And the signal shone its light across the pavement; and the susurration of saris, and the sliding slap of men's sandals, the rapid tick-tick-tick of the children's shoes, the buzzing rip of the scooters, the creak of the ox carts; the waves of two-stroke exhaust, diesel fumes, otto of roses perfume, sweat, spices; the light off neon-bright silk scarves, dingy cotton shirts, dusty feet, silvery-gray Brahma cow hides, bangles, jewels, and white-bright sneakers, and the general hard noon glare; they did not abate themselves, nor did they pause, nor give the nod to order.
Nope, somehow, someway, the whole wonderful thrashing mass of a Bangalore pedestrian throng had allowed that it was time to cross Little Bazaar Street, and the opposing cars could just work with the flow&emdash;and around the foot traffic, fate willing.
Armed with the confidence instilled by two independent crossings of the MG Road, one of Bangalore's central traffic streams, I cast off with the main body of the human flow, tossing a "let's go, Jill" over my right shoulder to my companion. I was placidly drifting in my India-road crossing mantra ( "No course change. No speed change. Ommmm.") when I caught a sudden absence of motion from the corner of my eye.
Jill had seized, halted, got stuck, stiffened like a rat watching a cobra.
The entire perpendicular mass of vehicles that had been weaving its way around, through, in front of, and behind us, seemed to catch its collective breath, exhaust, or whatever else passed for its respiration. In half a heartbeat, I saw small, marshmellowy Jill staring with round blue eyes at the collection of angular metal transport that was trying to bend the laws of physics enough to get all of us in the same few cubic meters. She had obviously just discovered that she was the demon woman that every front bumper in Bangalore had been waiting for.
And she'd grabbed my arm.
It's hard to maintain speed and direction when there is a perfectly immobile bundle of shocked determination attached to your right ulna.
As my heart hammered out the rest of that beat, I hauled on Jill with my other arm, beginning the soothing murmur that I have found effective on both terrified untrained riders and terrified untrained horses.
"OK, Jill, just listen to my voice and look at my hand here on your arm,"
("Ah, Jesus, Jill," I thought "how'd you get that Mountain stance down so well? I didn't think you'd had time to do any yoga over here.')
" Ned told us how to do this so we will be fine, fine, there, another step, look over here at me&emdash;NO NO! Do NOT look at the taxi driver. Not the taxi driver!"
Bad moment there, I've lived in the San Francisco Bay Area too long. Arguing with taxi drivers is not healthy in a hilly town where everybody still wants to be in Bullitt.
"There you are, watch me, watch me, see we're going right over there to that snack bar sign, and we'll have a nice cold Coke, just move with me&emdash;here we are! Safe and sound on the other corner."
She stood there a moment, eyes only slightly wild, taking obviously relieved deep breaths.
"How could you just, just&emdash;GO out there, without worrying about all that insane traffic, Phetsy?!"
"Ah&emdash;faith that my karma would save me from the car maws?"
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