by a Thinker, Sailor, Blogger, Irreverent Guy from Madras

Helmets have to be worn not just carried


And rash driving is dangerous not just a risk.  Yesterday morning someone I know offered me half a dozen tickets to the Chennai - Punjab IPL match at Chepauk stadium.  It seems they had bought the tickets, but were unable to make it to the match because the whole family fell ill with viral fever.

Now I am not particularly interested in watching a cricket match or any other match frying in the hot sun of Chennai - keeping in mind that yesterday’s IPL match had a 4 p.m. start.  Though I would love to take my place at one of the hospitality boxes or pavilion terrace in air conditioned comfort.  Not to watch the match, mind you, but for the food - which I hear is excellent, especially in the hospitality boxes.  I believe every mach day has a different soul food, with Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Goanese and whatnot on offer.

Now, maybe the sumptuous food is the reason for the demand by the hardworking councillors of the Bangalore Municipal Corporation for free tickets for IPL matches.  Alas for them and me, we could not manage to get into the food.

However, there are always people who wouldn’t mind the sun, if they can watch an IPL cricket match live and so hopped onto one of their bikes to pinch the tickets.   While on the way we had to pass through a subway and as we neared it at around 9 a.m. in the morning, we found the road chocked with traffic.  The reason was an accident which had occurred a few minutes before.

It seems a guy had tried to pass the slow moving traffic by driving on the wrong side of the road.  That by itself is nothing.  Of late in Chennai, driving on the wrong side of the road has become the fad, and we, the people of Chennai, born and brought up in the metro, are an endangered species.

The metro born aren’t used to looking at the wrong side of the road for approaching bikes or cars.  To cross the road, we are trained to look right, left, then right once again and scoot.  But of late with so many migrants pouring into Chennai, who seem to be all country born and aren’t adept at knowing their right from their left, pedestrians have to keep half an eye for bikes on the wrong side of the road, at any given time.

Keep in mind that we in India drive ‘left’ like the British and Japanese, and not on the right ‘wrong’ side of the road.
;-)

Seems one such migrant felt he could just zip around the cars, swerve before the trucks, scare the metro born and have his fun.  The last I heard, it sounds like he and his family aren’t going to have fun for a long time.

bike_under_truck

BTW, the subway is only 2 lanes wide;  after the accident a policeman not in the picture is managing the traffic by permitting vehicles to pass through on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, in turns.

bike_under_truck_side_view

My Bemused half bleats, ‘I don’t know why the idiot bothered to bring along a helmet if he was intent on trying out an iron man stunt with his bare head!’

To which my Nasty half natters, ‘Seems he is not the only idiot.  There goes another!’

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