frog feels small ...

This morning was a rude jolt for puddle frog about the fraigility of his world. For the last several days - work and after work recreation had kept him so engrossed that it didnt matter where frog was, geographically. He was always online, after all !! Hitting office by 8:45 or so...and reach home only by 9:00 or later. Weekends would be spent sleeping and getting out in the eve to go to a beach or some Aircon fancy puddle place. Geography was history .. atleast temporarily.

This morning - was a little late - about 8:55 i was 250 meters from tidel park (the swank statement that this city could compete in terms of work environment with any other place - escalators inside, gates that opened at the sight of little plastic cards, glass and steel, cool, comfortable - so unlike the utter chaos that prevails outside this work puddle....).

Suddenly, a few angry looking policemen stopped his small car. For a moment, he feared having his first brush with the law of late. But frog is small, frog is cute -thought the frog. Dont hurt frog- please !! Then, frog saw that all the cars were stopping. whew ... So no cars this way today, eh? he mused... No, all other vehicles were made to wait too! Well, a few gentle enquiries in english made to the police yielded nothing.

So he waited, and so did the Big Car next to his, and the bike to the left and the bullock cart next to the Big Car. And the hundreds in buses, sweating to their underpants - gazing outside, waiting for that momentary respite from the breeze that would blow only when the bus moves, waited ! Pretty soon, it was a swarm of vehicles -oil, gas, human and animal powered stretching well over a kilometer, all waiting in the sickly heat of chennai and amongst them, pedestrians - trying to elbow their way inbetween the vehicles. They all waited - We all waited ...

Sound of horns, shouts from the people ... and a silent gaze from the police.

Asked the guy on a bike waiting next to him. 'The CM has to pass through.' Ahh .. first among equals. Well, frog, (like boxer in animal farm) sighed and waited -resolved to get to work.

Funny thing was not the three quarters of an hour that several hundreds of people had to wait. Funny thing was, her highness the CM had passed from the junction after everyone had waited a mere 10 minutes. and yet, her minions would not let anyone else pass! (that man driving his bullock cart might be the terrorist for all you know, that IT engineer in the company bus must be a saboteur! -their vigil was strict, their gaze piercing)

The sum total loss that people had to bear, so that the CM could pass through was far outweighed by the utter humiliation that everyone feels at such moments - moments created by protocol, moments stretched by overzealous law enforcers. Moments that make you feel really small -- smaller than you should feel as a human. It was humiliating even for frog !
Anyways, frog took it with a chucle! welcom back to the real world, to my beloved country. Its vice like grip is too strong anyways.

"I Love you, I'll kill you" - goes the Enigma number ...