Flying chicken and butchers

What’s with butchers and feeding leftover pieces of meat to dogs and crows? The other day I was on travelling on the Pallikaranai-Velachery road and was passing a roadside butcher shop when I saw the dingbat throw something and that hit my bike with a loud thud. Good thing it missed my helmet visor else I would have been an addition to the ever climbing accident chart in good old Madras. The piece of chicken that was intended for the crows and dogs had landed on my bike. Yuck. I turned around and signalled to the guy, you know the type of hand signs used on the road when you want to berate someone but you just don’t have the time. He just gave an aplogetic shrug and went about chopping the next bird for the it’s-Sunday-me-must- have-chickun hungry junta. Grr. I went back to the shop, called the guy and he came out, nervous that I had come for a fight, when all that I asked for was water to clean up the mess he had made. But hey, surprise, instead of giving me water, he cleaned the front side of the bike for me. Free water service, albeit half baked. Heh.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the meat that fell on my bike was on the road the next minute. This set me thinking, doesn’t he ever care about the safety of other road users? All that meat that was lying on the road was sure to cause some heartburn to road users. I told my father about this and he said with all his worldy wisdom “son, the world would be a better pladce if people realised the folly of thier actions.” Right…