yellow line and pollution certficate

I was on my way to office on my bike and was running a little late for a 9:30AM meeting. So the red traffic light irritated me. I overtook most of the vehicles waiting there and stood close to the zebra line. I realized that I'm on the yellow line and had crossed the yellow line while overtaking the vehicles. Looked around to see if there was any traffic cop.  There was one standing right after the traffic signal. I wished if some vehicle came and stood by my right side. I felt like a school boy who has not finished his home work and is looking for classmates who are in the same situation.

As if to make my wish come true, a private bus came and stopped by my right side. The bus was completely on the other side of the yellow line blocking vehicles coming from the opposite side. There are times when I get relieved when others violate law. This was one such occasion.

The traffic light turned green in a few seconds. The private bus overtook everybody, came to the extreme left  and stopped a few meters after the traffic signal. There was chaos as everyone was trying to overtake the bus. I got stuck behind the bus. To my dismay, the traffic cop stopped me. For some reason he was not interested in the private bus. He had seen me crossing the yellow line and asked me to show my "papers".

"Your pollution certificate has expired last week. You'll have to pay Rs 200 extra for that. So your total fine is Rs 300 " He said in local language.

My instinct was to argue that the bus driver committed a bigger violation. But I hesitated for 2 reasons. One - I did violate a traffic rule. Two - my command or rather the lack of it over the local language.

I paid the fine and hurried from there cursing myself for getting into that mess. A three wheeler overtook me spitting thick black smoke on my face. The traffic police didn't seem to be bothered about the pollution certificate of that vehicle. Or Maybe that guy had one. I've never seen anybody failing a pollution check in any of those pollution checking centres.

chyavanaprasam

Approach road to our apartment is reasonably wide by Indian standards. But these days most of it is occupied by construction material dumped on either side of the road by big and small builders. Their hoardings promise heaven to potential buyers. Not sure if they'll meet the promise.  But they have already managed to create hell on the road.

I was on the way for an evening walk. A school bus was trying to maneuver its way through the approach road. My son already reached home. So it was not his school bus. There was a big truck on the road with construction materials. The bus driver was yelling at the truck driver to make way for the bus. But the truck driver was not yielding. The bus driver got furious. He got down and charged at the truck driver as if to hit him.

I felt bad for the kids in the bus because they had to witness these unpleasant scenes. But I was helpless. I proceeded for my evening walk and grocery shopping. It was only after a couple of hours that I was back.

 That evening on the dinner table my wife asked me - Do you know that one school bus driver was beaten up very badly by the construction workers in front of our apartment?

I could connect the dots. The school bus driver hit the truck driver. The truck driver called for help and got his colleagues from the construction site to join him. Together they beat up the bus driver who was alone.

And all this happened while the kids where inside the bus. They watched a few men attacking their "uncle" (that is what the kids call the bus driver). They were helpless. Did some of them cry? what did they feel? fear? anger? helplessness? Maybe all of these.

My wife came to know about the incident from our neighbor. She doesn't know if the driver was in a condition to drive the bus after getting beaten up. If he was not, then what happened to the kids in the bus? Did they have to wait for a different driver? When I was coming back from walk, the bus was not there. So definitely someone has driven it away after the incident. My mind was disturbed.

That night my wife called our son to have his usual dose of "chyavanaprasam" (an ayurvedic medicine supposed to help in building immunity) . He started taking Chyavanaprasam because someone in our extended family suggested that the best way to build immunity in kids was to take this medicine regularly. All the more important in Bangalore because the pollution levels are high here. But I was realizing that there was another kind of pollution happening. Pollution by violence/aggression. And what do I give to him to make him immune? A dose of "non-violence/compassion". But where do I get it? Can I get "non-violence" tablet/syrup? I decided to tell him some stories from Gandhiji's life. Now the challenge is to give a dose regularly. I could afford to tell him stories yesterday because I was relatively free. For an engineer working in Bangalore, that is usually not the case. So what do I do when I'm busy?  Which is the case most of the days. I'm still searching for "non-violence" in tablet/syrup/lahyam/choornam form.