Oxford dictionary defines
addiction as ‘a fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance
or activity’. Well to put it in perspective many people are addicted to many
things, porn, alcohol, cigarette, crack, etc etc, but these things are not something
that gets my freak on. It’s something more serious.
Over the years from the age of 16,
I ve been driving, started with a Maruti 800 and then graduated to a Zen. I
have pushed these cars to their limits once in a while and got my kicks, of
course these cars were fast, but not really really fast and hence the thrills
were limited. But since the Swift came into my life, I ve been pushing the
boundaries of killing myself almost everytime I find an empty road. Not that I
am not loving it, but as age is catching up, I am beginning to realize the
consequences of ‘What If’? I mean doing 180 and 190 k at every available empty
stretch will atleast sometimes catch your guardian angels by surprise?
It started of initially with, ‘Ah
well this is fun’ to ‘Ah okay I ll keep myself restricted to 120’, to ‘Ah
its such an empty stretch 120 k feels too slow’, to finally, ‘fuck this shit, I
ll max it out whenever I feel like, whats the harm ?’.
I've pasted notes on my dashboard
to remind me not to speed, promised parents and friends that I won’t speed, followed trucks back home so that I don’t speed, promised myself rewards if I abstained for 2 months without speeding. Maximum I've reached is a cool
2 weeks after which again a tempting stretch has broken the rhythm.
It passed all heights a few days back, when even though I was tired after coming back from work, I woke up at 2 am, Yes you read it right 2 AM and thought to myself ‘The 14 Kilometer Mumbai Eastern freeway will be as empty as a haunted house, lets go and max the car out’. For a second I could not believe myself, but the very next second I wore my shoes and scooted from the house in my shorts. Even while driving till the freeway, I kept telling myself ‘This is nonsense, which mature adult does this kind of shit?’, but NO SIR, as the freeway kept getting nearer the inner voice kept getting leaner and leaner until the freeway started and all mature senses were muted and all I could do was go with the flow. I rammed the throttle from the start till the end of the freeway, took the corners at breakneck speeds and reached the opposite side in like some blinks of the eye, all 14 kilometers of it to directly turn around and do the same thing again till the Chembur end.
While I was driving back home
after exiting the freeway, Both my immature and mature senses said ‘THAT WAS
FUN, innit blood?’. Phew. Of course, by morning when I was getting ready to go
to work, thinking about last nights episode, all I said to myself was ‘stupid,
stupid stupid’.
On the way to rozi roti I was thinking, I
need to blog this, I need to google how to get over this addiction, I need to
hear a word of advice from people who have gone through this, I need to talk to
someone. Not my parents, Not my relatives, they ll make sure I don’t step
anywhere near a car for a long time. Maybe someone who’ll read this blog and
understand? Or maybe I need to meet my mature side over a pint of beer and
talk it out. Either ways, something needs to be done and that too FAST. See, ‘fast’
again, now how sadistic is that ?
