The Guns of Gurgaon

I don't even want to utter a word...

A direct post from the indiatimes website.

Managing Gurgaon traffic at gun point

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Managing-Gurgaon-traffic-at-gun-point/articleshow/4866579.cms

7 Aug 2009, 1215 hrs IST, Ranjan Roy, TNN

GURGAON: I invariably approach the Delhi-Gurgaon toll gate on the expressway prepared for the worst. But I wasn't quite ready for what I saw on
Gun on Gurgaon streets "I wasn't quite ready for what I saw on Wednesday night," says Roy.

As I navigated my car towards one of the tag-users lane, trying to avoid trucks and cabs muscling in from all angles and squeeze through thin spaces between the multiple lines, I was cut off by a light commercial vehicle that barrelled down from the right.

The LCV nudged me out a bit but I stood my ground. It then moved forward and tried to growl its way in. I rolled down my window to give the driver a piece of my mind. The driver of the car in front of me, who was seated at the back while his owner drove, got off and tried to reason with the trucker to back off. But the truck driver
wasn't listening.

That's when I saw the artillery come out. A young man, wearing jeans and tee, leapt out of the driver's seat and rushed to the truck. He whipped out a revolver and held it against the LCV driver's neck and asked him for his licence. The ashen-faced driver, his bravado now drained by the black barrel pressed to his adam's apple, meekly complied.

I almost cheered! If this wasn't a dangerous act of vigilantism, the young man could deserve a medal for bringing some order to the toll gate chaos. With traffic billowing around the chicken necks that the tag lanes have turned into, I regularly see tempers fray and people routinely roll down their windows and curse and even get off and thump bonnets of cars that try to nose in from the sides into the lanes. But guns being pulled out was a new one.

As I watched the young man hold the LCV driver at bay, some other cars and cabs tried to sneak into the lane and blocked his car again. Having crossed the LCV, the gunman now strode ahead to take on smaller prey. Brandishing what looked like a heavy-calibre revolver, the kind cops are armed with, the man yanked out the ignition key from one car and threatened a few others that were seeking to muscle in.

``Goli marega kya?'' shouted a cabbie. The young man hissed something - possibly, ``Don't tempt your luck.'' A middle age man had come out of his car to say something to the young man. His family was screaming inside, trying to tell him not to provoke the man with a gun.

By this time his car had crawled to the barrier. The young man tucked in his revolver back into his jeans and drove off, fading into the traffic.