Driving to Mumbai last evening, I noticed all kinds of things that bewildered me. People do the strangest things, and make my imagination soar.
In the middle of nowhere, there was a man walking on the divider, in the direction of Mumbai. I wonder, was he walking all the way?
On the ghats, returning in the middle of the night, trucks groaned their way up, blocking all three lanes. Below us was the valley, which we could not see.
Sitting on the wall that guards the road and separates it from the drop in the valley, was a man playing with his cell phone. It was close to midnight.
Did he think a truck would do better with one person less in it? Did he have a bet – let’s see who gets to the top first, groaning truck or me? Or was he just taking a break, hoping to hitch a ride a little later?
Someone driving from Mumbai towards Pune suddenly took a U-turn, with no regard for traffic in either direction. Did he decide, when he was nearing Lonavla, that Pune was too far?
Most curious of all was this scene.
A white car was stopped beside a bare tree. Five men were standing beside the car, and were having a heated/ animated discussion. (They were on the opposite side of the road, so I could hear nothing.) On the tree, a formal pale blue shirt was neatly hung. One man pointed to the shirt and raised his hand wildly. Everyone seemed to have something to say (about the shirt hung on a tree on the expressway?). All five men were fully dressed. The shirt had not just been pulled off and hung on the tree.
This one truly boggles the imagination. I wonder what that was about.
Leave a Reply