When You Have to Shoot, Shoot. Don't Talk.

This is probably one dialogue from a movie I would never forget. When Clint Eastwood is cornered and threatened to be shot (in The Good, The Bad, The Ugly), the bad guy is so happy to have Clint in his hold after the long hunt, that he rambles on about his upper hand in the situation. Our hero calmly takes out his gun, shoots him and says 'When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk'. Now THAT is a 'punch-dialogue'. :P

Ever since I heard this, I have begun to associate it with a lot of things. Lately, and increasingly, I have started associating it with our 'Road Romeos'. These are the guys whose bike goes in one direction, their body in another. 'When you have to drive, drive. Don't stare... Or do something else...' (I am not very good at 'punch-dialogues' :P) is what runs in my mind.

Take this guy for example. When I was coming from office yesterday, this guy was waltzing in his bike in front of me. He was going toward the left looking at the right, which led me to think that he was, like all other guys, staring at something on the right but going to the left. So, I proceeded to overtake him from the right. Lo and behold! Sir was indeed planning to take the right. Now, how am I supposed to know that. Read his pea-sized brain? If i hadn't noticed, I would have had a mighty fall.

When my friend came down from the US of A, she came with me on my bike one day. She was horrified by the way people (including me, for I had to keep up with the acrobatics on the road) were driving. Reason - she felt she was in the making of the Fast and the Furious. I would like to add here that she was very much Indian in her driving when she was here. Par kya karein, Pardesi hawa uspe chaa gayi aur woh soft ho gayi. :P (She has been softened by staying abroad). She was shocked basically because people here don't know that there are, in fact, something called traffic rules. Well, for a person who has seen people slow down at a signal and let people walk past if they see them coming, it would, of course, be alarming when 'Red' means go here.

I was waiting to cross the Ashok Pillar signal tonight. It is very irritaing when you get to stand right in the front at a signal. You would be waiting for the signal to change to green, only to be honked deaf by the crowd behind you that thinks 'Who cares if it's red. The cop is not there and vehicles have reduced from the other side. So go!'. Vijay and I were coming in our respective bikes and stopped at the signal. He stopped right on the zebra crossing and I was taunting him saying it was violation of traffic rules. The next minute, this guy in his bike whizzed past us to the other side, the signal still a bright red. 'So you call this a traffic rule violation' was the look I got. Well, can't blame a girl for trying to be a law abiding citizen. :-\

One can't entirely blame the guys. There are Juliets too. When you see a car hesitating to go in a straight line and at a speed lesser than a cycle, it is most likely a girl confused about the gear position. I do agree that many girls are excellent drivers (like me :D). But there are many 'dumb blondes' too. Talking to your friend in the rear about your distant cousin's ex-boyfriend is ever so important than who is coming in front of you, 'cause you see that can't wait. I agree that I talk too and get carried away sometimes. But I try to be careful most of the time.

I have always wondered if RTOs are profit making business outifts. Anybody who pays a good sum of money gets their LLRs and permanent license irrespective of their performance in the driving test. Few officers are strict about it, leading to an exponential increase in our Romeos. They (Romeos) probably have no clue that their bikes provide the facilities of horn, indicator, brake, etc. All they know, are the start button and the accelator.

I sometimes wonder if I am going against rules by using my indicators and horn. :P

Not for nothing do doctors advise people with a weak heart against driving. Chances of a heart attack are higher, you see.

Final Destination 4 - Part 2

(Please read Part 1 first to make little sense of my senseless writing :P)

I couldn't find my voice. I was opening my mouth, but no sound came out.

Two great people crushed to death on the same day? Not possible.

All of a sudden, from nowhere, I heard a scream. It took me a minute to realise it was me. Hot tears were streaming down my face. I felt someone shake me.

'What happened? Why shouting??'.

It was the traffic policeman. Wondering how come he is talking in English? Come on! You would agree if kids from Mumbai's slums spoke in fluent English, that too with a small accent. Can't you agree that Singara Chennai's traffic policemen know how to use what, how, why, when and there with our Chennai accent?

After a few huge gasps and a gulp of water handed to me by someone in a green bottle with a yellow tinge at the bottom (I didn't even realise the thing was being poured in my mouth), I managed to sputter something that sounded like 'Thik Cho ba fall ba die...'. I had ten pairs of eyes stare at me like they saw a creature from the Ice Age.

'Ennanga? Onnum puriyala' (What I don't understand anything). Ok, now I hope you are convinced that it is indeed our Chennai traffic police.

I immediately turned behind to see the opposite side of the road with a small hope that probably noone died. Oh whoa! Freeze it. There was nothing there! What the! How?! By now everyone around me was so confused and irritated that nothing interesting was happening for them to watch and kill time, that they started muttering things that I vaguely made out to be 'Chummana kathi oora koota vendidhu..' (They shout and gather everyone for no reason), 'Indha kalathu ponnunga eppo malai eruvangane theriyala.. Enga Amma appove sollichu kalyanam pannikonu.. Ippo vara pora ponnu epadi irupalo..' (God knows when girls these days go mad. My mom asked me to get married long back. God knows how the girl am gonna marry now is) and the like.

I just ignored it and turned my full attention to the traffic policeman. 'Look sir', I said. 'Hrithik Roshan and Priyanka Chopra were driving Karizma and Pleasure. They met with a huge accident right here. Now there is nothing. I am sure I saw it with my very own eyes.' That's when I heard the sound. The loud guffaw. It was the guy in the black t-shirt two bikes away. Now I know why I hate him!

The traffic policeman was still confused. 'Look here maadam. i don't know, who you said, aan, Hiridhik. But Biriyanka I know. Beeuteefool garl. I see her in postaars. They are naat here and all. You disturrbing dha tiraffic. Ministers ees coming. I go standu there aar he vill shout. Bee quayet.' I called him repeatedly, to no avail. He just stomped away to his so called watchout point.

I still didn't know what to do, when I saw the bright yellow Karizma turn on the opposite side of the road. This guy was not Hrithik even when seen from ten kilometers away without binoculars. You could classify him as a wannabe. Black leather pants, black sleeveless coat zipped up, showing his 'biceps', black coolers and oiled hair flying in a very funny way. Eeeewwww!!!!

Wait a minute. Is it... Oh my god... There came the purple Pleasure. But hey, that is not Priyanka Chopra. Nowhere close. Another wannabe. For starters, she was at least five times her size. Her hair was plaited with flowers on it, dried up ones, in fact. Her dupatta gaily flying in the wind. Double eeeewwww!

As I kept watching, refusing to take my eyes away even for a minute, I saw it happen. She tried overtaking him, her dupatta hit his face that was already obscured by his over-sized black glasses, and they fell in a heap on the corner of the road.

'Aaaaannnnnnnnn aan aan aan.. Thun thun thun thun thun...' went the tone. It was apparently Mr. Wannabe's phone (Well, you believe too when you can hear a tone a mile away in our movies). They got up, their eyes not moving away from each other even for a minute. She was smiling coyly and he was raking his fingers through his oily hair with a smug smile on his face. They then picked up their respective bikes and zoomed off. To eternity.

Eeeeeeewwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!

That guffaw. Again. I have never wanted to kill anyone, especially someone I hardly knew. But this guy in the black t-shirt was about to become an exception.

Final Destination 4 - Part 1

I was at the Nungambakkam signal waiting for the damn thing to change to green. It was a very hot day, as always.

This signal that leads to Gemini flyover on the right and Taj Coromandel on the left, is one of those 'well planned' signals of Chennai. The road is as narrow as it can be en route to Nungambakkam from Kodambakkam and the signal time for green is very little. So ultimately, you can picture this - a huge crowd of frustrated, sweaty people caught in traffic with their respective rides pointing in all directions, who end up standing at the same signal at least thrice if the traffic is high on that god forsaken day. Today, we were held up on this particular side of the road because the other side was being freed to let one of our hard-working, righteous ministers pass by.

I, like every sincere and proud Indian, was cursing, first the traffic policeman for doing such a lousy job on someone else's lousy orders over a lousy walkie-talkie that never seemed to work in case of emergencies. Then my focus turned to the government to have let such useless designs be approved that there was not enough space on such a high-traffic road. Finally, the guy with the black t-shirt two bikes in front of me. For no apparent reason, actually. I just didn't like the way he looked.

Then, all of a sudden, i saw him.

Hrithik Roshan on a bright yellow Honda Karizma. I couldn't believe my eyes! I found it difficult to breathe! Well, it was partly because I was trying to yank out my tightly fastened helmet to get a clear view. For heaven's sake. It was THE HRITHIK ROSHAN!

These are the times when God decides to make you realise the value of friends when they are not around. Freakin' people, they won't believe me if I said I saw Hrithik Roshan. They would bring it down to one more of my day-dreaming fiascos.

Before I could find my voice to shout out his name, I saw a purple Honda Pleasure come right behind Hrithik's bike. Oh my gosh! Hold it. Is that Priyanka Chopra?!! Both my idols in a day, right in front of my eyes? Can the heavens be so kind?! I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. She was wearing a beautiful pink salwar kameez, it's purple chiffon dupatta gaily flying in the breeze. Man, I didn't notice the weather cooling down and a breeze picking up. It's certainly true that everything works their way when it comes to celebrities.

Dhak Dhak Go started playing in my head. Without realising it, I started humming the track. Probably a shooting was going on for Hero Honda, I thought. Move over, Mr. Minister. You stand no chance in fornt of our 'Filimi Ishtars' however good you may be.

I was just hunting for my phone from my bag to call Ramya to tell her about my awesome luck when I heard a loud crash. The next thing I knew, Priyanka and Hrithik were lying in a heap, a car rammed right into them from behind, a tempo truck hit them right in the centre and an auto was standing tilted atop this whole bloody mess, its driver peeping out from his seat with a helpless look on his face.

Gulp.