"In each shave lies a philosophy", wrote Somerset Maugham and quoted Haruki Murakami. While I couldn't agree more, the same applies for routine driving. During his daily ride to work, a friend developed this tendency to assign names to certain speed-breakers depending on how kind they were to the fissure that seated him on his bike.
"These humps developed a personality of their own so that I don't lose mine."
Deep!
The roads have been an inspiring thinking space. I have written about this on two previous occasions. (Here on a bus ride to work and here when this blog was still incipient)
Music and roads compliment each other very well, even in the cacophony that is an Indian street. This applies even better to two wheeler driving. The helmet and the blaring of horns provides a perfectly secluded shell for singing without being sung to. Move over, bathroom singing!
But rhythm takes the cake as far as the roads go. Especially at traffic signals. Those blinking indicators of two vehicles, with their frequencies differing so subtly, make for delightful observation on how they are seemingly synchronous one moment but are completely out of sync 30 seconds later.
On watching Whiplash, one scene that amazed me was where Fletcher (J.K Simmons) asks the drummer to tap a particular frequency. Yesterday, a realisation that dawned upon me was that nearly anyone can do this with a little effort. How?
Almost everyone can easily count seconds, and hence to a tempo of 60 BPM. Now, split those intervals evenly and one can easily arrive at multiples (120, 180 etc.). A little math yields other beats like 90 and 150. In case one needs to cross check any time, the countdown at the traffic signal makes for a perfect point of reference.
I now pronounce the problem of getting caught at an untimely red light solved.
"These humps developed a personality of their own so that I don't lose mine."
Deep!
The roads have been an inspiring thinking space. I have written about this on two previous occasions. (Here on a bus ride to work and here when this blog was still incipient)
Music and roads compliment each other very well, even in the cacophony that is an Indian street. This applies even better to two wheeler driving. The helmet and the blaring of horns provides a perfectly secluded shell for singing without being sung to. Move over, bathroom singing!
But rhythm takes the cake as far as the roads go. Especially at traffic signals. Those blinking indicators of two vehicles, with their frequencies differing so subtly, make for delightful observation on how they are seemingly synchronous one moment but are completely out of sync 30 seconds later.
On watching Whiplash, one scene that amazed me was where Fletcher (J.K Simmons) asks the drummer to tap a particular frequency. Yesterday, a realisation that dawned upon me was that nearly anyone can do this with a little effort. How?
Almost everyone can easily count seconds, and hence to a tempo of 60 BPM. Now, split those intervals evenly and one can easily arrive at multiples (120, 180 etc.). A little math yields other beats like 90 and 150. In case one needs to cross check any time, the countdown at the traffic signal makes for a perfect point of reference.
I now pronounce the problem of getting caught at an untimely red light solved.
