quite challenging and didn’t give me much time to recline on the chair. However, during stressful evenings, I used squeeze in a minute or two to move my window-curtain aside and look down to the road that goes along my building.

The whole Bangalore would be on the road at that time. Cars, buses, bikes, bicycles, and so on. The scene of a thousand headlights rending the darkness of night has always been a turn on for me. Sometimes, the long haul of vehicles looked like an extraordinarily large train with each boggy having two headlights. I would enjoy that stress buster scene with my evening quota of a cup of frothing tea.

To contribute one more headlight to the road was my small dream – yes, I wanted to buy a bike and join this traffic procession.

I tabled the proposal at home to own a bike. I was not very hopeful because mom and dad were already at loggerheads with me over my lack of enthusiasm to try for a job in Kerala and settle down there. Occasional news reports about explosions, fires, accidents and other untoward sporadic occurrences in Bangalore always had them stepping up pressure on me to relocate. But I am yet to bulge.

Naturally, the proposal got rejected. Mom and dad put up three reasons for the rejection. First: There will be a hell lot of speeding vehicle on Bangalore roads and if I met with an accident, nobody would be there to take care of me. Second: Handling a heavy bike will cause further loss of my weight. It is a matter of concern because I am already underweight at 55 kg despite boasting of a height of 5.8 feet. Third: They don’t consider me to be any good at riding.

Despite this early setback, I worked out a strategy and told mom that vehicles in Bangalore would move very slowly, just as vehicles move in Eid-ul-Milad procession that she sees each year. But still she didn’t want me to get out of the ‘window-seat-comfort’ of BMTC buses.

My next challenge was to tackle the weight loss fears. I convinced her that I would get 5 minutes rest at each signal after every 10 minutes of riding. But she wanted to know the number of such signals between my room and office. I said 6. And she was happy to calculate that I will get one hour ‘on-road rest’ every day, up and down. I need not convince dad. Mom will do that.

By the time the proposal was accepted, I had joined a new company. Earlier, in the ‘window-seat-comfort’, I used to jealously watch bikers on the road. For me they were the most free people in the world as they can stop at any juice corner at any time, have refreshment drinks and move on. If I ever get out of the bus for a drink, my ticket price would go straight to Marathahally – my stop.

During the initial days of my biking, I used to extremely enjoy the city ride. There would be lots of brand new cars, bikes, beautiful girls with their flowery scooties whirring along side. The road looked like a heaven, even under the burning sun.

However, after my short honey-moon with the bike, I began to find handling that heavy machine (it is relative) with my thin structure to be a horrendous task. Adding insult to injury was some revving guys who at times kiss my bike’s ass from behind. When I turn back, with a heavy helmet on my head, to focus the hitter, he would salute me with a big ‘sorry.’ I would not initiate a quarrel as that would cause a traffic snarl and probably attract a fine. Within two weeks, I became used to such ‘hits from behind’.

April 16th of 2010 was the day I would like to forget the most in my life. I was going to attend a company training at a hotel on Brigade Road. As I couldn’t find the hotel, I stopped at a shop to ask the shop guy about the hotel. Luckily, at the very moment, he was guiding an auto, which was taking two journalists to the same training program to this hotel.

So the easy option for me was to closely follow that auto so that I can reach the hotel without any confusion. I followed them very closely because I didn’t want to lose the way in that heavy morning traffic again. But when the auto guy suddenly applied the brakes at a hump, I had to react in a jiffy to avoid a hit. My disc brake was so sudden that a beautiful girl on a bright red scooty lost her drum-control and hit me violently from behind, the hardest hit I have ever had in Bangalore, hurling me and my bike on to the auto.

When I looked back, recovering from the fall, I saw her too shocked even to say sorry. The traffic moved on for about 5 more metres, before it came to a halt at the next signal, and the auto driver came out charging to me. He started calling even my ancestral fathers. At this point I wanted to prove my innocence.

Pointing to the back, I started to say, “Bhayya, this girl......”. But she was not there as she was yet to recover from the shock of her own hit and was stuck at the accident spot, still unaware that traffic had started moving. The auto guy was fuming up like a Yamaha RX 100 engine, glaring at me. I even forgot to breathe as I thought he was going to hit me. “Bhayya, one girl just....”.

Without allowing me to finish my sentence, he said, “Rascals like you won’t ever see other vehicles when there is a girl riding along side. Who the hell did give you the license to ride?” Smelling a news, two journalists in the auto craned their heads out from both sides. In a few seconds a hundred heads started peeping out from their vehicles around us.

I just wished I had died on the spot sitting on my bike.