Twinkle Khanna’s take on the pothole issue in her latest column
3.20 am: Yikes I am awake, oh God no! The man of the house has booked us on a strange 5.25 am flight to Goa and is now cheerfully humming and switching on all the lights. I think he is secretly trying to kill me but since they can now trace arsenic in the blood, he is doing it through extreme sleep deprivation.
5.27 am: We are all on-board finally! The purser is offering a range of breakfast options and fellow passengers are now greedily opting for kulchas! Can you imagine what will happen to this plane in the next 49 minutes? (This is worse than my Delhi flight).
10.30 am: I love Goa. The minute you land, you feel free. It’s the wonderful bracing air (well with all the leftover wafts of weed in circulation, a sense of well-being is pretty much guaranteed).
Noon: We are at this little café near our house. I brought the man of the house to this tiny brunch place 14 years ago, he asked me to marry him right here (I think I agreed partly because my mouth was stuffed with avocado-mushroom toast and it was easier to just nod!), so right now I am in heaven.
12.15 pm: I skim through the papers lying on the café table and see the whole ‘think fest’ mess. I wonder why these old men waste all their Viagra in trying to paw some poor, unwilling girl, but having encountered enough older men who think power /money gives them the right to grab everything in sight (except perhaps the little old lady sleeping besides them every night) all I want to do is castrate them!
6.30 pm: I am zipping along on my yellow scooter, the prodigal son securely behind me and I feel my wedding ring slipping out. I look down to quickly push it back and my scooty hits a big pothole (I love my government, this is exactly what I deserve after paying 30 per cent tax). The prodigal son and me are now flying through the air.
6.31 pm: We are hanging out in a ditch at the side of the road, strangely in the same position as we were sitting on the scooter, though the bike is now bent in a weird way. We enlist the help of passing fellow ravers and druggies, (very kind people when they are not going through any manic withdrawal symptoms) to get us out of our shallow hole and set us on our way and as I clamber out of the ditch with straw, grass, scrapes and bruises, I have an outstanding idea. We have to finally take matters in our own hands now and I mean that quite literally.
Note to myself: Must write letter to environment minister and transport minister.
‘Dear Ministers, instead of constantly filling potholes and invariably doing it so badly that it collapses again almost immediately, why not let them be and let us plant a tree in them instead?
We save the cost of pots, tax-payers money and the environment.’ I think I will also CC a letter to the prime minister and start a nationwide pothole campaign.
7.30 pm: We have finally reached the beach shack. The man of the house is looking suspiciously at us and the first question is “did you fall somewhere?” I firmly deny such an outrageous accusation (he will never let me take the scooter out again!) Then he says, “Why is there straw in your hair and the scooter also looks crooked?” (Deny! deny! till I die!). He finally buys all my denials and leaves us alone. We are now surreptitiously putting cold, beer cans on our bruises and only limping when the man of the house is checking cricket scores on his phone. Whew! That was a close call.
8 pm: Lying on the recliner and gazing at the sea, I am yawning and yawning and as I drift off to sleep, I think about my nationwide, environmentally friendly campaign. I can just visualise huge green banners with bold, white lettering (okay! okay! so it does look a little like the Pakistan flag) and my slogan plastered all over – ‘Plant a tree in every pothole and stop cribbing about the good-for-nothing assholes!’ Hmm… Something to think about and before I know it, I am fast asleep