Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Green Hitchhiker

On my way back from workplace I often drop some of my colleagues who stay nearby by my home. Sometimes I even give a ride to hitchhikers near by my work place. However today I found the most unusual hitchhiker. I was cursing the Mumbai traffic as I was stuck on the Gandhinagar, Kanjurmarg Railway over bridge. Its a routine traffic jam at this point. The usual honking, was on. There were the young entrepreneurs selling roasted peanuts. Of course there were all the fumes bellowing out of the vehicle emission outlets.

Amongst all this and my impatience, I noticed something that looked like a piece of green leaf perched on top of my bike's dashboard. A few minutes later I was startled when I noticed that the leaf was moving. It was not a leaf but a grasshopper (or some other similar creepy crawly) approximately the size of my thumb. The insect moved around for a while before deciding to settle down near the direction indicator button. As the traffic started clearing I drove into the eastern express highway expecting that as I picked up speed the insect would either be blown away or fly off.
As I was riding, I could still see the green hitchhiker from the corner of my eye. This hitchhiker was certainly not going to give up its free ride. The speed, the cold wind, the bikes rumbling engine, the potholes nothing seemed to deter its resolve to stay perched on the bikes handle.
For the next 20 minutes or so I did not touch the indicator but used hand signal to indicate my intent every time I had to turn. By the time I got home I was half expecting the insect to be still around. My expectations were met when I entered my building gate with the fella still resting on the bike's handle. So I decided that this arthropod deserved more fame and its about time to put it on my blog.