I wake up to the alarm sound. Man, It's already 15 minutes past 8 am. I brush my teeth, take bath, drink coffee (not necessarily in the same order). Then I dress up, come out of the house and lock the door.
I wish my neighbour "good morning", take my bike out and start dusting her. I kick her (bike) and she starts talking to me in the four-stroke-exhaust-language. I put on my earphones to listen to one of the FMs. I release the clutch and I'm off to the office. With small cold start jerks, my bike moves and I hit the main road. I slow down near one of the junctions where the traffic density is not so high. Like any other day, a lady traffic police controls the traffic there. But I see that nobody is respecting her presence. However, I want to but my fellow commuters don't allow me to. Now I'm listening to my favorite number "Ya ali" on FM and humming it too. Suddenly, in the side mirror I see a monstrous thing approaching me. The words on the mirror say "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear" I pull over to the side so that the monstrous thing can get past me. That was a call center cab. I think of going full throttle on what seems to be an empty strech of road. But, a series of road humps make my plans of going full throttle into a damp-squib. I felt as if the road was yelling to me "be smooth on my curves". Suddenly the traffic signal turns yellow and my bike comes to a screeching halt. However, fellow commuters decide to go past the signal untill it turns red. I just pray to god that nobody hits me from behind. I shut off the engine and watch the signal timer counting down 90, 89, 88, 87…
I turn to my left and see an auto rickshaw with two passengers - two girls. One of them is on a phone and another just stares at me and turns away. I just talk to myself "What if she could be my mother's daughter-in-law?" The rickshaw’s engine is still making a rattling noise and emitting dense smoke. The same rickshaw squeezes into a small gap right infront of bike. Written on the back of the auto is a modern day Kannada proverb "Dil kotre love story, kai kotre crime story". It means “dil diya to love story, dhoka diya to crime story”. I laugh out loud. The signal is now counting 15, 14, 13... The signal turns yellow and the honking vehicles vroom off again. As I'm about to step on the gas, a city bus stops right infront of me, right in the middle of the road. I try to overtake the bus but the bus also moves. Cursing the driver I somehow manage to overtake it. During the course of overtaking, I pray that nobody pukes or spits out from the bus window. Now the road is free and I'm just 3 kms away from office. Suddenly, a lorry which was parked on the left side of the road takes a U turn and the lorry cleaner is signalling his hand in the other direction. After negotiating this unexpected hurdle, I again try to push my bike to the limits. Suddenly out of nowhere, a human being crosses the road and I'm forced to slow down. Again the racer in me provokes me to go full throttle. But now I see a board which says "XXXX Ltd. 200m ahead turn left".
Now, like a gentleman, I take a diversion to enter into the office campus hoping that a beautiful girl is hitchhiking (which of course never happens). I enter the campus, park my bike and sigh "Aaah, I forgot my access card"...
