Saturday, March 22, 2003

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The Deputy Prime Minister�s motorcade kept me waiting for an hour in the bus stop today. Sardar Patel road to Raj Bhavan was blocked off. Just imagine this: one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city suddenly goes dead silent; all the traffic off the road and all the onlookers awed into silence by the security personnel. Just if you didn�t know, Sardar Patel road runs through a forest. So there are no buildings or shops or homes on either side of the roads: just the deafening silence of the woods. 7:30 PM feels like midnight. 50 people standing silently at the bus stand, the silence only broken by an occasional cough. Grim looking cops peer into the dark woods lining the road and then the far away wail and flashing lights of an approaching convoy of cars. The lights go brighter, the wail goes louder, sharper until the first jeep roads by screaming a warning, followed by a train of cars zipping past us. Small cars, big cars, cars with funny proboscis and flagellous antennae, trucks filled with armed guards, busses filled with uniformed policemen, an ambulance, a couple of luxury armored jeeps and a host of pilots, escorts and trailers signaling the end of our wait and the beginning of another ordeal in a by now crowded 5E.

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