Headlights

I am a driver. A driver of thoughts, a driver for my car. I let the radio flood my ears with the sounds of today and yesteryear. Staring at the phone, dreading life threatening calls from unknown people who hate what I do to them. But I must focus on the road, I must keep the wheels turning. I can't help stare at the ones outside. Second soulmates on the backseat of bikes, the thin red belt circling their jeans. And CEOs staring at the paper with blank expressions in their tinted glasses of their plastic worlds. Balding managers in second hands with their hands dangling out clutching their cigarette by the tips of their two fingers. And then on the road, where lives pass them by quickly as theirs stands still on the asphalt of the tar they step on. Well tucked shirts and buttons up to their collar. Eyes staring at their shoes, they walk on, always the opposite direction. But I must focus on the road, focus on getting there first, meet the deadline, meet the client.



Night falls, stars call, cars stall, gears shift and horns blare. Windows roll up to summon the vacuum of silence. Headlights dip in the distance, a signal for help, a signal to move out of the way. Now the backseats of bikes are empty, now the ghosts arrive and dread us of the inevitability of tomorrow. There are scavengers out on the streets with their empty hands and sorry faces. Lights illuminate the path and I stare at the faces again. There are more cigarettes to their faces, there is a visible stubble on each one. But I cant focus on the road, I am blinded by the incoming lights, I curse him to knock into a tree and lose his head. I curse the Gods for letting woman touch cars. I do. My car burns in the moonlight as the engines roar in agony,but I race to the finish line. I stagger and stutter, I indulge and I fall. Waiting for tomorrow to call me to the roads and press the clutch. I wonder how well I would be as a professional driver. A driver of thoughts, a driver for cars.

The 80s Mumbai Indian

He stared at the mirror and greeted himself to a lazy Sunday. Unshaven in his Rupa vest, he scratched his chest yawning away and moving his jaw, chewing the pan that wasn't there. The heat outside was growing by the minute, it was an afternoon in the month of June, 1983. But today he had to deal with the summer terror for today was his day at the races. Recollecting his previous memories of his days at the Mahalaxmi Race Course was a very passionate hobby of his. How the wives would always commend him on his well kept moustache and his dimpled cheeks and the husbands would make plans for lunch and dinner to come see India's cricket match at the World Cup or open a new bottle of Jack they brought from the states. It was a merry time to meet the big and the small of Bombay and increase your network.

He hadn't realised how long he had been staring at the mirror and scratching himself thinking of the races till he noticed a rash being formed. Snapping out of his daydream, he got himself ready for the day to come.

Stepping out of his seaside apartment, he looked a different person altogether. Doning his Ray Bans that had been gifted to him by his uncle on his birthday, his sidelocks perfectly trimmed to the centimetre, his bellbottoms hanging with the perfect cut and topping it all with his HMT Quartz watch. He was not a man of great wealth but his panache said otherwise. With an edition of the Times of India (After hearing G.D. Birla's untimely demise) to read through his train ride to Mahalaxmi, he stepped out into the sun ready to run wild through this concrete jungle of Bombay.

The drive

To work

Switching on the radio to hear the jockey predict the weather and give his philosophies on life, I bring myself to the zone, preparing myself for what lies ahead and who I must face while watching the clock tick to its doom. I stare at the nothingness of my future and pray for my phone to stop taking calls. Dreading the moment when I would be in a fix, I tear from the roads and curse the slow movers. Probably I too will become one of them, tired of themselves, old and rotten in a basket that is getting too filthy. And as I speak of filth, I park in the realms of dirt as my feet look for a solid space to land as I open the door to a narrow gap I must squeeze through.

To home

I shut off the radio and leave the top 8 @ 8 for the other billions to listen, I switch to trance and let my mind run in this river of traffic that staggers, stumbles, stops and then starts. I stare at those around me and pan out their miserable lives in my head. I run in their alleys and sit in their light bulbs among the mosquitoes and flies, I count their money and lie on their sorry reason for a bed and wait for the fear of tomorrow. The curses are louder for some wish to let their cars break down and talk on their phones. It is funny but I choose to clock myself back as well, probably a hobby to keep me ticking. The drug, its kicking, and the one in the car next to me seems to notice, I am super, I am the best, I am rich and famous and I am loved by all but alas, the light is green and I am no more eighteen.