There are serpentine lines of car, all of which cut through other lines, like some kind of petrol-guzzling, multi coloured octopus.

It is an almost typical Wednesday morning. The cab driver makes small, exasperated sounds and tells me that it's going to take atleast an hour. I nod and watch the people in the bus alongside. Some of them are fanning themselves with newspapers, while others are craning their necks, hoping to see an open road even if it's at a distance.

People in important looking cars are reading cream coloured newspapers, their expressions grim. Some look into their phones, brows furrowed, tight lipped. I wonder if they've noticed the traffic, clearly bigger things are bothering them.

Pedestrians cross the street happily; the look-left-look-right crossing rule now redundant, thanks to the stationary traffic. They twist and turn and bend, an inadvertent dance to make sure they don't hit an auto or get their shirt sleeves caught in bike handles.

Beggars tap at car windows, promising His blessings and good fortune all for tworupees. They cite hunger for three days, wounded children and general despair. No one gives in, none of the slightly tinted windows roll down.

The tipping point is when finally one window comes down and the bespectacled man asks the beggar for change for a fifty. The beggar laughs, says it's only the start of his business, he doesn't have any change. The man nods and rolls up his window.

The beggar walks away, his apparently injured leg, suddenly repaired. He calls out to his friends, telling them about how a bigwig in a car asked HIM for change.

The jaded city collectively sighs as the traffic begins to crawl.