An occasional cool breeze after a sultry sweltering June afternoon lured me to go out for an evening-'ride'. It was all so pleasant, the usual bumpy roads, cacophonous vendors, noisome old ladies...all seemed so just perfect with the evening sun setting down cosily behind that old Gurudwara near my place.. :) A yamaha to ride, 70rs in my pocket...Oh ! I was having the best evening of my week when.....Screeeeeech !! I was brought down to a grinding halt by a White Santro coming straight on my face with High-Beam headlights piercing my eyes ! The guy cranked his neck out and yelled a loud "SAALE MAREGA ! ANDHA HAI KYA ! " and I began to wonder if that was an affirmative or an interrogative sentence...so that I should reply appropriately..because if that was a question, I doubted his IQ as to how a blind person could ride a bike..never mind...I ignored him...but most importantly it was a good point he put forth...Was I really blind ?

Well, I could see he was coming the wrong way ! I could see through his windscreen that he was wearing a fake pepe jeans T-shirt although I knew that his car's high beam headlights contracted my iris so small, not much of light could enter it for some time..making other things in-discernable ! Still I was sure I had a good vision otherwise..

But then I realised, it wasn't about my vision...It was actually about my outlook towards the on-the-road-scenario...was I blind ?

I knew that in India, the costlier the vehicle you own..the larger share of road-space you can command...although more than 80 percent of cars on indian roads are financed..but sooner or later, each one pays for what he rides...the more he pays, the more he owns the road-space...it is a tacit understanding among all..

I knew that most driving tests can be flunked for money and the rest are taken in bright daylight, so no one ever learns to use low-beam on roads during dark...

I knew that, the last time the road I was going through, got working street-lights was more than 6 years ago during last to last municipal elections...

And by the way this person was driving, I could see that it was very unlikely that he'd want to use brakes by a safe distance from me...

Knowing all of those things, and yet overlooking all them, it didn't seem so wrong of him to put up that point...after all I had a 'blind'-eye approach, to riding on indian roads, for that evening...and so I felt empathy for discomforting this ignorant under-age-driving guy...but before I could say something...he zoomed off right past me leaving me among a swarm dumb scene-watchers and about-to-be-dead-in-a-week moral policemen oldies... Alas !