Zen and motorcycling on Bangalore roads

Every day, my super-driver, Nagaraj, would drive me from home to work and back home. Fly-over was no longer a noun - it became a verb.

I had nightmares about driving a car on the same road as Nagaraj. I did not fire him in the belief that I was safer inside his car than anywhere else on the road - at least when he shared the road with me.

Then ,one day, I didn't have my car, and offered to hop on a friend's bike to go to lunch. I did not realize that the bikes today are not my dad's Hamara Bajaj. I also did not realize that those driving these bikes were also not my dad - slow, steady, and boring. Before I knew it, I was on a roller coaster. Only there was no camera to capture that moment when I held my heart in my mouth and screamed my way down the parking lot ramps.

Outside, it was not so scary. The wind zipping past me slowed every so often to salute the speed breakers. Buses seemed larger than usual, and as we manuevered past them, I leaned to the other side in fear that the monster under the bus would pull me off the bike and eat me for lunch.

But, I felt safer than in Nagaraj's car.