By: Onkar Sharma

The Monday morning blues kept on gripping me as I drove through the busiest Delhi-Jaipur highway in Gurgoan. There is an important meeting today with the client, I thought and accelerated. But then, something happened to vehicles ahead. A screeching noise spread through. Had an accident taken place? I carefully ran an eye around. A bike was seen running in the wheels of a multi-axle truck. A silver SUV possibly nudged the bike on the flyover. I slowed and saw the biker being squashed like a tomato. The fiery truck wheels spat fire as the biker’s entrails shredded under the speeding wheels. But the truck wavered oblique almost blocking the highway. The traffic screeched to a halt. Several vehicles rammed into each other. I too applied brakes warily and managed to escape the collision with a Skoda Laura in front.

“Fuck! I’m already late,” I mumbled and jabbed the steering frustratingly.

The SUV had a pack of hooligans. They were upset and tried to flee. However, they were looped in between the truck and cars behind. They left the SUV stuck and escaped the spot on foot.

“Thank god, I wasn’t hit,” I realised.

There were cars, SUVs, buses and all kinds of vehicles stuck in the traffic. The blood-splattered patch on the road merely moved any of them to get out of their vehicles. “Apathetic people,” I cursed. “If I had not to attend an important meeting today, I would have helped him or at least informed the police. How mean are people, I swear!” I whispered pejoratively.

Nobody dared to come out, except the driver and the cleaner of the truck under which the biker had been crushed. The bike had metamorphosed into a mangled carcass. The SUV had three men, I saw. They were perhaps unperturbed. They escaped on foot leaving their SUV in full view. Who could capture them? Every bastard carries a gun these days! Maybe they’d a gun too.

Later I saw the truck driver, pulling out the wriggling entrails of the crushed biker. “O no!” I cried in my car. The wriggle subsided soon in the honking noise.

In half an hour, the police arrived, looked around, marked the spot, nabbed the truck driver and disappeared from the scene. The traffic was smooth again. The highway, which is the artery of the commuters, was opened.

“Thank god, Anil, You did not miss the important meeting,” I said to myself reaching the office.

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