BRING BACK THE TRAFFIC

(A sanitised version of this blog appeared in my humour column – Urban Bourbon – in The New Indian Express. If you’re touchy about subjects, or generally the kind who feels people shouldn’t say things that hurt others, you’re on the wrong site. Please check out the original column. Thanks!)

You know how they speak of mental age? I have always had the mental age of a septuagenarian. I don’t mean it in the way I spoke or acted – by those barometers, I was always an immature asshole who went through life like it was a video game with many lives. But in terms of pet peeves and things that ticked me off, I always thought of myself as an old man.

Pet peeves rile me up, everyday occurrences spite me. All my life, I have complained and cribbed about traffic in cities. A firm believer of public transport (while not a frequent commuter), nothing annoys me more than people stuck behind each other in vehicles. There is something inherently inhumane about having to sit on the road for hours. I have tried to listen to nostalgic songs, interesting podcasts, make conversation – within a few minutes, I begin to feel like GD Bakshi in an NDTV studio. Road Rage? ‘Rage’ is a strong word, but I admit to suffering from a mild case of Road Irritation.

That’s me whenever I am in traffic.

With IT companies calling their employees back to offices, traffic on the roads is beginning to resemble pre-pandemic levels. The Deja-phew comes sweeping back – of waiting hopelessly in traffic while staring at nothing in particular. Of looking at the time a few times and eventually leaving it to destiny. It’s become the new small-talk across the country:

‘Damn, the traffic has gotten terrible, eh?’

‘Yeah’.

‘But what Will Smith did to Chris Rock was good only. You can’t make fun of baldness/religion/disability/nation/beliefs/intelligence/weight/my grandmother/their neighbours/my dog/anything in general’.

‘Yeah’.

But after the pandemic, instead of cribbing, I’d like to welcome the traffic back with open arms. If I’m being completely honest, I had begun to miss the traffic.

When the pandemic was announced, I used to step out once a day for smokes. One of the sights still flashes in my memory. It had been a few days since Modiji announced the lockdown. I had stepped on to the roads. There wasn’t a soul in sight. My favourite shops were shut, even the stray dogs did not wag their tails to greet me. The streets looked like the sets of a zombie-apocalypse movie starring Tiger Shroff. It made me both sad and scared at the same time. That’s when I realised how much I miss the traffic.

How much I missed the long hours of waiting, the incessant honking of cars – a Morse code of its own. If aliens visit us, they’ll think we honk to communicate with each other. A honk when someone overtakes, or when the light turns green. A honk when the clock strikes 4.20 PM, or if it’s a Wednesday, or the birthday of a local MLA. Honking is a morse code with absolutely no code of honour. I want to hear the white noise of frustrated drivers again.

And how about all the idiots on the road. The folks who gulp down a can of energy drink and graciously leave the last few drops for co-commuters on the road. Or those who occupy the window seats in buses, and spit benevolently upon those on the road. People who park bikes, and quickly run to relieve themselves by the side of the road. Or those cousins of Doctor Strange, who pause all traffic by stretching out their hand in front of incoming vehicles. Give me back that one genius who decides to reverse at a U-Turn, causing the traffic behind him to metamorphose into a gigantic snail. The cow chewing cud nonchalantly in the middle of the road, musing about its increased status in society. The people who sell stuff at traffic spots – analog versions of Instagram influencers. I wonder how they are always in the know when it comes to trending objects – like fidget spinners, or 2 feet long pens.

Increased traffic is a sign of people returning to cities, of humanity crawling back to normalcy. Shops and bars will be open again, playing songs loud enough for Martians to headbang to. Strangers will share drinks and step out as friends. Pubs will echo with the independent voices of young singers. People will gather to listen to comedians with mics in hand and fears in their hearts. People will look at their phones at 11.30 PM and do a mental calculation of how much they drank, how far they must drive, and where the ‘police checking’ might be set up.

I will have to cover my face to avoid leaking drains. I will have to ensure that I’m far away from bus windows, incase someone wants to bolo zubaan kesari all of a sudden. But give it all back to me.

Give me back the traffic – that constantly throbbing lifeline of the city. That vein pumping through the city’s heart – buzzing, honking and smoking. Give me back the chaos, the noise, smoke, and the intermittent spikes in blood pressure. Give me back the traffic. Let me watch my city thrive again!

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BRING BACK THE OLD VALENTINE’S DAY

{A sanitised version of this blog appeared in my weekly humour column ‘Urban Bourbon’ in The New Indian Express. If you’re the sort that gets easily offended, I’d recommend you read the newspaper version. Thank you. Jai Putin!}

I know it’s a month since Valentine’s Day has come and gone. But I have shit tons of shit work on my hands and I haven’t been able to convert my newspaper columns into blogposts. But here’s the thing. A month has gone past since Valentine’s Day, and I wanted to crib about it here.

Now, I’m no Bejan Daruwalla, but I can confidently assume that you spent most of the day finishing work, and looking at funny reels about Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day – the whole day and all the fanfare around it has become a joke. Memes and tweets and stories – self-aware, sarcastic takes on the tradition. This year, cities were not draped in red, and plastic cupids weren’t trapped at the entrance of malls. On social media, I saw more memes and reels on the ‘V-Day’ than any real messages of love, outpourings of feelings.

Honestly, I find it all quite boring. 

It appears that India has gotten over the concept of Valentine’s Day. Independence Day and Diwali have become more marketable occasions to brands. But back in the day, Valentine’s Day was a rather wonderful scam orchestrated by brands and advertising agencies. In those years, scams were more socially accepted phenomena. Chief ministers and Defence ministers would get embroiled in scams. Newspapers were crammed with fodder scams, stamp paper scams, stock market scams and telecom scams. But the one that affected the youngsters of middle-class families the most was the Valentine’s Day scam. 

Every Valentine’s Day featured a practised routine. About two weeks before the day, brands would expand their advertising budgets. Hoardings, malls and restaurants would deck themselves in red. Every single brand – from Vodafone to Nagarjuna Cement would cajole you to spend time with your loved one. Chocolate brands assured you that they could feel your lips, on their fingertips. Toothpaste brands implored you to get closer with confidence, as Sona Mohapatra crooned ‘Paas Aao’ to two random European looking youngsters. Even pen brands would have taglines like Likhte Likhte Love Ho Jaaye!

Television channels would telecast recent romantic hits on loop. Just as the President addresses the nation every Republic Day, Shah Rukh Khan delivered his yearly Valentine’s Day speech while peddling fairness creams, cars, or biscuits. While Capitalism was doing its bit, other stakeholders were also at play on Valentine’s Day. Every Valentine’s Day, the red of the balloons were accompanies by the saffron of religious groups, who would warn of dire consequences if the day was observed. 

Growing up in a small town like Bhubaneswar, the threat was real. If you were unfortunately caught by these groups, they would either thrash you, or forcibly marry you to your partner, before featuring you in the annual local news shaming process. I knew a guy who was caught on Valentine’s Day. He was a soft-spoken guy who had no ‘bad’ habits. He would ride his bicycle to the college and return home after the evening tuitions. On the fourteenth of February, he took his girlfriend on a date. Being a man of culture, he shunned the parks where bushes served as covers. He went instead to the planetarium in the city. The day went by blissfully, but when he was stepping out of the planetarium, he was sighted by a group. They began to crowd around him, and our valiant hero ensured the girl could escape from the scene. When he narrated the story to me – as I smoked by 2 rupees Chhota Gold Flake, it was a genuine fear for me.

And so, the youngsters in my town adopted their own strategies. The general consensus was to avoid public parks, or any establishments with red hearts, for these spots were prone to vandalism. Girls covered their faces with their chunnis, and the guys practised short distance sprinting. Theatres were also targeted. Back then, Bhubaneswar had ONE pub, and the ownership of the place changed every time I visited the place. On Valentines’ Day, the members of VHP would make a beeline for the place and shout slogans. Panicked teenagers would be rushing the fuck out of the place, as news channels reported all of this live. Every year, the same pub, the same story, the same headlines.

Since I have studied Commerce for five years of my life, I try to unnecessarily add economic angles to everything. And so, I have one such thought about the sudden emergence (and gradual death) of Valentine’s Day.

The phenomenon of Valentine’s Day was clearly targeted at youngsters in a post-liberalised India. An American capitalist idea credited to a Roman saint, the hallowed St. Valentine’s the saviour of young lovers (or whatever it is that bullshit story is).

And since I was the first one from both sides of my family to ever go on a date, I fell headlong into the Valentine’s Day scam. The first time I ever spent the Valentine’s Day, I saved up money from my call centre job (the salary was all of 3200 rupees). And gifting was a legit industry (like DVD rentals and puncture shops). Entire stores were devoted to gifting – like Archie’s and Hallmark – brands that have completely vanished today. I had the option of expressing my teenage love through a greeting card – where my deepest emotions were conveyed in the generic words of an underpaid copywriter. Chocolates were accepted too, as were keychains with the lady’s name on it. For the musically inclined, perhaps a CD featuring favourite tracks. For those musically inclined but financially unstable, one could always BURN a CD, tear off the “1000 Himesh Songs in One” tag, and present it to a girl. A meal at a restaurant, or a movie in a dark theatre. If you went out with someone, didn’t embarrass yourself, and avoided getting forcibly married or thrashed – it was a good day. 

In many ways, Valentine’s Day was a video game. You had to save up money, use them efficiently, make a few intelligent choices, and avoid physical harm through the day. Today, Valentine’s Day is spoken of in a sarcastic, ironic manner. As a nation, I can only presume that we have moved past the ideas of a day dedicated to expressing love. The entire idea seems rather cringey, an obsolete blunder from the wonder years. Through an economic lens, brands have now moved to digital sales on e-commerce sites, and the marketability of Valentine’s Day has taken a hit during the pandemic. But this is all boring, self-aware shit that I have had enough of.

Bring back the Valentine’s Day of yore. This modern, sarcastic version of Valentine’s Day sucks. I want the older version back. The one with red balloons, greeting cards, and the goons chasing youngsters from public parks!

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