© 2002 Vidya Sigamany

On a half-hour ride to office...

It was nearing 10:30 a.m. when I set out to office. Navin put me in an auto where Sivan Koil Street meets Arcot Road - more popularly known as the Gayathri Wines junction. The auto driver calmly switched on the metre - relief! - this meant no arguing about the fare at the end of the journey. He was a formidable looking fellow with a shaven head.

He stopped at the petrol bunk just before Meenakshi College. As he got down to get petrol, I looked out. There was a STD booth nearby. The owner, I presume, got out with a tiffin box in his hand. He used water from the box to wash his mouth and spit the water out on the ground. I looked at my watch - 10:35 a.m. And he had already finished his lunch! I guess he starts his day very early at the booth.

Petrol filled, we went out into Arcot Road and climbed up the Kodambakkam bridge. As usual, traffic was heavy and we were moving up very slowly. I saw a girl in a brown salwar pushing her Scooty up the bridge. I felt utmost sympathy for her - a breakdown halfway up the bridge is the worst that can happen to you - without counting the scorching sun and the smoke from the other vehicles. Suddenly, the WagonR in front of us started moving down in a kind of slow motion and grazed the front of the auto before the car driver seemed to get his control back again. It provoked our driver so much that he immediately overtook the car (which was not the easiest thing to do in the middle of a traffic jam on a bridge), shook his fist at the car's driver and hurled expletives at him. He couldn't get down because, well… we were in the middle of a jam. When we stopped at the traffic signal just after the bridge, Shaven-head got out and inspected the front of his dear vehicle, all the while eyeing the traffic behind us, presumably looking out for the WagonR. Luckily, before he could get into a brawl, the lights changed to green.

We reached the Nungambakkam High Road signal without event. I checked my watch - 10:45 a.m. By the roadside, an old man sat on the ground cleaning garlic pearls spread out on a piece of sack. He probably worked at the small blue cabin-kiosk that served tea, snacks and lunch. An auto came to a sudden screeching halt on our left and its driver called out jauntily to our man, "Dai Mottai (meaning, hey baldy)!" I half expected our man to lunge at the other guy and give him a nice thrashing. I braced myself. No, Shaven-head's lips broke into a small smile as he exchanged small talk with his fellow-driver till it was time for both to go their separate ways.

At the Gemini Flyover signal (we got red again), I heard a moped driver ask a scooterist, "Time enna, saar?"

"10:50."

We travelled along Cathedral Road. Outside Agarwal Eye Clinic, two old men, one wearing glasses and holding a newspaper open, sat on the tree-lined sidewalk discussing something. The time - 11:00 a.m.

We went up the Alwarpet bridge, turned right at Nilgiris Department Store. Just before we reached Sivasamy Road, we were caught in a mini traffic jam as a huge Onyx truck was parked on one side of the small road emptying the garbage bins. We continued and turned right again, opposite Sanskrit College, into Royapettah High Road. At the next intersection on the road, which has a temple, a daily market, shopping complexes and what not, there was sheer chaos as usual - a mother clutching a baby in one hand and holding a little girl with her other hand crossed the road hurriedly; a young bearded pujari emerged from the temple carrying a cloth bag; an old couple holding hands crossed, or rather walked across the road unhurriedly stopping all traffic; in the middle of all this an urchin with a jug in one hand shot across the road grinning gleefully as he narrowly missed colliding with a cyclist.

Shaven-head showed immense patience as he slowly waded through the bottleneck and finally deposited me at the office gates at 11:10 a.m. I paid him the fare - Rs. 43 - and went inside, images of Chennai running through my mind.