If you are thinking we are talking of vegetables, think beyond. We are talking of the new age, the age of the cab, the Cab-age. A view from my office tells me how indispensable is the new age, and how dependent are we on the culture that's setting in.

I take an office cab to commute to work daily morning. Some days are just a 'Hi!' and complete silence, while others are muffled in conversation, on how really crazy are the guys on FM to think of such mind-boggingly hilarious promos and laugh-a-minutes.

The FM decides what the mood of the short 20-minute travel will be. Somebody irked by ill-natured humor tells us how old this joke was and how his grampa had sent this to him when he was still a grandkid. Another is urged to tell us what Raaga does the latest hip-hop song playing on the box belong to. Whether it is Shivaranjini or Malhaar is one battle, and whether I want to know all this knowledge or not is another.

I have had my own Cabventures, which were not very ambitious in nature but definitely required a rock-solid determination. I have scampered into the cab when the posterior of the cab had a space inversely proportional to product of space I require in cab and the persistence and pretence of a fellow colleague to lounge and listen to the FM with closed eyes. Maybe this, he thinks impedes any dialogue and discussion, and allows him to continue the posture.

Once I have made my way to the 1ft X 1ft space and cramped my morning muscles there, the FM plays a shampoo advertisement and a male voice says

"What a wonderful fragrance... You are mesmerising."

when my eyes meet my neighbour's and she's almost blushing at the coincidence. I soon realized that her hair appeared wet, and they did exude a wonderful fragrance. I took a deep breath to figure out whether the fragrance was indeed mesmerising. What I inhaled, transported me to my college days, and in a fraction of a second I was choking at the remnants of a broken beaker with ammonia spilt all over. I came back to the present choking, just to realize that somebody's digestive system had decided to mesmerise me. Every gasp after that was other-worldly.

Another experience was when a woman(old?) pretending as a girl was spilling with make up, and puckered her lips, and the FM played an AXE ad which defined the theory of relativity as

"If you sit on a stove for a minute, it feels like many hours...But if you kiss a girl for many hours it feels like only a minute!"

I did not look up to lock eyes with her again throughout the way to office.

Yet another, was when all were talking of what kind of music each one liked and related to something or the other on the radio channel. When my turn came, I didn't have to wait for the channel to play my kind of music. I heard a few scratches on vinyl from the speaker, and I said
"That's it...That's my type of music!.."
and I was nodding my head to the beats and swaying my hands as if I was scratching the vinyl. Within a few beats the song (which was an advert) metamorphosed into a graphic expression of family planning and the use of contraceptives and the importance of getting sterilized. I could not scratch any more, the tempo just went down with raised eyebrows and giggling faces.

When you have immersed yourself in the Cab-age, tell me what you like in the main course! Any Cabventures on your side?