You got a fast car? Park it!

“Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel

Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel

Yeah, we're goin' to the roadhouse

Gonna have a real

Good time

Yeah, back at the roadhouse they got some bungalows

Yeah, back at the roadhouse they got some bungalows

The next door people

Like to go down slow

Let it roll, baby, roll

Let it roll, baby, roll

Let it roll, baby, roll

Let it roll, all night long”

“All night long, all night LONG!” sang the four of them. Screamed rather. The clock struck 2.The speedometer 120. The accelerator floored. Wind bellowed in from the open windows. Hardly a word could be heard. Everything flashed past. Adrenalin pumped. The car revved and peaked. They were drunk on speed. It seemed so much fun it had to be illegal. Speed. Thrill. Rush. Blur!

The car suddenly swerved at the precise moment. If it hadn’t, the wheels would have licked a little speed-breaker by the footpath. The tiny rock, covered in flesh, looked mysteriously like live human feet. On both sides of windows was the humungous island of affluence, and right in the middle, a fast street that several consider their living room, kitchen and ‘sundaas’ at sundown.

But for that quick jerk, he could have taken a life, and charged, as per law, with culpable homicide. Culpable-blameworthy; homicide-killing. He was both lucky and sober, though he learnt; you’d neither be drunk nor rash to be the negligent driver possessed by gods of death on such streets.

He could have mowed down people while they were sleeping in their homes. He would have rammed into the pavement. He would have otherwise hurt a footpath and himself; gone to the police, or to the hospital. But the pavement was a bedroom for six. The issue with illegitimate villages openly kissing the sides of already unplanned, pre-modern cities is that bullock-carts haven’t replaced cars yet. They must.

Delhi, so far as my eyes go, has no cabs. Kolkata, of what I’ve heard has no roads. And Chennai, from what I could observe, has no drunks either behind or under the wheel. So Bombay by far has the worst deal. And then there are graveyard taxis where you can see the ground beneath your feet, the same ones that will refuse you their services for a distance too short; feather-weight auto-rickshaws that can fly off the tracks at the touch of an insect. Potholes for roads, the never ending construction, corrupt police officers. The list - endless.

All this for one peaceful drive. One relaxing peaceful drive. Your need for speed. The best remedy for all your blues. But if unfortunately you are unlucky enough to be a Bombay-ite spare that thought.

‘Take me down to the paradise city

Where the grass is green

And the girls are pretty

Take me home

Oh, won't you please take me home’

So sang Axl Rose. But on these roads good luck reaching there!