The perfect car playlist

If your daily commute is of more than 15 mins and you don't want to feel helpless about the song choice of the RJ ( read mostly punjabi or punjabi masquerading as bollywood), you need to play your own music in the car. The familiarity of the song is an important attribute for it to get selected for your car playlist. The playlist has a very important role to play. It helps you forget every motherf****** bas**** who doesn't know how to drive. It helps you accept the inevitable. It makes you smug in the knowledge that you have a weapon to  fight this maddening traffic. Thus, the playlist must be carefully selected. And it should be universal, a lil something for every mood. So here is the framework for the perfect car playlist. 

Song No.1 : The Starter

It shouldn't be too slow or too fast. Just the right rhythm to ease you into the long ride ahead. Probably something with a strong beat but a melody as well. Something which also signifies the freedom you feel as the day is ending. I would go with Wake Up Sid -"Kya karoo" or "Beautiful Day" by U2.

Song No.2 :  The Cruiser

A hard core smooth track, no apologies. A rocking number that sets the groove. Makes you feel like an underworld don with the world in your control. Wearing metaphorical Aviators, if you will. I would go with "Can't Stop" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Or "Satisfaction" by Rolling Stones or "Have a nice day" Bon Jovi.

Song No.3 : The Funk

Peppy, funky head nodding / bobbing number , to bring you back from the dark side. My suggestion " Hey soul sister" by Train.

Song No.4 : The Club Anthem

Whatever might be current or your personal favorite.I would go with "The club can't  handle me" by FLORIDA.

Song No.5 : The Karaoke Favorite

Now you are probably all-in the traffic and there is no option but to just keep going. You need to occupy your mind. An all time favorite sing along song. Which you have to sing on full volume, yes even the high bits where your voice cracks and the parts where you mumble the words or make up rhyming substitutes and come back strongly on the chorus. I pick "Ain't no mountain high" by The Temptations. 

Song No.6 : The Soother

You are driving mechanically. Hopefully now the peek-a-boo traffic is a thing of the past. Now a soothing number, something which lets you drift and think of higher things. I personally like Norah Jones for this. " Sunrise" or " Come away with me" or "Iktara" from Wake-up Sid.

Song No.7 : The Local

You've reached that stage in your journey where you accept that you have a love-hate relationship with your city. Its a b***h but it's your b***h. For Delhi the classic " Dilli " by Rabbi Shergill or even "Dilli" from No one killed Jessica. For Mumbai "We are the Bhaaiys".

Song No.8 : The Diva / Stud Song 

Yeah baby, you rock! Own it. For the ladies " I'm a b****h, I'm a lover" by Alanis Morissette or "Video" by India Arie  or "Maneater" by Nelly Furtado. For the gentlemen "I'm a man" by Black Strobe.

Song No.9 :The New Hottie

Something which has caught your fancy but you know it's a short term thing. For instance " I got the moooooooves like Jagger" by Maroon 5.

Song No.10 : The Motivator

Its almost over, you made it. You're home and the traffic is behind you. A song which motivates you, which makes you think about tomorrow, which makes you want to start afresh and do something great. " Tu dhoop he" from Taree Zameen Pe or "Aaaj kal zindagi" from Wake up Sid or "Walk on" by U2 or "Miniature Disaster" by KT Tunstall.

Song No.11: The Guilty Pleasure

We all have one. We all have more than one. The cheesy songs from when we were young. The lyrics etched into your mind like a tattoo. Most likely to be Bryan Adams or Shania Twain or even Britney or (God Forbid) Blackstreet boys. Go ahead. Give in to it. Show me the feeling of being lonely! Cause it's my life and I am going to be 18 till I die so baby hit me one more time.

Song No.12: The Dirty Secret

The song you secretly like. You wouldn't admit even to yourself you like a song like this. What is wrong with me? How can I like this song? But you do. You feet start tapping, you know the words and you sing it in your head. This is your dirty secret you wouldn't tell your best friend. This is also a test song.  To test if he or she will love you unconditionally, tell them you like this song. My dirty secret - punjabi songs whose lyrics I don't even understand - gabru, kala chachma, woofer-amplifier( for purely academic purposes), and so on.

Happy Driving! 

P.S. In case you couldn't tell, the soundtrack of Wake-up Sid is my absolute favorite car music. I played it morning-evening for a year and I wore out the CD so I went and got a new one. I still play it atleast once a week.

Why we drive like we do

I read this article in the paper today, about why we drive like we do. Though it did bring out some interesting points, it was far from an interesting read. I do empathize with the POV but it wasn't well put. So I wanted to do my own take on Why we drive like we do? I think the primary feature is the spirit of 'survival of the fittest' with which we approach our roads. Everyone on the road seems to be raging a war against a personal enemy. A Multitude of 'David's fighting their 'Goliath's. The common man feels like the world as an entity is out to get him, waiting to trick him, fool him, take away his hard earned money and replace it with short lived satisfaction of the Chinese variety. And this attitude springs from the fact that we have a large population. Because there are more than a billion of us, fighting for the same resources - the same limited supply of roti, kapda, makan and ofcourse sadak - a spirit of "every man for himself" has infiltrated the way we drive. So no one is willing to follow the rules. People feel the rules are tools to deprive us of our right to drive as we please. The feeling on the road is that if we don't step up and grab our right, we will be left behind and our neighbour will win. So one reason we are such bad drivers is that we are such good reproducers.

Another factor which contributes to our hellish driving skills is genetic. It has been transferred down generation after generation. And that is the Cult of the Bajaj scooter. Since the Chetak was Indian common man's first automatic transport, the skill of driving a scooter has been embedded into our brains. And passed down from father to son to son to son and now to daughter also. So even though we might be driving a hatchback or a sedan or a truck or even a tanker, we feel like we can squeeze into any 2 inch gap and get ahead. On the road you might be in a Merc, but you can feel in your genes that you are riding your trusty Chetak. The belief in the maneuverability of the vehicle, which was justified in the age of the Chetak, still holds strong. And often causes people to come dangerously close to one another.

So the answer to why we drive like we do : Our talent of Reproducing and Our Genetic Inheritance of the Cult of the Chetak.

Wisdom from the road - 6th March

Seen behind a beautiful truck this morning. Ladies, pay attention!

"Rani bana kar rakh, Raja bana doongi"

Driving You Mad

I was at the doctor's yesterday and he said something which made me think  . He said "In India, people don't value their life, you've been given one life and that's it". Its consistent with what I see when I'm driving. Most Pedestrians don't pay any attention to the vehicles around them. Cyclists and motorists don't check before changing lanes. If they collide with a car, the car driver won't get hurt, probably nothing more than a scratch on the car, but the pedestrian or cyclist might be fatally injured. For many of the pedestrians, one accident, one injury is sometimes all it takes to push them over the brink into debilitating poverty. If they are hurt or unwell, they can't go to work, they might lose their salary for a few days or even their job. This leaves them with lesser money to buy medicines or get treatment, and this delays their recovery which leads to more absenteeism. So its a vicious cycle, often very difficult to break out of.

There is a lack of awareness among pedestrians, but that can't be the only reason. If you see your neighbour get hit by a car and die, pretty soon you will figure out the cause and effect. You should be able to realize that you need to be more careful on the roads. Why haven't we evolved into more careful beings, I don't know.

Driving is like a car racing video game, you never know which creature might jump out from behind the bushes right in front of your car, and it is your responsibility to avoid hitting the target. Maybe this next generation, which plays video games all the time, will be better at it than we are. I honk alot, to caution people, because they seem to be solving some complicated maths problem in their head while walking in the middle of the road. Or they are busy looking in the extreme left direction while taking a turn towards right. But if the have headphones on, or music blasting from their car, even my honking can't save them. So I have to take it upon myself to be alert while driving, expect Brownian motion from the moving objects, expect people, cows, dogs to suddenly come to life when they see a car approaching and try to cross the road at the exact same instant and expect everyone on the road to feel that he / she is the blessed wise one for whom traffic rules and universal laws of physics don't hold.

Maybe the evolution is happening, the drivers are slowly learning to follow rules, and the pedestrians are learning to look before they leap. And maybe in my lifetime the evolution will be complete and driving would be a breeze.