WAY TO GO...
(Part IV)
Day before yesterday, I was about half an hour late for office. I always am
half an hour late for office. Day before yesterday was no different. I had just
taken my cycle out of the basement garage and started on the way to the office.
Now the lane on which our house is is not too wide. Cars and bikes are often
parked on one side of the road, leaving very little space. On this particular
morning, as I was cycling merrily down the lane, I saw this big school bus
parked up front, uploading or downloading a few school kids. There was just
sufficient space for an auto or a bicycle to pass the bus, but definitely not
enough for both. I took the right lane (the narrow space available to the right
side of the bus or rather the wrong side of the bus) and charted my flight plan
overtaking the stationary bus. Nothing great to it, overtaking a bus which is
stationary is no big deal to cycling stalwarts like me. At this juncture I
noticed the auto rickshaw coming from the other side. As I said, the space
available in the road was not enough for the both of us. It was a matter of
either I existed or he did...and in case of a crash, its anyone's guess, whose
existance one could safely place bets on!

No sweat, I said to myself, and speeded up. I could cross the bus before the
auto came close enough. Now this particular auto driver seemed to have some kind
of macho streak in him. I don't know whether he was an avid fan of Street Hawk,
or modelled himself in the lines of the Knight Rider, but he chose this
particular moment to put his three wheeled beast into the fourth gear and surge
forward with a malicious grin on his face. I paniced. I was already abreast the
big bus, and there was no stopping now. I was moving at about 40 kilometers per
hour, speeds that cycles should never attain, and I had to pass the bus and
swerve left in the split second, before the auto came up. I calmly took in the
situation (of course I am kidding) and gathered that there was still a chance
that I could make my way out of the fix in one piece. The bus driver, who was
looking disdainfully out of his window, read my mind. He took it upon himself to
decide that things were not interesting enough, and started his bus. The small
gap between the auto and the bus started closing in further...