Traff*cked: That Time when your life is going nowhere, neither is anyone else.

Picture by Siddhesh Kabe, Gurgaon Flyover

In our entire life we identify two places that are of importance to our existence, one is called home, the other work. One place gives you peace while the other gives you money. The entire 80-90 years of a humans life is spend travelling between these two places and inventing new ways of doing it. The 60 million years of human history is filled with people going to earn money at work losing their peace, then returning home to get that peace and lose the money earned. The cycle of life continous.

As technology progressed so did mans necessity to create bigger and better blunder in life. Its uncanny, earlier we used make mistakes in b&w, then in technocolor, now in full blown 3D.

Human stupidity reaches its pinnacle during the 20 minutes of life, where life stops. The traffic jam consumes all the 7 sins of mankind in a single blow. Everything comes to a stand still, waiting for the world to move on. Did the world stop revolving, you wonder?

Traffic jam is the art of life. It is the butter between breads of life, one fine day the devious plan to drive home early to catch the twenty twenty series ongoing with the arch nemisis is foiled by the giant traffic jam. We learn a lot in traffic jam, for one we learn the importance of radio in a car which otherwise keeps entertaining while the driver is busy oogling on the street.

You get time out of your daily like to ponder over the largest question hauting humanity since the dawn of civilization, ‘Why does mickey mouse wear only pants and no shirt, while Donald Duck wears only shirt and no pants…’

Than there are those who think standing in a queue is beneath them. They hate waiting and have no idea which lane to go through in life. There is a long queue waiting for the traffic to clear out, suddenly in the opposite lane driving his entire life in wrong side of the street. “Oh cmon man, what are we some sort of fools?” You exclaim. After a while that illiterate realizes that traffic jam is clearled long back and now the entire traffic is stalled due to his vehicle.

The honkers like to play the complete music sympony with their horns in the middle of the street. Do they honestly believe that their horns have magical powers that someone honking loudly all vehicles will clear the street?

The tetris lower kids now driving two wheelers start their game of tetris inside the traffic jam. These riders are expert in finding gaps inside the traffic jam, they will squeeze between two cars with minimum distance and try to reach the opening in front. Do they get some prize at the opening or no I am not sure. There was this driver who practically danced inside a traffic jam to get his vehicle out. He succedded. I had a genius idea of awarding a 100 rs note to a driver who managed to squeeze his bike inside the 4 lane street but due to traffic, I could not open the door.

When I used to carpool to office, during rush hour, my carpool partner asked me to rush home, I wondered why, but I told him, it is difficult as there is a lot of traffic. I duly put on the AC to escape from the dust on the street when the partner said, ‘Sorry’ and turned the entire car into the gas chamber. Oh the horror.

Traffic jam is now part of life, it is like rain or bank holidays or a Shahrukh Khan film, you actually don’t like it but then get used to it. If one day you reach home without getting stuck in a traffic jam, you feel uneasy. As if someone has removed a part of you brutually.

Those few minutes of your life where nothing is moving, actually a lot many things are moving inside your head. It is sometimes good to slow down the pace of life and take a little break to get trapped in a traffic jam. Maybe have a cadbury or a cosy talk with someone. Who knows, that moment when nothing is moving, your life might move ahead?