Smokey Smokersons

No, this is not some new hookah or cigar joint. Am talking about the dreaded smoke emitting, fume spitting, soot enveloped vehicles rampant on the streets of Hyderabad. God forbid that you get stuck behind one such monster during rush hour; you might end up choking, suffocating, and cursing your bike, due to which you are being made to endure such torture. It's a damn wonder why no action is ever, ever taken against these poisons. The traffic police obligingly stop every other person on a bike and demand to see each and every document under the sun (including our insurance papers, dammit!) failing which they subtly ask for a couple of hundred bucks. Catch hold of these bozos, for a change!

My eyes are almost always red-rimmed by the time I reach office, triggering rumors that I might be a crybaby. Pssst, I bet she's the sort who's been crying since childhood about not going to school, college, and now, the office, heh. No, guys! Not me! Anyways, I have no idea whether such constant exposure to the smoke might affect my eyes; I know for sure it's affecting my nerves. I bite back all the dirty swears that rise to my lips when I get a gust of thick black smoke blown directly into my face. And go home fuming. No wonder I'm not able to get any fairer, heh. I wish to God there was some solution to this; sadly, apart from moving permanently to a village that knows only bullock carts, I dont see any light on the horizon.