Rider with a storm

The drive was taking longer than I expected.  I plan to be in the office by 10 but office was still 30 KMs away.  I had reached the outskirts of the city and with the increase in traffic the speed had reduced considerably.  I estimated that the remaining distance would take more than an hour.  The journey that started pleasantly as I had thought it would had by then turned grim.  Early morning sparse traffic and the smooth highway ensured that my speeds were in the three figure mark most of the time.  The loud music screaming out of the speakers enhanced the experience.  Many would not have termed the situation as pleasant but for me it was good enough to scream out a few lyrics.  

The traffic increased considerably when I was about 70 KMs from the destination.  It is at around this time that my abdomen informed me that the fluid pressure was building up.  It had not gone above the danger mark but it was something I need to take notice of.  I thought of getting out of the highway and letting go in proper Indian style.  But I had long passed the bushes and fields part of the highway.  Now it was all factories and offices that preceded the city.  I could not possibly let it out on a factory wall; the security might kick my butt.  There were a few ideal vacant spots but by the time their existence registered in my head I was a good 500 metres away from them.

My head requested the abdomen to hold on for an hour and ordered the body not to generate fluid for the same amount of time. Though the abdomen responded positively the remaining part of the body turned down the request summarily by letting me know that it was all my fault. "You did not take heed of our order to avoid washing down 500 ml of coke over and above the unaccountable ml of water" was their charge.  All this liquid cannot be assimilated by the already flushed up cells and had to go someplace, which was outside.  So the pressure continued to build up.  The road took my attention off this build up.  I ran into a traffic jam, right at the entrance of the city.  I cursed and craned my neck attempting to see something.  I could only see the tops of many stationary cars.  I cursed and fell back.  That is when the realization of the unbearable pressure build up hit me.  I was in the center of the road and there was no spot for me to relieve myself.  I cursed again.

From then on thing became hazy.  I could only remember a few things between that time and the time I reached the office.  Every time a vehicle ahead of me slowed down, I cursed every ancestor of all the persons in that vehicle.  Every time a police man stopped my car to let some pedestrians cross, the ancestors of the policeman and the pedestrians were affected in a similar manner.  Every time I remembered the existence of my abdomen, I felt like the Mulaiperiyar dam in monsoon.  One time I parked the vehicle on the side of the road, picked up the empty bottle of coke and considered using it.  But I was not sure, if the contents I planned to pass into it would be less than 500 ml.  I threw the bottle away, cursed my ancestors, pulled the car back on to the road violently and in the process nearly ran over a pedestrian who cursed all my ancestors too.  I continued on and with every passing KM tightened the muscles in my pelvic region.  I am sure that region must have reduced in size considerably due to all the tightening.

Finally, the office was in sight; just one signal to get through.  I had to cross my legs while waiting the signal to turn green.  My control seemed to slip away now that the destination was so close.  I rubbed my eyes and looked again to ensure that this was no mirage.  Nope, the office remained there.  I started off with a "come on" and made up a sentence with many combinations of the F-word - the intent of the sentence when you removed all those words was "Why is the signal taking so long?",  God, I guess, responded by turning it green and soon I was pulling into the parking lot when the bloody watchman put up his hand and stopped me.

"ID card please"
"Aye, move away.  I need to go urgently."
"ID card please"
"Bloody hell! Where the hell is it?  Ah, here it is.  Are you happy?  You bloody fool."

The actual words used were not as innocent as the "Bloody hell" and "Bloody fool" but for the sake of readability I choose not to put those precise words.  I guess this reduces the authenticity of this write-up and I have to probably put a rider "based on real life events".  To cut short story short, I reached the restroom.  Contrary to my expectation, I found the restroom unoccupied, ran into it, opened the zippers and LET GO.  An amazing amount of liquid started flowing out at an even more amazing speed.  Its landing was so noisy that the Niagara falls would have hung its head in shame.  I am not sure how long the flow continued but it was long enough to flood the area around the office, that evening.  Of course, the rains that day might have helped but I carry the guilt that I am the major contributor.

Shabbaaaa ABBAaaaaa

The meeting did not turn out the way we thought it would.  We thought the customers would jump out of their seats with a pen in hand and demand a place to sign the deal.  They had shown a lot of interest and enthusiasm during the presentation and ensuing discussions.  But at the end of the show, they requested, very enthusiastically, another meeting to discuss the details.  Except for our boss all of us were disappointed.  He thought the meeting went exceptionally well.  The customer had expressed interest and that was good enough for him.  He had a smile on his lips and as we went down the elevator, a whistle started blowing out of it.

The lift journey lasted for ever.  The boss' elevated mood further depressed our already depressed feelings.  The whistles and hums in that small space racked our tender nerves.  To stop this joyful outburst I put forth my disappointment about the meeting.  Boss looked at me amused and said "did you expect him to sign on the dotted line by the end of the first meeting itself?"  "That's what you said prior to the meeting" I retorted.  "Yes, but I said that to keep you guys motivated" boss retorted back. "You should be happy; he asked us to come back right?  Show they are interested."  "So when will he sign?" asked I naively.  "Next meeting definitely" was the response.  "You say that to keep me motivated, right?" was my exasperated response.  "No, no my dear.  I got the vibes today.  Next meeting is the one, we go to Leela for dinner after that.  Its party time my boy" came the comforting response.

I hated it when the bugger tried to humor me with "dear"s and "my boy"s.  Unfortunately, he is my boss and I have to put up with this nonsense.  A few minutes later, we were in the car and my dear boss was revving up the engine as though he was at the start line of a race.  I had chosen the back seat to keep my distance from him.  Also, I did not like to wear the seat belts and so I thought the back seat fit my bill.  But when I heard the engine rev up I changed my mind about avoiding seat belt .  I had just about enough time to buckle it on; the car literally jumped out of the parking spot and sped towards to the spiral ramp.  We hit the ramp at about 40 Kph, I think.  I was pushed to the door and was stuck there as we went up the ramp - round and round and round.  I prayed hard and promised a visit to Tirupathi if I got out of this car alive.  Finally, we reached the ground level alive.  Three floor of spiraling hell came to an end with a hard hitting of the brake. Thanks to the seat belt I did not fly our of the wind shield.

I prayed to God again and requested him to put some sense into my boss - "Please let him not drive recklessly through the roads.".  But my prayers went unheeded.  His trademark style of driving continued.  The road was teeming with people and vehicle but our car bull dozed on.  It was like one of the scenes from the comics wherein cyclists, hens, dogs and cows jump out of the way as a car zips by with the driver peeping out of the window waving his hands wildly at the people and the animals.  I had a good mind to ask him if he thought the accelerator pedal had dual functionality.  The first press accelerates the vehicle and the second press brakes it.  Someone had to tell this guy that it accelerates more when pressed the second time.  But that cannot be me - he does not like to be corrected by his subordinates and so I kept praying.  By the time, we covered two kilometres, I had promised visits to most temples in the state of AP.  I could not afford further promises and so decided to distract myself.

"Sir, don't you have any music."

"Oh yes! A large music collection.  I love music.  Do you want to listen to something?"  As he was saying this he dove to his left to get out his CD pack.  Along with him the car turned sharply to the left.  I did not dare to look out but I heard a lot of noise and commotion from that side.  Boss straightened, threw back the CD pack and continued driving as though nothing had happened.  "Go on, select something" he said.  I opened the pack and found the pack had about 10 CDs.  All the CDs had ABBA written on top and the numerals 1 to 10 written underneath.

"I love ABBA.  Select the CD that you want from the pack." he insisted.
"I don't listen to ABBA." was my response.
He turned around, looked at my face and exclaimed "What!".  I am not quite sure what happened to the car in those few second (or minutes or hours, I am not sure which).  But we seem to have again left behind a chaotic scene.
"Pick up CD four or five, whichever you like best.  Both of them are good." he said.

I had no idea which songs they contained and as such I did not know anything about ABBA.  I have always preferred the number five over four and so I picked it up and handed it over.  Soon our vehicle was filled with the soothing sound of the ABBAs.  I am not sure why I had not listened to them but now they seemed to be the best sounds I have heard in my whole life.  I closed my eues and let my body rock to the crazy rhythms of the car as the beautiful music filled my ears and head.