red - the time has just frozen

The light went red and my car came to a screeching halt. I was already late and road mannerisms were the last thing on my mind. Why, why do we have traffic lights and why so many, now ofcourse the traffic aint that unmannerly. We sure could do away woth a couple of them, they are a sure waste of resources.

I was at my economy related philosophical best trying to calculate how much of resources can be saved and put to better use if a couple of hundred such traffic lights were uprooted.

Generally not a person sporting such a grumpy disposition I had reasons for my foul mood. The sweltering heat of Delhi coupled with an air conditioner that betrayed me at the most testing times were the culprits.

Anywayz I gazed at the traffic lights and waited impatiently for them to turn green,I was at my attentive best, at a point of time even counting the seconds flying by. Just then I saw a beggar trotting along to my open car window, a slight displeasure passed my thoughts and I sat there pulled between the twin potent emotions of feeling sorry for the person and at the same time remembering the statistics of the the moolah these fake beggars rake in and the stories of how easily they make a fool of all of us ,us the up market ,suave and successful people.
''No, not a penny from me , I know he belongs to the same bandwagon''. As this thought whriled in my mind and took deep roots I faked indiffrence. The beggar looked imploringly at me, kept pleading, cajoling me in the name of God, his hunger and his open wounds . I looked straight ahead as if there was this phantom speaking ,non-existent, without a soul without a responsibilty towards and all along, me probably without a conscience.
The seconds became more umbearable, I could no longer stand it. Why dosent he just move away. Why dosent he try his luck elsewhere, try to fool somebody else or maybe why dosent he go to a peron who will not waste his time, give him something for all this whining. a hundred thoughts came and went in my mind. Oh I am so heartless so cruel, sure I waste a hundred times more than what I could possibly shell out for him here. but no I maintained the absent look on my face, as if I had switched myself off and forgotten where the switch for switching myself on lay. Dumb, unresponsive, absent.

All of a sudden the lights turned yellow and in a fraction of seconds green. My brain had signalled my reflexes and in less than a second I was off, speeding away to my destination, becoming aware of the lapse in time, my deadline, the car speeding from behind. In all this somewhere the emotional baggage I had picked up a couple of minutes back was being dropped unknowigly and unconciously.

I am amazed at myself and so at all the people around me who are so comfortably living in this parallel world of concious and unconsious where at the same moment they are both so so alert while being so indiffrent to their surroundings as suiting their needs.