How I survived four hours in traffic and learnt I was allergic to chilli sauce

I live in Delhi. Good ol' Nayi Dilli, the city where Mirza Ghalib found inspiration. He must be thanking his stars to not be alive today. Delhi got absolutely fucked by the monsoon today and as is tradition, the drainage system pretty much fell apart. And then, to top it all off, I got stuck in the traffic for four hours.

Yes, count that. F-O-U-R.

I'm not even trying to exaggerate here, I swear to the sweet lord. I left home at 10:23 AM and I reached my office at 2:27 PM. And I ain't talking about Indian Stretchable Time here. Somewhere at the far end of the seven flyovers I must cross to get to office (which is an hour on a normal traffic-y day), a pipe had burst because of the heavy rains. The MCD is anyway perpetually confused about how Delhi functions and the rain sends them into a nervous breakdown.

So yes, I spent four hours inside my car. To top it all off, the car flooded. Yes, it flooded. Water sneaked in from some goddarn where and filled up my darling car till my feet were soaked through and I had no idea where anything was. While I was devising a plan to get rid of it all, the car decides this would a good time to show me how it can skid across the road and almost ram itself into a pedestrian's face.

No, I'm just messing with you. I can barely drive a cycle straight and need a driver and the car was flooded only about 3 inches.

In spite of this obviously scarring experience, I was in a chirpy mood when I got to office. Mostly because nobody else had shown up and I lounged about till 5 while abusing the internet. At which point I figured I should eat something. I power-walked to the market, where I figured I'll get a slightly spicy roll, just for the heck of it. I usually am somewhat sensitive to spice, but since I'm currently dead on the inside, I couldn't care less. Bad idea.

I have a slight cut on my lip from where a grossly negligent parlour-woman slashed through with her thread. My lips usually burn for a bit if I get spice right on them. And today being the precious fucker it was, the chilli sauce hit the cut point blank. The next seven minutes were spent gazing wonderously at my face in the mirror as my lip swelled up to five times it's regular size. And made me look like I was wearing whore-red lipstick. All in all, I'm apparently allergic to chilli sauce.

#Lesson for today: Days like this, be glad you made it back home with your body parts all intact.