The Road to Office

I wake up to a very beautiful morning every day with never ending hope of change in the world around me. My apartment is pretty high above the sea level and the view is refreshing and inspiring. With all this hope and inspiration I start for office and all my optimism is crushed as I step on to the gravel and loose dirt that is the road in front of my house – it looked out of utopia when I had seen the picture of my house before sinking 10 years of my life into debt in buying it.  

And then I set out on a journey that would ideally be a 15 minutes’ drive – the other great selling proposition. And into my good friend’s car we begin the adventure as we struggle through stakeholders of the road to my office. The numbers of people who own that small stretch of road is mind boggling. And ownership, I guess, means that rules do not apply – motion is live navigating through a free electron storm. Everyone, especially the ones with ownership rights, seem to come from every direction going in every direction.

When I was young, the local circus used to have a show called sphere of death, the Indian version of Ghostrider stunts. At that age, I was awed! These days it seems the road to Hinjewadi is quite the sphere of death in itself. No wonder Ghostrider was not very popular in Pune – we do this shit every morning.

Thank the lord for the colleague who is kind enough to give me a ride to office. One day I tried a bike ride myself; it was fun to the extent that the 45 minutes to an hour of usual travel time took me 25 minutes to cover and I had adrenaline & sweat dripping from my pores like ketchup through a soggy sandwich. But what started out as a white shirt ended up looking so differently colored that someone at the food counter asked me to wait on him and his rather fat team mate!

Never again! Some very strategic decisions were taken once the street rubbed itself on my face. I went from the inclination to buy a 210 cc bike to a second had car – it would get knocked to trash in this traffic given my driving skills were acquired on 75 mph roads where people followed traffic ruled like commandments from God. Also, I think I will have to buy some shirts of dubious colors that would remain the same washed and dirty. And I need to shower twice a day at least, possibly once in office to wash the grit off my face – not to look like I haven’t showered in years and I originate from Africa.