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Kadu ....

Others

Stuck in the Traffic

Stuck in the Traffic

4 mins
1.1K


Sunday afternoon, hundreds of vehicles ahead of us began to slow down. As I stretched my head out of the window. The highway became clogged with clamoring people, the cars lined up way down the road. All sorts of vehicles ‘rickshaw, truck, scooter, bike’ and cars like ‘Toyota, Maruti Suzuki and Waghnor’ stood close-by-close. Every vehicle had its engine turned off and people raised a ruckus. 


Above, the sun was at its highest and was ready to get hot and hotter every second. It warned me with its wicked smile, The rays stretched across the bright sky, extended as if its fingers were trying to enter my eyes. The atmosphere was very stuffy, the open window allowed the swooshing hot breezes to enter, play around with my hairs, and exit from the other open window. It was so scorching in there, the salty droplets flowed down my neck, and my t-shirt clung to my back. The car was heating up just like a stove, whenever I leaned on the window it felt like I’m sleeping on Captain Marvels’ lap. I placed the jacket on the window groove and stared at the sky. 


     Overhead, a flock of birds soared high in the sky forming an arrow. Sparrows sat on the food trolleys, settled on both sides of the highway. They danced up and down to get themselves some fallen food pieces. The sparrow chirps filled me with exasperation.

Nearby were various things present on both sides of the road. These included some food, clothes, and some accessories trolley shops. But the most attractive trolley was the barf ka gola trolley named Indradhanush ke Rangeen Gole. Many people stood there enjoying the gola it had vivid shades of orange, red, pink, and black altogether. The place was surrounded by so much garbage. It stank, I bothered to look away.


Meanwhile a few meters away was a guy on his KTM bike, without any reason sped its engine. This created a horrible monster sound, the bike released smoke out it felt just like a group of birds set free from a cage. The smoke particles danced in the air, it invaded the car, landed on my hairs, skin and some entered my nose taking the path to my lungs. The smell of the smoke-filled up my nostrils like someone was smoking inside my lungs, the bitter taste of the smoke stuck to the back of my throat just like a cello tape. I coughed.

The person sitting right beside me played the radio, confused between which radio station to stop on and eventually ended at 93.5 which played Disco Dewane. He accompanied the singer with his disharmonious voice, hmmm, and oohoo. Every time he opened his mouth to sing along, I felt like punching his mouth the way boxers punch their punching bags.


Beyond the road fence, few people sat under the Banyan tree, the branches of the tree acted as a shed for those people. Few of them visited car-to-car asking for money under the blazing sun. A girl walked up to me, she asked me for food, her lips lifted upwards, her white teeth perfectly aligned between the lips. She was very young, her face was tan, dressed in a small loose untidy frock with an unfixed chain, her hairs were messy and water flowed down her nose. I smiled back, handed her some biscuits from my bag. She didn’t utter a single word instead sauntered away from the car. She squeezed herself as she moved between cars until she was out of sight.


All of a sudden engines ahead of us roared, all sorts of vehicles covering the highway asphalt moved. We moved too, a few meters away, a group of people in their dark blue turnout pants and jackets featuring bright yellow and silver stripes. Surrounded a fallen tree, a rope rolled itself on its thick stem, connecting the end to the fire lorry. It was a huge Peepal tree, who lost its life, it slept spreading its branches covering half of the way, and more leaves of the tree settled on the ground instead of the branches. No one really cared, everything around became restless, vehicles moved one after another, people honked at each other and tried changing their roadway. There was a lot of chaos, the road didn't seem like a highway, the road appeared to be more like few women trying to get to that one saree on 50% off.



Soon the traffic started to vanish, the endless clamoring vehicle horns began to fade away, the place was becoming a deserted highway like always from a fish market, after one whole consecutive hour.


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