When you feel the bumps while driving or when someone behind you, starts honking violently on the flash of the green signal (as if hurling abuses at you) you know you’re on one of the most congested roads of the world. Welcome to the city of dreams Mumbai. This also happens to be a demo of an action or a racing game and an experience that even the XBOXs and the Playstations will fail to deliver.
Often it takes the persona of a pedestrian and a driver to understand the reasoning. It’s like an action game with 2 teams and one can switch to and fro. Hence once installed on the driver’s seat, I have to set aside my ego, don the gloves of an intelligent android and focus solely on the difficult task ahead (game on!). On the roads of Mumbai a surprise element like a rickshaw or a stray walker is waiting patiently to pounce in front of you at any given moment. So it’s like a game, albeit one where there’s no lifeline offered. Such are the rules that you hit the specified ‘targets’ and you lose the only life that you have. Of late, I feel like I am a part of Pac-Man, the arcade game, where the miniature rickshaws posing as the eating mouths follow me in the varied maze of lanes. I go nuts running away from them but they always get rejuvenated & multiply by some strange powers that be. Not to mention, the referee (read the traffic cop) who seems to be on their side always and strangely the rules are made by them but dutifully followed by the sane androids like me. Humphh!!
Also like in a typical Road Rash sequence, the cars overtake me the moment the lights go green. I see them speed away at a distance; the driver sneering at me. I later realize the outcome of the ‘race’ is decided at the next traffic signal, thanks to the narrow lanes of this city and the cooperation of the traffic. Little do these local Schumachers understand that it’s insanely mindless to overtake here and it can be fatal to both life and the vehicle itself.
I am too tired of these frequent (mis)adventures but it seems like I become a part of it unknowingly when I ride on the roads of Mumbai. The one suggestion that I could give to the drivers of this city is to be patient and drive safely. Till the day we get the broad roads that we all expect to ride smoothly to our places, let’s park the competition at bay.
I have ushered myself in a self proclaimed new era of entertainment. I have finally shifted to 