SALAAM DELHI

Where else in the whole world can you do things you are not supposed to do and still get away with it

By Aswathy Kumar

There is a strange pleasure we derive when we do things we are not supposed to do. A feeling of joy, achievement, a feeling we wouldn’t have had a chance to experience, hadn’t we broken some rules and regulations. A strange happiness you experience because you know it is something you are just not allowed to do.

One of the best places to see classic examples of ‘doing things you are not supposed to do’ is our Delhi roads. Take for example ‘littering.’ Each one of us knows that littering is a dirty habit, something we shouldn’t do. And how many of us do it anyway? Almost all of us. We will have the clean and green Delhi boards staring right in our face while driving through the snazzy roads of Delhi, yet we wouldn’t think twice before dumping a wrapper or our parking ticket out of our car window. We wouldn’t think once about the unlucky scooter-wala right behind us and what if the wrapper we threw out stuck to his face.

And what about talking on our mobile phones while driving! Each one of us would have at least yelled at the car that almost bumped into us because the driver was too busy yapping away on his phone. And most of us would have instantly without a thought called up a friend to crib about the person who almost scratched our car.     

        

“My husband once yelled at a woman for scratching his car. She hadn’t seen us because she was too busy on her phone. ‘This is why women should not drive as they don’t even know the basics that you should not talk on the phone while driving,” he had remarked. But the very next minute he got a call from work and was on the phone for almost half an hour,” says Ruchi.

“I was on my way to work and as usual stuck in a huge traffic jam. Though this was more like a routine it was slightly different because even after an hour the jam was not clearing up,” says Rohit. Irritated and angry on having missed his morning meeting, Rohit got out to see what was holding up the ars. “I saw that two cars had bumped against each other and both the drivers were busy reasoning out and trying to find out whose fault it was. Not once did they realize that they were holding up over hundreds of cars behind them and did they care? I don’t think so.” Another classic example.

Maybe that is the best part about living in Delhi, a city where you not only get to break some rules but get away without a scratch. Salaam Delhi!

-          Published in North Delhi Plus, The Times of India, October 28, 2006