A typical Day : Part3

TIME: 9:52

Vroom!
The cop was 10 steps away, when the traffic light turned green!
Green had never looked such a beautiful colour to me ever. Today, it was a difference between life and death! Life had won! I could just imagine the expressions on the face of that Cop! It must have been akin to that on a predator’s face after it loses its prey after getting both Jaws to it. Luck had been on my side today, and Murphy’s Law had reversed.

Not Yet!!

Have you ever seen the cyclists on a red light? It is a strange sight. You are first on the traffic signal, and suddenly, before the traffic light s going to turn green, you find you are surrounded by a pack of cyclists, just as a deer is enveloped by a pack of hyenas. They crowd around you, and as soon as the light turns green, they make your traffic-life miserable!
Inching slowly at the start, they try to give ferocious competition to the motorists around them, by their sheer muscle power. Striving hard to overtake the motorists, they want to reach the virtual finishing line, no matter how.

Lungi-clad cyclists, trying to give 7 horses a run for their money (Most bikes are around 7 HP) makes for an amusing, if not very irritating sight. It is irritating, when you are on the receiving end of their wrath!

Wrath?

Yeah, they make you so slow, that either you can bump them off with sheer force, or get caught by a traffic cop! And since my poor bike couldn’t dislodge a mammoth Lungi-man (Yeah; I call them that on the lines of Superman ), I had to contend with the latter. Yeah, I was finally caught, and that would have definitely brought a malicious smile on Mr. Murphy’s lips to have seen his principle triumph again. And I cursed him for being right!

What had happened was, that in a bid to avoid the cop, I had taken the refuge of Lungi-man. I was driving between two of them, with motorists on their sides. But as fate had in it, one of the Lungi-Man lost his balance, and came in front of my bike. To save a collision, I had to brake, which led an another Lungi man collide into me! It was not a mistake of mine, but I was petrified. The signal had gone red, in accordance with Murphy’s law, and I was stranded in between, with the dumbbell-moustache Yama, the traffic cop, eyeing me with a victorious smile.

He had caught his prey finally!

“License!!”
“Err…Well…Sir..”
“LICENSE!!”
“well…umm….Here it is”
“What the hell! This is a Xerox! U wanna fool me??”
“Well Sir, I th8 a Xerox will do just fine”
“What if I give U a Xerox of a 500/- Note??”
My heart came to my mouth…WTF! Is he really EXPECTING that much??
“Well, Sir, in a licence, U just need to know, if I posess the required credentials for driving or not..And that is evident in Xerox that I do. So what’s the problem”?
“The problem is that I cannot Gobble Your License if U gimme a Xerox”

There was a momentary silence, that was exemplified by the stopping of my heart beat. Is he a terrorist, who has been released by Honorable Pakistan Army (Yeah, pun intended), to cause unrest in our country?? He wants to confiscate my license??? :-O
The malicious smile on his face, failed to convince me that he was joking! It hinted even more that he meant what he said!

It is weird. I somehow am compelled to believe in that divine power! What followed, can never be explained in any other manner! There was a sudden flash of lightening, in my mind, and it was all crystal clear, the masterplan of my escape!

“Well Sir, I DO have my original license with me. But MAY I ask what have I DONE wrong, that I need to show that to you. I am in a hurry!?”
“To start with, U broke the Red Light, and DO NOT have a Helmet”
(“To start with???? He has other aces up his sleeve”, I thought!!)

“I have an emergency to deal with officer. Please let me go!”
I tried to bring in a tone of desperation, and a heightened sense of urgency, in my voice.

“Really? Who isn’t in a hurry nowadays. Time is money, isn’t it? Even I am in a hurry. Get your PUC out, your original license in here fast!”

“Huh!! Since when have these traffic cops, been so good at logic?”, I thought to myself.
Has he been preparing for some management entrance as well, I thought. Fat chance. He won’t have the time to prepare, being there in scorching heat the whole day, I comforted myself.