I’m driving in the daily traffic jam of North Calcutta.
A war must have recently taken place.
Cars, buses, rickshaws, jeeps, cycles, trucks, cows, pedestrians, pushcarts, all strain to move at all.
My friend seated next to me sings a classical raga of midnight in rural Bengal.
A cyclist nearly collides with our car in the ballet of Indian traffic.
Two inches or two seconds and he would have been dead.
He is unimpressed.
His fear threshold lies inside his skin.
In the June oven of New Delhi, there is a near accident.
The driver yells at the cyclist, “Why don’t you watch out? I almost killed you!”
The cyclist yells back, “Why didn’t you?”
QBA 