Out of Control!

So it’s finally happened! A gun and six bullets have been employed to settle a parking dispute. Regardless of the internecine squabbles within the D’Souza family, any Mumbaiker will tell you that there have been at least a couple of moments in their life when they have wanted to pull out a gun and shoot someone or themselves over the non-availability or the cussedness of others regarding the all important issue of parking.

And if like me you’re not a very good driver in the first place, parking is a present and constant problem. Consequently, I find that I only go to places that offer valet service.

But parking isn’t the only issue that’s making Mumbai’s rage reach alarming proportions. How long before someone standing in one of those never-ending water queues in front of community taps, snaps and either attacks those around him—or hangs himself from the nearest fan? And when you talk about queues, who can forget the people banished to eternal damnation—those destined to stand and wait—or supplicate before government bureaucrats? An afternoon spent at any of the arms of the State descends in to a Kafkaesque experience, with a creaky ceiling fan, and a sleepy peon on a stool, as the only comic relief.

Two other areas which have the potential to turn into Mad Max scenarios are the incessant, maddening, frustrating, annoying cell phone marketing. I know there’s been some relief here and one can now block errant marketers-but it’s a complicated process—at least for me—and I found at the end of following the instructions-I only blocked my own cell phone number—which is not such a dire situation I suppose—as I’m never going to call myself! That, and train rage is another time bomb waiting to go off. Imagine the psychic wear and tear of being crushed, body to body, in a hot, airless, smelly, germ-ridden place, day in and day out for years—with no respite. Imagine what a person with a gun would do in such a situation.

And I know it’s politically incorrect to say so—but Mumbai’s loud, demanding, strident and shrill traffic light beggars with their whining, incessant solicitations are someday going to drive a car passenger to real violence. What’s even more frustrating is that you hate yourself for hating their entreaties and so you’re caught in double jeopardy.

But of course, besides all these above-mentioned rages, nothing is as potentially damaging to the city’s security as road rage. Road rage is the subterranean undertow that sloshes under the city’s shiny surfaces. It is the dark venomous river that informs our daily attrition. How do I know? Because, gentle reader I have been a perpetuator of it, too. Yes, I who thought myself to be one of the most gentle, timid, passive drivers, found myself chasing the poor man who had grazed my front fender and then called me a ‘stupid woman’, through the by lanes and back streets of Malabar Hill one evening; chasing him in my car, as he swerved and ducked in and out of compounds on his motor cycle, until I caught him and made him apologise. At that time, the anger was a vivid and palpable beast riding me—even suggesting that I ram my car against his bike until he apologised.

No sir, Mumbai is a tinder box waiting to be ignited and there’s no doubt that its citizens are out of control. And that’s why no one in Mumbai is all that surprised, that a brother pulled out a gun and shot six bullets into his sister— over a parking dispute!

—s_malavika@dnaindia.net