Awakening of the sleepy city

As I sped through the empty roads today homeward, I couldn't help feeling this strange feeling. This was the second time in the recent past that Bangalore - a usually peaceful city - was being threatened by trouble on the streets. Only a few weeks ago, I had left office in a hurry in order to beat the curfew and reach the safe and sane confines of my home outside of the mad world that was getting madder all around me. My boss's angry words rang faintly in my ears and I felt a mild irritation at his seemingly unfeeling attitude towards my plight. True he had let me go, but not without spewing a bit of venom that I felt was uncalled for. I knew he was just generally hassled, but I'm only human too and his irritation grated upon my finer feelings.

But compared to that night, tonight was just a mere shadow. True I had not encountered anything untoward that time either, by God's grace, but there was a palpable difference in the atmosphere all around me. Then the roads had been absolutely empty with only a few crime cops hanging around - none of those painful traffic cops who insist on stopping people returning after a hard day's work just to check their licences or smell their breath. That night they were conspicuously absent. But there was a general uneasiness in the air. The air hung thickly all around dangerously low like the drooping wet of a bat's wings. There was a nameless fear and dread, such as can be induced by communal feelings.

Tonight, however, I had to consciously bring my attention to the fact that the roads were empty and the shutters down on shops - all except one medical shop on the way. Only then did I remind myself that there was supposed to be trouble brewing silently somewhere waiting for a chance to erupt. Only it wouldn't be as bad as what it was a few weeks ago when two communities decided to go at each other. This time it would be because of the court's ruling seemingly against Karnataka on the release of Cauvery water. While it would incite many of the baser passions of some of the baser elements of society, the communal feelings would after all be of a different kind, not the sort that would really have people killing each other believing that their respective gods would then accept them into heaven and cast aside the man or woman they had just killed.

It's strange for a person who's spent all his life in this peaceful city to suddenly ride through streets that seem somehow half awakened. True, they would fall asleep very shortly after, but for a city that had hardly ever opened its eyes before, sleep-walking through most of its days, this sudden excitement on its part seemed almost unnatural. Anyone who knows and loves Bangalore as much as I do would feel some pangs at this subtle change that some outside elements have been subtly and insiduously wheedling into the very midst of our society. To be sure, if Mysore is called the sleepy little town, then Bangalore is definitely its older brother - a city that sleeps, but only at the right times.

But this sudden madness that has gripped the city - I wish it would go away and leave us all alone.

So when I remembered that the reason the roads were empty was because there was likely to be trouble (notice I had to remind myself about this), I snapped out of my general dreaminess in which I usually move about and paid a little more heed to the world about me. I couldn't help thinking to myself that at one time, I used to be afraid of dogs chasing me on the road while I rode back home from work. It used to be a regular affair three years ago. But now, I was more afraid of my own fellow human beings, lowering themselves much below the level of street dogs. Fortunately, nothing happened to me along the way until the last stretch. Breezing along, I suddenly saw this dog waiting in anticipation for me to pass, and as I did, he charged.