Come September

It was sometime in September when I last reposed tremendous faith in someone. And she did not let me down one bit. In fact, she was fantastic. Super. Of course I am talking about my car. No guy in his right mind would ever repose faith in anyone else. I am not going to get into a comparison of a woman and a car. Frankly, there isn't any grounds on which to do that. They do have one common trait, though. If maintained well, they get better with age.

My car is a fiat. She is 15, and she runs like a charm. She can do 30kmph in fourth gear, and she can do a flat out 120kmph on the highway. You have to be behind the wheel to understand what Angelina Jolie meant in 'Gone in 60 Seconds' when she said that cars give you that orgasmic feeling in the seat of your pants. Don't eye my car, though. I don't let anyone drive her.

So anyway. I was driving through Chirala and Punnugu to reach a very beautiful beach at Suryalanka. It was a fantastic drive, with the road criss-crossing across green fields, canals running along the side, and a railway crossing on the way too. I was reminded of this road trip a couple of days ago when I was driving to Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. We have one of our instant noodles factories there.

Keep aside the elements of green fields, canals, and railway crossing. Everything else was just like that drive - small houses along the road, people milling about their business, a hill on the horizon, and a hot sun shining in the sky. It just felt like being in small-town India. Shops dotted the road, and people were all around milling about their business. How much I missed my fiat! She is such a beauty. But I don't think I would drive her in Nigeria. The traffic is too chaotic, and each dent would pierce a dagger straight through my heart.

That said, the factory is quite cool. Fantastic how dough becomes noodles. And all on an assembly line. Whoever thought of noodles has to be a genius. The same thing goes for papad too. To make a dough, dry it out in the sun, and then fry it... Now that needs some serious thought process. Good we did not have billion dollar corporations setting out to patent things like turmeric back then. What will they patent next? Sex? Whatever!

Lagos has suddenly become a very cool place to be in. We have armed security in our compound, and the number of security personnel has been doubled. This after one of the company employees was robbed at gunpoint. Commuting after 8 in the evening has been restricted to essential commuting only. It is Bihar all over again.

Aside: Why are we happy being stupid in love?