My day started off pretty well today, I didn’t have the usual mad race with my clock in the morning, and surprise, surprise, I didn’t have much work at office and in typical TGIF (Thank God Its’s Friday) mood, I wound up work earlier than usual, and thought I’ll actually see a sunset on a weekday! I was celebrating my weekend a bit too soon, as I had an irritating experience on the way home, courtesy, believe it or not, the President of India!

Well, everything was going as per plan till I stepped out of office (before my manager could spot me!). I noticed a big traffic jam right after 5 minutes, and didn’t think it was anything unusual. These things happen everyday, and it should clear in about 15-20 minutes, or so I thought. But in my euphoria of the approaching weekend, I didn’t notice for a long time, that there was no traffic jam as such, but the road had been blocked and there were policemen everywhere. Even after noticing this a little later than everyone else, I thought maybe there was an accident somewhere and they have blocked the place for some time.

20 Minutes became 30, 30 became 45..I got impatient and so did my share autowallah. He bluntly asked us to get down, as he didn’t think the vehicle was going anywhere in another hour. Bewildered, we all got down and I noticed that the other autowallahs and share autowallahs had done the same. As is on cue, it started raining that precise moment, what timing! I thought I was being clever, so I walked to another side road and thought I could get away from this road block, but saw that even that road was jammed as many people had obviously thought just like me.

I noticed a young woman with an infant standing in the middle of the road, obviously not knowing what to do, and without an umbrella. There was this college girl who was frantically calling her parents and asking them if there was any alternate route. I could only imagine how her parents must be worried, as obviously there was no way anyone could come to that location to pick up anyone due to the block. And there was this IT guy who had bigger plans for the weekend than me – he was standing with a travel bag, obviously traveling home for the weekend, and begging every auto, share auto guy to take him to Egmore station saying he has a train to catch which leave in about an hour.

I started chatting with an autowallah to find out what is going on, and with a slightly superior look on his face and a bemused glance at my ‘Friday dressing’ and the company ID tag I had forgotten to remove, he asked ‘You really don’t know? The president is visiting Chennai today, and till she goes from airport to Fort this road will be blocked”.

I thought this was ridiculous - As all the arterial roads go, this one is the aorta – THE arterial road, and there is no other alternate road to reach the city and to block it for 1 hour (probably more, I was stranded there for an hour, I have no idea when the block started) and cause a severe cardiac arrest to the whole city’s traffic? Surely, the president can afford to travel by some helicopter (like Airforce 1 or 2, whatever the US president uses), instead of stopping traffic in an arterial road? Ok, agreed, all this security and stuff, you never know from which auto or car the bomb is going to be hurled from, but stopping the whole traffic in an arterial road for hours? Isn’t that going a bit too far? And, why should it always be the common citizen who has to suffer whenever these big shot politicians decide to visit? In what way a common citizen’s time is worthless compared to the first citizen’s? All these thoughts raced in my mind, as frankly I couldn’t do anything else, stuck like that, in the middle of nowhere.

I remembered the times when I was a teen, when there were so many delays for office goers every time the then-chief minister used to go from her residence to Fort (which is like everyday!) Nothing had changed in all these years. Finally after an hour the traffic started moving and I couldn’t help thinking the irony that with all the hue and cry of having a first woman President, many women and children were stranded in the middle of the road on a rainy day for her sake. I usually reach home in about 45 minutes, so after reaching home after nearly 2 hours, I wondered whether the woman standing with a crying infant in the rain reached home safely. I couldn’t help thinking with a righteous, albeit impotent, anger - When will such things change in India?