Of Bumpers and Bonnets

She unlocks her belt. Then she helps you unlock yours too. There is a worried smile on her face which is understandable since this is your first time together. She gets down. You are half sitting now. You use all your arms and legs to do it. You are not very experienced and to be honest this is your first time too but she doesn't know and you don't want to volunteer the information either. You can hear her screaming now. "Yes... Yes... Yes... Just a little more...Come on... Ahh! NO... Noooo... STOPP!" You stop and slowly pull back. Then with one simple woosh, you go, "Aaahh!" You can see her satisfied smile.

Congrats! You have just done it. I am talking about parking a car in an Indian Metro with your newlywed wife helping you outside, of course.

Is there anything more difficult than parking a car in Indian cities? I seriously doubt.

The rat race usually starts when you reach a parking lot. You can see other would-be predators lurking around like lions and lionesses. Like in wild life, here too lionesses are more dangerous! Very carefree species! They always seem to be completely oblivious of the physics rule that two things cannot be at the same place at the same time and thank God for small mercies for not allowing cars to move vertically up or down.

The sport of Car Parking was actually invented by Romans. They used to play it with big fan fare.  The drivers were called Gladiators and the parking space, a Hippodrome. If you notice, nothing much has changed other than the spiked chariots getting replaced by cars. The gladiators (now called drivers) will circle the hippodrome (parking lot) waiting for the right move. If by any chance their eyes meet, there would be nothing but loathing against each other. A latest research by Frozy shows that humans hate each other to the maximum in parking lots.

After circling for half an hour or more, the gladiators begin to tire and when we idiotic spectators think all is cool, a midget car (for some weird reason called Mighty Hanuman/Maruti) pulls out marking the beginning of the game. Its kick off time! Both gladiators make their cars run like four legged juggernauts in that direction, just like a 10th grader running to his classmate who has just brought the latest print of Playboy to the class. All happy faces! We spectators cry for blood. Both reach the spot only to find that the parking space has been stolen by an uncle who looks all ready to go to sleep. This is a minor modification added to the Roman rules to make the sport more entertaining and widespread across the country.

So not to hurt the ego, the gladiators slowly ease their chariots out of the parking lot, as if they never had the intention to park anything. ('I-don't-care-a-damn' expression will get extra points.) So the set and camera move to the next parking lot. As per communism all hippodromes should have equal participation.

There you find a spot… Not! Crest fallen you accept defeat. You sympathize with Shewag. You feel both of you can’t fulfill the basic requirements of being man. He can’t bat, you can’t park. You feel like you have failed your family. You sympathize with Shewag for failing his Maa. You have disobeyed the Gods. Poor Shewag. You want to commit suicide. You think of Shewag for inspiration. Now is the time to find the meaning of your life. You think of Priyanka Chopra. (and Hyd Chi Bir!)

But you can't say there is no silver lining for these parking spaces. The only promised things in any of these places are the self appointed ticket checkers who will appear miraculously out of thin air as if God send. They will almost never appear when you are parking, but the moment you have taken car out, TAADAA!  "Saab, twenty roopees" They should be appointed as tax collectors for our Government. I can predict 100% tax returns. Perhaps for fear of them some of us might even stop earning.

And now enters Tata Nano. Whenever I see its picture I remember the bugs that used to attack us in my engineering college. We students and professors both used to take turns to chase them out of class rooms. I heard Tata saying that the car is a two in one. When the car is not working, you can use it as a motor to pump water to your overhead tank. I am telling you, Chennai is going to love this car.

Frozen Sun

PS: I have a partner in crime for the mischief I did. She told me to post the first para and wait for a couple days to check how iland is going to react.

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