Traffic Tales

A school bus nearly drove over my foot tonight, and I barely registered it. It appears I have arrived.

A few days ago, Rich* and I were walking along and a cow, a cow with horns (I think those puppies are actually called bulls) moved it's head towards me, nearly grazing me with its horn. I jumped and ended up on the other side of Richard, who said "Please, don't jump."

(*By the way, since some have asked by email, Richard is my friend, a traveling buddy, and he re-taught me how to play chess today. As you may have ascertained, he has a good sense of humour, a great quality for traveling late at night and waiting in the cold dark middle of nowhere to catch a connecting train.)

I replied "Sorry, I got scared."

To which Rich said "I know, but your jumping scared me." Apparently, I could have scared the cow too. Well later that same day, Rakeesh was showing us around another area of town and he jumped when a cow moved towards him, and he lives here.

So I pointed it out to Rich "Did you catch that? Rak jumped."

"Yeah. I saw that."

The next day, when a cow moved a little quickly (which is extremely rare, really, they are massive and they don't move fast, though a herd of them did take up the main drag last night and they seemed to be going at quite a clip) I only flinched.

How Zen I felt.

I was practically humming Om Mane Padme Om. Imagine, me in tune with the fracus and fray, the horns blaring and bells ringing and Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.

The school bus had already passed me when I realised how close it was to me. There are no sidewalks here, so you're on the road with cycle rickshaws, motor rickshaws, cars, cyclists, kids, people, puppies and cows.

The cows still stress me out more. They look placid enough but one never knows what lurks beneath those calm exteriors. One thing for sure, they don't like the flash on the camera.