Prof G Speaks yet again...

Today, professor G will give you a brief lecture on how to survive a mob of raving maniacs.
So you start the day at 08:00 in the morning which gives you sufficient time since you have to report to work by 10:30. You go through your morning rituals and wait for the colleague whom you usually travel to work with. You are enjoying your greasy instant noodles when he calls up to inform you that he would not be coming to work today since his stomach is spearheading the non co-operation movement. You ask him to take care and hang up. You wash the noodles down with a glass of tang and head to work. You then hail a rickshaw and give him directions to your workplace.

So you are now on your way to work, your last for the week since you are going to New Delhi the next day. You think about those cold mornings that you had woken up to in that beautiful city when you were there for your cousin's wedding. You think of those midnight spins around the India Gate area followed by your second round of dinner at 'parathe wali gali'. Your mind is lost in the web of beauty spun by the capital city when you notice the choke. You curse out loud and get in a discussion with the rickshaw driver on how the roads of Bombay are so cramped. You talk to him about the wide Delhi roads with room for further expansion. You sigh. What you see next makes you kinda uneasy.

You see a huge mob of people heading from the opposite direction. They are carrying some multi colored flags and some weird insignia. Before you realize it, the rickshaw is swarmed by the mob as the protestors try to make their way through it. You are not usually easily shaken but you feel very uneasy today and your thumbs start to twitch. There is an artificial fire in the eyes of each and every protestor. The anger is not genuine. It is of the forced variety. The kind that stems out of frustration and boredom. These are people with bad jobs and lots of free time in their hands. They cannot afford to go to swanky multiplexes or the glitzy clubs so they seek entertainment in eve teasing, rioting and being a total jackass. These are people with no real power over life, and thus when they find themselves as a part of a mob, they get drunk blind by their new found strength. They start believing that they are one of those cool mushroom-cloud laying motherfuckers who can make the world go round in the other direction. They start to believe that they are an unstoppable force. What do they say about little knowledge being a dangerous thing? They probably have not heard that. And they probably do not know that there always is a motherfucker at the top who can wipe that strength out of your existence in one fell swoop. But anyway, as of now, you concentrate on calming your nerves and stopping your thumbs from twitching.

Just then a guy, not more than 20, probably a waiter at one of those shady bars, peeks into the rickshaw and starts swearing at the rickshaw driver. He asks him to stop and tells him that its a 'bandh' today. He threatens to hit him if he does not get out of the rickshaw. Then he looks at you and asks you to get out of the rickshaw too and walks away. This is going to get bad unless you do something. Your mind starts racing as on what can be done. The easy way out would be to pay the rickshaw and get the fuck out of here, but easy ways have always poked your conscience. You just cannot leave the rickshaw in the mess and go especially since he is there in the first place because of you. You look around and then see one mini-leader kind of the person walking towards the rickshaw guiding a smaller group. This one is an experienced man and seems to be less angry and more sane than the rest. When he is passing by you, he guides the people following him to steer off the rickshaw. You then speak in the little Marathi that you know.

"Bandh aahe kaai?"

"Ho, pan gaadi band naahi."

Saying that he gets in front of your rickshaw and paves way for your rickshaw to go. The mob lets the rickshaw pass and you heave a sigh of relief. You notice that the rickshaw driver is shivering and you let out a li'l laugh.