Gimme some Space, yaar!

My friend Shikha asked me something interesting today - "After the fight for oil, what could the next big fight be for?" I pondered over the query for a while. What indeed could scuffles and wars break out for? Nuclear weapons? The right to clone humans? The cure for AIDS? Or perhaps emissions regulation? I am no prophet; neither do I possess a whacky imagination that could spin tales to boggle rudimentary minds. I count myself amongst the latter lot - I am plagued by simpler ordeals that could very likely snowball into unmanageable complexities if gone unchecked. Like parking spaces, for instance (don't laugh). Since times immemorial, space has always been a subject of great dispute and minor powwows. Great, long wars were fought over land, spaces. Today, we are still battling it out for space - primarily for shelter, for that ground beneath our feet and the roof over our heads. But, also consider other trifles like the fight for space in the Great-Indian-queue, for that fourth seat on the Mumbai local train, for atleast a square centimeter on the board of the overcrowded-BEST bus, for a 2-second darshan at Siddhivinayak/ Tirupati temples, for a tiny area on the rocks at Bandstand on a Sunday evening etc. etc. The more creative ones will even demand 'space' in relationships (I never quite understood that phrase).

Judging by the sheer number of cars and other four-wheeled monsters that ply on our over-burdened roads, I will not be surprised if we soon run out of spaces for parking our four-wheeled indulgences. Not so long ago, I was walking through the upscale neighbourhood of Hill Road (perennially in a traffic jam) and was mildly amused to see several cars (each more ravishing and more expensive than the other) lined alongside the narrow streets. Most were parked bumper-to-bumper. I wonder how the drivers got them out. Parking lots in malls/theatres are filled within minutes on weekends. Even aircrafts circle the airport for hours, just for that elusive area to land. Such is the dearth of spaces in our city. The parking lot in a SoBo neighbourhood will make you poorer by anywhere between (hold-your-breath) Rs. 15-25 lakh!! Such preposterousness! One also witnesses brawls breaking out if someone else captures your parking space, even though legally - it ain't yours. The other day, Mom got ultra-defensive (and almost abusive) as a smartarse tried to sneak in his car while I was busy negotiating a turn into the narrow space between two cars! Tempers are already flying thick and fast over (hitherto) trivial things such as parking spaces! So much so that, ghar rahe ya na rahe, parking space toh hona hi chahiye!

It also doesn't help that every family these days preens about in more than one car. This has added severe pressure to the already-cracking infrastructure of the city. I see a day not so far away when our newspapers will flash the headline - Mr. Poonawaala wins the case against Mr. Jhunjhunwaala, thereby winning the right to park his Audi Q7 in the disputed area (which incidentally happens to be two kilometres away from his residence... since the building's parking lot already accomodates the very chap's 2 BMWs & 3 Lamborghinis)! Indeed, in the future, parking spaces are going to be much rarer commodities than housing spaces.

God save us all then.