If I were didi, I’d buy airguns. Thousands of them. And hand them out to every motorist
So when on a recent trip to the city, the cabbie brought the world crashing about my ears, honking a little over 120 times on a ten-kilometre stretch, I decided to lock horns with him. I had already tried telling him politely and then not-so-politely that the horn was not OK please. But surely, good reason wouldn’t go waste in a city that prides itself on diskashaan and deebate.
At first, words like necessity, time waste, other idiots on the road, are bandied about with much force and conviction. But there’s one argument that trumps them all. It’s a habit, he says. My habit, his habit (looking pointedly at the minibus screeching past us), everyone’s habit, didi! But how can you beat the traffic’s speed? Or coax a traffic jam to unravel by loud communal honking? “By the will of the horn”, he says, “and Lokenath Baba”, moving his head in slow motion to suggest just how forgone the conclusion is. Perhaps, it is a forgone conclusion. But if I were Didi, I’d definitely buy those airguns.
Honking
Kolkata
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