28 August, 2008

Performance anxiety.

It was evening and the forest canopy over the national highway running through Bandipur and Mudumalai NPs provided enough shade to warrant headlights. Traffic was intermittent.

It is not unusual for people to have pulled over their cars on the side of the road to better see any wildlife that they had been lucky enough to spot. In fact, it is the norm to slow down when approaching a car that's pulled over and try and see for oneself the elusive wildlife that the first driver was fortunate to see. One stumbles upon elephants, bears, leopards and even tigers in this manner. There was one such queue of cars on the side of the road, and inherently, we too slowed down to check out what it was that had been spotted this time. We kept driving and slowly passed the three or four cars lined up behind the lead car that had stopped. Crawling up to the lead car, we realised what it was. Not a too uncommon sight usually, but getting undeserved and embarassing attention this time: the driver of the car that had stopped first had to pee, and now, unfortunately, was doing so in the glare of at least four pairs of headlights upon him.