Thank you for keeping me alive and gasping

A day in the life of a brave commuter-by-car in an exploding metropolis

The peak-hour experience on a Bengaluru street recently.

Much has been said about driving in India, more so about doing so in Bengaluru. However, that is not going to deter me, as I am one of those millions experiencing it for 36-odd km on a daily basis… not counting the extra few kilometres every other day.

Whenever I start my car, I say it to myself: “Oh God, keep today’s driving as uneventful as possible as I have better things to worry about.” However, within the next 10 seconds, on my first turn from my by-lane to the lane, I will realise that God has not heeded to my prayers that day also, as somebody will come on the wrong side on a two-wheeler with his head tilted like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, on a phone that is precariously held between shoulder and cheek.

Your heart will skip a beat as you just had your first “near-miss”. The first sign of irritation creeps on to your forehead when you realise that while you have succeeded in protecting your car from a scratch at best or an accident at worst, the person who was responsible for that in the first place continues to ride on, totally oblivious to what he had almost caused.

Take the turn to the main road leading to the highway, and you realise that what you had just experienced pales into comparison. Every ‘No-Parking’ board stands as a hapless mute spectator with people parking their vehicles right under its nose. What? Police? They are a rare commodity to be seen in such spots.

Then comes what is called the Circle where a few roads coming from various directions meet, and I have to cut across the centre to proceed further. They should have been named Circus instead as one has to do acrobats (if on a two-wheeler) or stunts (if) in a car to cross the Brownian Motion like chaos. The lone traffic constable stands in a Buddha-in-meditation mode as he has tried and failed controlling it.

The near-miss count jumps to five within the 300-odd metres travelled from the residence so far. As the vehicle enters the serene road via the Gnanabharathi campus of Bangalore University, the vehicle of Lord Yama (

aka buffalo) will be busy on its morning walk in search of breakfast and in the process slowing down the traffic and almost causing a vehicle pile-up. (Near Miss #6)

As soon as I take a right turn towards Mysuru in the Bengaluru-Mysuru Highway, my lips will go on an overdrive of chanting “all-is-well” (to reassure myself) as the real test of one’s driving skills starts now.

The morning rush of vehicles towards the Bidadi industrial area along with students commuting to the various schools and colleges in the vicinity and tourists going towards the historical city will add to my anxiety. Topping all this will be the numerous under-powered but overloaded trucks, tractors and what not driving in the extreme right lane with total impunity at a painfully slow speed.

Overtaking on the right is impossible with the slow-moving vehicles. Overtaking on the left will be equally impossible as a minority group of law-abiding (and fearful) motorists drive on slowly.

When on a rare stretch where you have some opportunity to overtake and proceed further, the villain appears out of nowhere in the form of a tractor coming in the opposite direction with the lights on and occupying one lane of the traffic.

Dealing with it and driving further, I come across land-mines ( aka speed-breakers). Bengaluru is probably the only place on earth where one ‘travels’ on a hump. The humps are so big and wide, that they are meticulously designed in an un-scientific manner. They are camouflaged to ensure that they are invisible to the motorists.

By now my near-miss count is about 10.

Maintaining sanity, you continue to drive towards your place of work, only to be confronted by bikers, pedestrians and the occasional cows jumping diagonally onto the road from the median, very similar to obstructions thrown at the runner in the famous Temple Run.

My near-miss counter reaches 15, and I still have a kilometre and a half to go.

The final test (for the morning driving session) is at the “U” turn to my destination. Right at the mouth of the U-turn, several buses would be parked. Tourists would stop their vehicles for a sip of tender coconut and the over-excited party worker would have kept an oversized flex banner right at the median, perfectly blinding the view on the on-coming vehicle.

Surviving everything and getting into the parking lot of the factory, I feel tired, drained and frail, even before I begin a marathon eight-plus hours at the desk.

Driving back home? That is another story for another day.

Thank you God, for still keeping me alive!

ksvijayabaskar@gmail.com