This article has been submitted by Mishthi Dubey for the CLATGyan Blog Post Writing Competition. If you think this article is a good read, ‘Like’ this article on Facebook (the button is at the bottom of this piece) or post a comment using the ‘comments’ section below.
It was a Monday morning. The wide roads of Connaught place, New Delhi, were carpeted with a flood of office goers and students. I was out on a shopping spree with my friends, taking a pleasure ride on a cycle-rickshaw – currently the most peaceful vehicle on roads.
The light turned red. With it, the whole atmosphere was smothered with loud honks, the actual purpose of which remained unknown. Was it to trouble that sole poor traffic policeman, who was already having a hard time whistling hard and that too, to no avail?
Whatever the purpose maybe, I enjoyed a musical opera that day! Loud Honks, short honks, whistling honks played in perfect sync with each other. Even the honkers seemed to enjoy the jugalbandi. Curses, cuss words and local slang added an edge to this musical extravaganza.
Suddenly, an auto darted in front of us. The driver wore headphones and had tattoos of “ghost rider” and “create history” on his arm . An Audi symbol adorned the headlamp of the 3 wheeler and the dark purple number plate on the rear. And then they wonder why these miscreants do not ever get caught! He seemed to consider himself to be a Sebastian Vettel or something, and the way he drove, I was pretty sure he’d soon create history, or maybe become a part of it.
Not even a minute had passed when SPLAT! The prospective ghost had spit all his paan out on the road. Without even a hint of regret, but with a look of satisfaction, he smiled gleefully at other drivers, who seemed to be enthralled by this act. Such was the impact of his performance that others couldn’t resist themselves. Within moments, a spitting-competition broke out. Who could spit more? How much? How high? Bets were placed freely on the subject and soon enough almost everybody was contesting. An angrez managed to spit without a break and soon began to emerge as the clear winner. Our rickshaw wala bhaiya watched quietly, yet to display his talent. He quickly twisted his mouth, and with the skill of an expert built over years of practice, he threw with mighty force everything he had in his mouth a good 2 meters away – straight at the 3 wheeled Audi! The angrez sulked.
The ghost, hitherto engrossed in listening to the latest song, jumped out with fierce rage, rolled up his sleeves, removed his headphones, grabbed the poor rickshaw driver by his collar and slapped him hard. Soon they both were on road, kicking and punching each other. A crowd of inquisitive people surrounded them and roared encouraging words.
In a matter of seconds and faster than any policeman arrived the local vendors selling boiled corn, parathas and chaudhari ki chai. Within moments they had made a fortune!
The light turned green and the commotion came to an abrupt end. People ran to their cars and whizzed off. The fighters got up, cursed each other and walked away. Our brave driver had survived all of it with just some bruises.
Soon we were whizzing past trees and the half-dead traffic policeman – now taking his much required nap, probably thinking to himself that he had managed to do everything so well, that too single-handedly!
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Mishthi Dubey is a Dilliwaali with a Bengali name from Surat, the “diamond of Gujarat”. The law school aspirant is a dreamer who loves animals, meeting new people and trying everything new. She enjoys reading and writing. She describes herself as a complicated girl, who vents her feelings through her writings.
