டாய் சாவு கீராக்கி! ( HEY DEATH CUSTOMER)

October 05 2012

Why such a Blog Title? You might ask me. This is one phrase that is so abundantly used in the Chennai roads. Do people actually use the phrase "Death Customer" as a swear word? Yes you should come to Chennai to witness it. All you have to do is, cross the road in Chennai traffic and at least one person will call you a saavu graaki. Why do they say that? Do they practise those lines to use it on you or did they use it just by accident? We can ponder on and on and we will never find an answer to that question.

This morning I was driving my car to work. I had to slow down and stop at the signal because the traffic light indicated that I had to stop. Little did I know that the guy in the bike behind my car was actually taught that Red means Go. He kept on honking and when I did not budge, he got off his bike walked to my car and said "Saavu graaki - Don't you know that I am in a hurry to go to office?" I did not want to react in a equally harsh tone for two reasons.
1) He had a gym -body.
2) I did not want to argue with an immature kid who acted his shoe size and not his age.

I told him " Boss, even I am going to work. You and I don't even know each other. Do we really have to fight over a small issue? I can do one thing. I can move my car a little and you can overtake me and go"

He walked back to his bike and with an angry look overtook my car and jumped the signal like Laard Labak only to be cornered by a traffic police. In the meantime  the green light came and we all drove peacefully with Laard Labak pleading with the police to let him go.

Why do many of us have road rage? What do we get out of it? By swearing at a total stranger just because he overtook you do we get any peace? Do we all think that we are on an F1 track when we drive on the road? Let me not take this post forward as though I am gonna give all a philosophical advice.

How many Saavu Graakis have you come across in your life?

The following pictures shows some Saavu Graakis  we see in day to day life.
Though the above daredevil kind of bike rides are totally unacceptable by the law, such style of riding bikes might become accepted in the future because of rising fuel prices.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I open your RSS feed it puts up a whole lot of strange characters, is the deal on my end?

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