Short-cuts

A two wheeler is the worst option to travel in Bangalore. By the time I reach office I wil be covered by an inch of smoke and dust and my clothes will emanate a nausiating smell of smoke. Even abundant amounts of deo cannot keep this smell away for long. There is an option of covering myself in a jacket, gloves, scarf for hair and face, shoes socks and what not. I have an inherent dislike for gloves, scrafs and even socks which somehow suffocate me. Wearing all these trendy accessories and riding on the foot paths criss-crossing the oh-so-many-small-big-noisy-smoky vehicles on the Great old Madras road tops my list of "Worst thing to do on a Monday morning".

But for a change, I like bangalore traffic. After trying the two wheeler for a week I sold it and started travelling by bus and the bus journeys make me like the notorious Bangalore traffic. It takes me around 30 minutes in the morning to reach office which is 6kms away from home and again around 30 minutes in the evening to reach back home. It is during this time that I get all the time on earth for myself. I donot talk with anyone in the bus, I want to be alone, listen to music, look out of the window and think. An hour's idleness is a luxury these days and that is why I like Bangalore traffic. No 2 wheeler please and a big nooo to 4 wheelers.

Two years of bus jorneys have taught me a lot. I have realized that I did not "think" much about anything before in life and I learnt what is thinking. I have thought a lot about the past, what I have done and what I have not done. And I have come up with some theories about life in general which might be seen in my future blogs. This post is not about my one of those yet-to-be-made-public theories, but a story about an incident in pursuit of short-cuts.

The incident occured on a monday morning. Like any other so-called-techie I hate Monday mornings and usually get late by 2 hours to office. There will be someone somewhere conspiring against my sincere efforts to smile on Monday mornings. So on this fateful day I woke up late as usual and decided to take an auto to office as I did not have the patience to walk till bus stop, wait for one, buy a ticket, catch a seat, again get down from the crowded bus at the proper stop and again walk till office. Accepting that I am a little lazy I got into This auto.

At some junction, the auto driver took a turn in the opposite direction of Old Madras Road. This turn in the opposite direction leads to a road which is supposed to be a short-cut with lesser traffic. As I have an aversion for short-cuts and narrow mud roads I told him to go back to the proper road in the correct direction. The autowala started arguing that this route is shorter and takes very less time compared to the OMR. I was not in a mood to argue and so I settled down to try this famous short-cut.

The auto crossed an arch and entered this road whose name I donot know. It was a bumpy road which was narrow enough to be a one-way road but it was a two-way road. If the short-cut is a little famous, it always happens that the short-cut is more crowded than the main road as everyone want to take the short-cut. And so, this short-cut was crowded with all sorts of big and small vehicles, the narrow roads making the traffic very slow. The autowala got impatient after inching some distance behind a truck and took a left turn into a narrower lane as soon as he found one. A short-cut in the short-cut. He then criss-crossed through a lot many lanes of some Palya and entered the main road of another Palya. Again he took a right and entered another road where I got a little scared as it looked like an isolated area with some construction work going on in the surroundings. No short-cuts in the city are spared and hence vehicles started appearing in this mud road as well which convinced me that the autowala had only the short-cuts in his mind, not my money or mobile phone.

The auto went left and right into innumerable lanes of many Palyas confusing the auto driver himself. Finally, he somehow managed to enter the Kaggadasapura main road. I was happy to be back in familiar zones again but the happiness did not last long. This road has a railway crossing where all the action was. There was a traffic jam on the railway crossing. Well yes, it happens only in India. The place was in total chaos. The jam was because a city bus and a truck carrying water were trying to cross the track from opposite directions at the same time. Neither of them could switch to reverse gear as there was a big queue of vehicles behind them. The two wheelers were trying to squeeze in every possible hole and people were left with no option but to shout and honk. There was not a single traffic police to been seen in another 10 miles and hence some abiding citizens who thought that they could handle the situation better than others took the charge of policing, only adding to the chaos. It was an amazing show altogether and I was enjoying it like a live movie until I heard someone shouting we will all die if its time for a train. I was alerted by this and made sure that there was a railway checkpost, atleast with a watchman and a phone. The jam was ON the railway track and nothing could be done if there was a speeding train except running for our lives. Hope the watchman and the phone worked as they were supposed to work. Thankfully, there was no train and the jam was unjammed with a lot more of shouting and honking. It was more than half an hour since I had boarded the auto and it was my turn to shout at the autowala for taking this short-cut. He mumbled something and again took another set of narrow lanes before turning up on the outer ring-road.

We had to cross the outer-ring road and reach the road on the other side which leads to the rear gate of my office. But alas, there was another traffic jam on the outer ring road. This traffic jam was because there were more vehicles coming from the service road than the ring road and everyone was trying to enter the ring road at the same point but in opposite directions. Hope you understood what I meant. Never mind, traffic jams are not meant to be understood. Incidentally, a truck carrying water was the main culprit here too. Cursing the trucks carrying water, I got down from the auto and decided to cross the road and reach office by walking the distance of half a kilometer. Remember, I was lazy to walk till the bus-stop and wait for the bus. The autowala had asked for 10 rupees extra but neither of us had change and so he got only 3 rupees extra. I heard a voice saying "That is what you deserve". Finally, I walked and reached office 1 hour and 10 minutes after leaving home.

If I had taken a bus or if the auto driver had taken the OMR instead of taking the short-cut I would have been in office within 30 minutes and in better shape. You know, it was a monday morning and something is supposed to happen on monday mornings. But this episode left me thinking. About short-cuts. My aversion to short-cuts got stronger and a lesson in life was proved. Never to take a short-cut. Especially a famous short-cut. Short-cuts might look tempting, but they cannot really match the main roads. They are narrow, confusing and mean. Its only a belief that we will reach faster if we take the short-cuts and it might be true sometimes. But we will always miss something if we take a short-cut. The main roads might look longer but they are more sensible and always leave us at the correct destination. The hurdles on the main road are easier to handle than those on the short-cuts. So never take a short-cut - the Long Way is the best way. You know what I mean by short-cuts :)