The picture above is from a Google Image Search and is there for representative purposes only. The people featured are not involved with my blog in any way.

It’s bright and early in the morning. The traffic has a bounce as if reacting to a good night’s sleep and to the sudden shower that cooled down the city last night. Providing a rhythm that vacillates between a purr and a staccato, motor cycles and scooters weave their erratic mood swings into a lane system that’s gasping from the strain of maintaining its dignity.

One guy is already making his work calls. Prepping up a value chain that will serve as a route map for his day. Another is puffing on that last cigarette for the forenoon, cursing an industry that does not allow smoking within a clinical campus. The third fellow is squirming. His underwear is not fully dry and there is a sense of wet discomfort around his groin. And the girl he is giving a lift to doesn’t seem to be the kind who will take too kindly to him singing the ‘Scratchman’ tune.

Like a flock of birds in windswept motion the motley group swings to the left, finding a gap in the traffic and instantly responding to the line of least resistance. The smirks on their faces, directed at the lumbering cars’ is there for all to see. When one of the car drivers begins to make a face of anger one of the bikes swings even closer to the offending car and almost kisses it, while the rider pouts his lips and makes an obscene sound. The loosely bonded gang giggles and they race towards the traffic light…

…where a police squad is waiting. They’ve all had their tea and morning ‘nashtha’. Just the SI who is on his rounds is late and starving. And naturally, breakfast arrangements for him have to be made.

The shoal of bikers slow down at the junction, some even spot the waiting cops but they have done nothing wrong. And guilt free, they prepare to race off into the open stretch ahead.

The cop looks at them lazily and it looks like he is after bigger fish…possibly the SI’s breakfast is more of a delicacy than a biker can afford…

Suddenly his eyes sharpen…his hand goes up and knots up into a pointing finger…and one bike rider is suddenly the target, the prey, the hunted, the ‘bakra’…

“Why me?” his expression seems to say as he pulls over. His mind has already calculated how much money he has in his front pocket. He doesn’t want to pull out his wallet…there is too much cash there and has to be hidden from the greedy cop’s view.

And mentally, he is running through a checklist…License – Check. Insurance – Check. What could be guilty of he wonders…and is astounded when he hears the constable growl…Helmet…

But…what about my friends…the others…he begins to protest. Then he stops…as he sees from the policewalla’s face that he is not going to be treated special or lenient.

So there is a HELMET Compulsory Rule that is valid in the city. And it is a rule that is mostly ignored. But it is a rule and a rule that allows the constable and the inspector to deal with offenders as they deem fit.

Yes, a hundred bikes with their riders happily astride without helmets can go by, but suddenly, once in a while, a poor random sod, maybe you, will get pulled up…fined, scolded and harassed.

What makes him different? What makes him special? Is it a look of a person easily bullied? Is it more cash potential? Or is it a simple quirk of probability? We’ll never know.

But the idli, dosa, puri and upma combo that the SI enjoys with his hot tea and betel red paan will. And laugh as the bike rider silently curses Why Me, GOD!!!