It gets crazier everyday...

10.00 am.
It seemed like any other normal, crappy day. Here I was, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, listening to John Fogerty and Co, and waiting for the traffic to move so that I could get to where ever I wanted to go.

My famous zen-like patience was nearing its breaking point as row after row of cars and damned autos went past me, refusing to give me my God given right of way. And to add insult to grevious injury, the parade continues with a bullock cart slowly ambling its way across, its bells jingling away to glory.

Now, given the right environment, the soothing sound of a cart making its way down the wet roads of a provincial Kerala town, just after an afternoon shower is blissful indeed. But this is a city !! The bullock cart, was closely followed by a Merc (C-class), tailed by an auto and goaded on by a milk man on a cycle, complete with aluminium cans clanging.

As I absorbed the unfolding chaos, I was becoming acutely aware of the growing line of impatience behind me as cars started lining up, horns started honking and tempers started flaring. The time by now was 10.11 am. A full 11 minutes had passed since I got into this seemingly inextricable situation.

I say 'seemingly' because this is something I endure everyday in one form or an other, at one major junction or another, and by now like other Bangaloreans, am used to it. After all, the traffic in Bangalore, like the weather in England , is great fodder for a conversation starter in really awkward social circumstances.

But what I simple cannot, and refuse to make peace with is the fact that all of the above... all the cars, buses, tricycles ( yes even that) had to take place right in front of my building and I was stuck, trying get out of the driveway for a full 15 minutes.

I should have walked... the damn store was half a km away.