! Sixth sense

You might be wondering what the title "! Sixth Sense" means . If you 've watched the movie , you 'd probably relate this to the boy's ability to see "dead people" . For me , the "! " implies the negation operator and the "sixth sense " means a quality which humans are said to possess , called "intuition" . So the expression evaluates to "lack of sixth sense" . If you want to find out why i came to this apparently ridiculous conclusion , read on ....


This is a series of events which actually occured to me , you are free to draw your conclusions from them :

A couple of my colleagues got their long awaited (not by them) turn to treat the other 6 of a group of 8 . Somehow I ended up volunteering to take one of them "doubles " on my (legendary) Yamaha to Satyam , so that we could book tickets for the next day's show . And so we set off after a detailed set of instructions from two other guys , who incidentally give the same directions to the same places , but with such contrast in styles of delivery and stresses on important landmarks , that at the end of it , I am back the starting point.
Anyway that didn't matter too much, because I had a navigator behind me and another lady who we followed to the destination . Being my first time out into the "heavy" traffic of Chennai , and that too with a passenger , I was riding very carefully . So carefully that I could n't be drawn into an accident even if I wanted to . We continued guided until the guide "horse" left us with directions and we went through unhindered . Finally at one point of time , we were very close to Satyam multplex , and I was headed into a road which had no vehicles going along with me . This struck me odd and I almost followd my "intuition" when I decided to trust my passenger's common sense and went along the same road . At the corner of the road stood a guy in uniform .... he could have been anything , a conductor , a school boy , a soldier ....anything like , I would n't have cared , but he was a traffic cop! By the time we realised , we were so close to him , he turned around and immediately grabbed my handles and took the key . He was maybe in his fifties , with a white mush and the traffic cop uniform . I was so stunned by this turn of events , I was thinking how I would get my bike out of the police station once it was taken ! My friend though was quicker thinking and was already citing reasons and trying to convince him to let us go. I was dumbstruck .During the course of the conversation that followed , he quoted the original "price " of "escape" as Rs.1500 /= and the "subsidised " amount he was offering as Rs.200 .
We ended up paying 50 each and the old guy must have gone home happy that day. Not to mention I was relieved that I got off easily , and pissed off because I had displayed lack of trust in myself by not listening to the "sixth sense" . After this incident , I came to find out many unwritten rules of the game ." Never give more than 50 bucks to a single cop "; "Never look into the eyes of a cop on the road when you are in a traffic signal in "red" state " .... and other such rational and straight forward stuff .


You would think I learnt my lesson , and lived happily ever after riding unitl my bike rusted to destruction or until I got a new car or another multitude of possibilities . Here's what actually happened .

After a couple of months of the first incident , I was returning home to Adyar from office and was forced to stop at a signal on the Sardar Patel road . This was at around 10 pm at night , yeah its true I had no business going home at that time , but I guess some things happen to warn you of greater dangers to come ! At the signal , a traffic cop was casually looking at the vehicles waiting . And suddenly he noticed something amiss or different in mine and asked me to pull over to the side . I was like "Oh man! ... not again". This time I was better prepared to handle this situation , with all the gyaan" of the earlier incident still fresh . After a lot of fundas and apologies from me , I ended up fifty bucks poorer . I was really .... happy to let go of that fifty because it was half of the hundred buck fine last time and I had handled it well. Even then , I made a show of it to my friends and life went on peacefully .

That was like the mediocre second part of a movie trilogy , but the final one takes the cake , I promise !

In this huge city called "Chennai " I was relocated to a new office building which is located on "North Usman Road " . This is one of the busiest areas in the peak hours and you could literally pull your hair with frustration if you didn't have to hold both the handles to thread through the gaps provided by the "> 4 " wheelers , cycle guys , pedestrians ! and all other two wheelers . You could argue that why not take it cool and follow them at a safe distance . I say that there is no safe distance ! If you are going to slow, there ll be overtakes from the left and right, sudden brakes from the front and possibly a nudge from behind .
And so , I follow the wave of traffic trying to steer clear from the crowd from the only way possible , the front . After a lot of detailed instructions from the afore mentioned illustrious colleagues , I managed to find the office on the first day with not even a hitch as far as direction was concerned . The same night I returned by another route which was suggested by third guy and put me in an venturesome mood . I always sucked as a navigator and I thought "ok, now is the time to learn", and I set out on the new route . It took me so long to reach home I thought 'll nver take that same route again ... although the route was pretty straight forward if you come back late at night when "no entries" are "enterable" . This registered somewhere in my brain as a brownie point for being adventurous and the next day at work , I was upbeat about charting new territory. After a tiring day at work , all my sensible senses told me to go by the main road (mount road ) and reach home safe and sound , but that little devil in me said " What the hell is the shortcut for then?".

I avoided the "GN Chetty road" , the road to GRT Grand and took the third road on the "circle" around "Panagal Park" and went past "Nandanam signal " on mount road , pretty confident of the route . Eventually I reached the "Satyam office" signal , (Maruthi India showroom also there ). At this place , it was so familiar I decided to have a closer look . So I stopped over and found that going right there would go to "Kotturpuram bridge " and then to Cancer Institute Adyar and then all the way home ! But again there was something which made me defy all logic and straight I went thinking "All roads lead to Adyar". The next right had a huge board which said "Adyar =>" showing the direction very clearly . I followed with a sense of relief . The next few turns I took were familiar from the previous night's escorted trip to Satyam and back . And then I came upon an active "no entry " . I reached a road called "Greenways" which incidentally has Mylapore railway station (if I am wrong , please correct me ) and this joined an extremely sorry excuse for a road . This felt like mountain biking through the city but it was a trodden path , so I ventured forth . Through a hazy sequence of roads and bylanes and avoiding one ways I came to mount road again ! and encountered another one way , the one after Teynampet signal when you take a left . Ominously I saw a couple of auto guys going forward and and turning around as if an invisible wall was stopping them . I didn't get the message , part of the stupor of "monitor" fatigue and stubborn recalcitrance made me go on further. Another auto guy turned around and on his way back was saying "go , go there's no problem , its night only , nobody will catch" . And I trusted him , for the only reason that I had got reliable information many times from the same kind of guys . Just a few metres ahead after the glare of the traffic became less, saw a traffic cop approaching me briskly . For a few seconds I was again numb , dumbstruck and he muttering , " even the auto guy is scared and you are coming happily ! " . "Not again :( I thought .. " . He took my keys and crossed the road where there was a more official looking bunch of traffic cops with bike,radio and all things which strike fear in the guy who gets caught . And then he saw my badge and seemed slightly mollified and started speaking with some respect and the tone of a teacher talking to an erring favourite student . I realised later that he knew he would definitely get some money out of me ! After the initial quote of 1500 bucks payable at the court , before which my bike would be siezed , he came down to "How much will you pay? ". I said "I ll pay fifty". But unfortunately ,being dressed in good clothes worked out against me . The smart thing to do , as my friend later told me is to immediately take all money out of ur wallet except 50 bucks and cite reasons like "I am in a big hurry to go home , an emergency
came up and ...." and some cock and bull story like that . If there is one thing I am worse at than navigation, its cooking up stories . And so I parted with 400 hard earned bucks to again roam free ....? on the streets of Chennai .

At the end of this trilogy , I hope this is not "The beginning " and is in fact "The end " !