Let The Life Flow

Being a pedestrian on Delhi roads is not an easy task. It requires a lot of learning the unwritten rules and on the job skill up gradation for an individual to be a deft pedestrian. In many parts of the city pedestrian strips are rare luxury – either they are not there or broken or occupied by some street vendor etc. So one has to use of road sides for the purpose – a difficult task though; with parked vehicles royally gracing the road sides and occupying one fourth of the breadth of roads. So one has to have real mastery over all sensory organs to keep them alert and coordinated to walk on the available side of the road and avoid being hit by a speeding vehicle. Crossing the road requires even more skill. If you are standing at the zebra for safe crossing, you are doing that at your own peril and with time get wiser to the fact that speeding vehicles come to a screeching halt at the end of zebra instead of its beginning. Even if the signal is green you must walk fast or run to cove...

When we hit the road of London in Peter’s car, London had recovered from the heavy rain of the night and welcomed us to a bright sunny morning. On my exclamation on the beautiful morning I was complemented by Peter being the lucky one to bring the sun. The next thing which absorbed me on my journey from Heathrow to Putney is the greenery both sides along the road. The beautiful shade of green (closer to the colour of tender leaves of banana) ran all throughout; sprinkled with small white and yellow flowers. The freshness of the air and the surrounding greenery was so infectious that all traces of tiredness just vanished. Familiar to the crowded and noisy roads of Delhi, suddenly I realised that roads are abnormally quiet compared to back home though they are not empty. And then you notice the smoothly and noiselessly plying cars on the road – absolutely, I mean absolutely no sound on the road! You try to understand what is so obviously missing on that road and then it gradually come...