I woke up early in the morning, at the honking of cars, buses, autos and what not! It was a very surprising experience for me since I live in a quiet neighborhood, where the days are quite peaceful, and nights are generally noiseless.
But, it was not so today! I went out into the balcony and found that the entire traffic had been diverted from the main road to our slim ‘gali’. It is not a size zero, but it is definitely not fit for a heavy traffic. And so, there was an evident bottleneck.
Everyday office goers were in a hurry, the trucks were unable to take the curve, regular vegetable vendors were hawking with their carts, and how can we forget that one obvious factor on Indian roads? Our beloved, most worshipped ‘Gau Mata’, chewing her cud, sitting elegantly in the middle of the road!!
There was honking, people shouting, it was a complete mess down there! And why so you may ask? Apparently there was a very big roadblock on the main road. Why again? Because the local political party has won the elections, and the political leaders of this region decided to celebrate. So, with all pomp and show they had erected a huge make shift ‘pandal’, right in the middle of the road, diverted the traffic through all the bylanes, and put up some idols that they were supposed to pray to, and thank.
Cool! It’s good to cleanse the air with holy chants, and prayers. After all, India is changing. And the GODs have to get some credit for that!
I was off to work after accepting this reality. In the evening, while I was returning back home, I entered the locality, and was greeted by the bark of dogs; through a loudspeaker that was playing ‘Who let the dogs out’! I was surprised, amused, and I couldn’t help laughing. There could have been a few passerby’s who might have stared at me with utter dismay.
The whole area was heavily lit. There were animated lights, lights adorning the trees, lights on houses. Basically the main road was full of lights as it were Diwali, in summers!
There was a magic show going on inside the playground nearby. A DJ was playing the beats from Britney Spears and Michael Jackson to Honey Singh and Himesh Reshmiya!
And, the traffic was still diverted, people on vehicles were still shouting at one another, and the best thing among all of this was…..wait for it…the entire neighborhood was absolutely pitch black!!
Amazing isn’t it? Now this is what I would like to call a real life oxymoron!