City traffic

This morning was horrible. I was stuck at Sion for two whole hours for some inexplicable reason. The roads were not any more dug up than they usually are, and there were only two cars with busted tires. No major accident or anything. I do feel a little pathetic now; for being disappointed at not finding any worthy calamity to attribute the delay to.

In any case, there I was – stuck near Sion station, crawling one inch every ten minutes. If I shut out the cacophony on the road, I could hear the silent simmer of my blood boiling. So, to ward off an ulcer and not pop a blood vessel, I decided to think of something nice. But my eyes kept darting to my watch and a huge blanket of curses kept getting thrown over my lofty intentions.

I once worked with a really smart lawyer. He was also one of the more optimistic souls I knew – which made him some kind of an oddity amongst his ilk. He told me that when one gets tired of a city, one must regard it as a tourist; not a local. That way, one can bear the drudgery more easily.

So, I just pretended to think that I was in Bombay for a few days and would be going back to Chandigarh soon. (I love Chandigarh, by the way..it should be the capital of this country as well as some three other places, maybe.) So, I tra-la-la-ed in my head and looked around.

I saw a huge, plush, healthy tree to my left. A healthy tree in Bombay is more of an oddity than an optimistic lawyer. So I was surprised and pleased. I marvelled at its glossy leaves, its colourful spurts of mustard-colored flowers, and its strong boughs. I took in the deep tones on the trunk and barks and I smiled at the way it swayed to a gentle breeze. The quiet contemplation was coming along just fine until I noticed a strip of something white hanging precariously from a clump of leaves.

It was an underwear.

Really! Traffic on road, underwear on tree - the things you can’t explain in this city!