Man From Matunga

I have writ­ten about this ear­lier, but four inci­dents this week pretty much show how we have com­pletely lost con­trol over two-wheelers and their rid­ers in this city.

A den­tal sur­geon friend of mine was cross­ing the road on a red traf­fic sig­nal near Capi­tol cin­ema in Gir­gaum. Sud­denly from nowhere a scooter came in front of him, star­tling him and mak­ing him stop in the mid­dle of the road. The scooter had to stop as well. My friend asked him why he was break­ing the light. The idiot scooter­ist told him, “Uncle, what world are you liv­ing in? Who both­ers about traf­fic sig­nals these days?” and imme­di­ately sped away, leav­ing my 50-year plus old friend speechless…and angry at his inabil­ity to do any­thing about this.

I was in a car going to the air­port. We took a left at the Sion Hos­pi­tal sig­nal going towards Dhar­avi, with Sion Hos­pi­tal to my right. Sud­denly, a doc­tor on a scooter, with a lab­coat and a stetho­scope around his neck, mind­lessly came in from the oppo­site direc­tion. He had pre­sum­ably come out from the Dharavi-side (morgue-side) gate and prob­a­bly wanted to go to the doc­tor quar­ters on the other side of the road. Nor­mally, to do that, you have to either make a U-turn at the sig­nal and dou­ble back or go from Bhau­daji road through a side lane. This idiot doc­tor was trav­el­ing in the wrong direc­tion, in the mid­dle of fast-moving traf­fic, the road choc-a-bloc with cars going towards Dhar­avi, not both­ered, not caring…either for his own life, or for the trou­ble he would cause some­one else, if he were run down.

I was in Lower Parel. I entered Gan­pa­trao Kadam Marg, which is the road that con­nects Worli Naka to Tulsi Pipe. It is really just a two-lane road with slow mov­ing con­stant traf­fic. The vehi­cles on the oppo­site side had stopped at the Penin­sula sig­nal. Sud­denly two bik­ers broke off and decided to ride down our side of the road uncar­ing about the oncom­ing traf­fic. The car dri­ver in front of me refused to move to his left to accom­mo­date these idiots and the bik­ers had to sud­denly break hard and stop to avoid a col­li­sion. The first biker got down and started shout­ing at the car dri­ver, but other dri­vers and passersby piled on to him instead and started giv­ing him such a piece of their mind that he imme­di­ately got onto his bike and sped away in the direc­tion from which he had come. Thank God for small mercies!

The lane from King’s Cir­cle to Don Bosco that has Khalsa Col­lege on its right, is one-way towards Don Bosco and has been so for the past 20 years and more. This one-way rule was rarely flouted…and now is rarely fol­lowed mainly because of some idiot, bike-riding Khalsa col­lege stu­dents. Dur­ing col­lege hours, they are con­stantly speed­ing up and down on this 50 meters stretch hop­ing prob­a­bly to impress the girls on the pave­ments. Two days ago, because of a car parked on the left, there was no space between my car and the pave­ment on the right…suddenly a biker appeared in front of me, went to my left and sped on, just when I was about to take a left turn. A sec­ond prior and I would have banged into him…but clearly he just didn’t value his own life.

The eter­nal cynic, I already believe it’s too late. And per­haps the only thing to do is to apply lig­no­caine all over our bod­ies and accept the new reality.