hell-met

With the Mumbai roads, everything has to happen at the same time. The Metro construction, skywalk constructions, detours during heavy rains, and incessant honking by bikers and car drivers who think sound waves help facilitate smooth traffic movement. Travelling to work is a saga every single day, with sufficient new stories and scripts observed daily to empower 3 television series.

The purpose of skywalks is to eliminate pedestrians from the roads, considering 'footpaths' technically don't exist anymore. They're encroached by shops, tapris, and now, serve as an alternate route for 2-wheelers. Yet, skywalks aren't used by the walking citizens, who choose to run aimless cutting through traffic, contributing to the pandemonium. Subways don't fare better either, but atleast they aren't obstacles themselves.

With improved spending power of the working class, the number of vehicles on the roads has been on an upward trend and will continue to be. Although flyovers have eased the pain along the arterial roads, the scene in the inroads and other lesser important roads is terrible. And if you're a motorist who happens to be on one such road and you encounter a BEST bus here, you might as well cancel all imminent appointments and plug your ipod on to set the numbness in.

L'Oreally?

Even a decade ago, Indian youths were content with being fixated on simple stuff like hair braids, contact lenses, and new designs Bata was coming out with. They were healthy fixations that preoccupied them when they weren't mugging up brief answers in Geography or Science II.

Today, the youth's obsessions have taken an unhealthy turn. Of the many abominations that have caught the fancy of today's youth, the obsession with fairness really grinds my gears. Suddenly, this inferiority complex crept in. The need to look fairer was compounded when advertisements and brand ambassadors portrayed fairness as a pre-requisite to getting a good date, a good job, being accepted in society and what not!

Penelope Cruz and Aishwarya Rai have no idea how influencing they are when they flaunt their overpriced fairness creams and proclaim the aam janta to be 'worth it'?? what the hack? Selling someone their own 'dignity' seems to be the hand these MNC's are playing in this strange poker game of marketing. And no, they dont even get a naturally dark individual to play the part of the disillusioned non-fair person whom opportunities in life are evading. Its always a semi-fair person with a generous amount of shoe polish rubbed across the face. And within 2 weeks of applying said cream, voila! Not only are you fair, you're positively radiating, like Earth's second moon.

Playing with people's aspirations and careers for the sake of selling some tin cans isnt ethical, but hey, who cares about ethics, right? Being fairer than the person next to you is the all important difference when it comes to you getting a posh life and job. So, don't turn your ugly dark head up about this.

arteriosclerosis

Move over AXE Effect and Fair & Handsome! The latest bus-stop advertisements are the local netas (read: goondas) and their "colleagues" (read: henchmen). I wonder the logic adopted by these guys in self promotion. Usually riding on a festival or a national event or a public holiday or even a dignitary's  visit, these pompous rats will produce large banners (usually large plastic on wooden frames) and post them on every available bus stop and/or dangle them from every tree, roof, and tie them between lamp posts and even traffic signals.

Typically, its the main man's face that beams at you in its largeness. His face is 5 times larger than his subordinate, whose face in turn is twice as large as the 12-15 odd accomplices. Buckteeth, large lips, cross eyed looks, bad fashion, and desperately-need-haircut appearances greet you every morning when you're waiting for your bus.

Who allows such ridiculous abominations to be displayed? Power allows such ugly pigeons to strut their black feathers in front of the public eye, and what are we supposed to do? Adore them? We're already literally looking up to them. These political leeches appear to have only limited motives such as disrupting peaceful celebrations (Valentines'), showing superficial concern toward victims of floods, droughts and other calamities, and tirelessly working toward imprinting their ugly faces in our minds, most probably a month or so before any election.

sputter croak fizzle

Crucifixes of tires on telephone posts adorning roadside garages, serve as signals for those suffering by impromptu punctures and engine failures. A mechanic almost always in a navy blue shirt and dark grey trousers with a greased napkin dangling from his pocket, a spanner in hand, and a motor-oil branded cap worn backward will step up to help you out.

A lifted bonnet and a quick survey later, he briefs you in your engine's shortcoming(s) and suggests alternatives to put you out of your misery. Fix this, turn that, spike this, pour that, blow this, push that, exchange this, refill that. Once he's done with his under-the-hood shenanigans, he asks you to start the ignition and a healthy rumble later, he triumphantly shuts the hood, always a little harder than necessary, maybe to punctuate his efforts and squeeze out an extra tip.

Then, before you ask him how much that little session had cost you, he retreats to his 'shop' and gets his air tube and analyzes each tire's health. You sit back, waiting. And after short hisses and spurts, he creeps back into your rear view window, whistling some 90's Hindi movie song.

Retreat he does into his shop, and wipes his greasy hands on his greasy napkin, and with quick mental maths that you could never calculate or understand, he throws a 3 digit number at you, and even if you object to it, seeing his oiled burrows and stained cap, you rethink and decide to part with the said sum plus tip. A 'thank you boss' later, you're on your way, inevitably waiting to be serviced by the next mechanic a few hundred miles later.