"...yeh school bhi kya galat jagah pe banaya hai yaar..."

"...yeh school bhi kya galat jagah pe banaya hai yaar..."

...I cribbed to the auto driver. ["...this school has been built at such a wrong place..."]

I stay near a railway line. Often we need to go to the other side of the line for which we need to drive over a very narrow fly over. It leads into a narrow street which is perennially jammed, especially at certain hours. Half way up the street there is a school (which, incidentally, my little one goes to). So when a set of classes are about to start or have just been completed, there is utter chaos with parents, caregivers and drivers lining up (with their vehicles/autos parked near the gate) to pick/drop their kids. 

On that particular day, I was returning from the other side and had to reach home immediately to dail in to an important office call. However, my trip coincided with the end of one of the school batches and the street was full of little blobs sporting green and blue uniforms. Scampering around just like black ants rushing around a crystal of sugar. Cars with parking lights flashing were scattered throughout the street. I knew I would be late for the call and hence I muttered what I quoted above. While I wasn't anticipating a response from the auto driver, he had a view on the matter. "Sir, the school isn't built in a wrong place. It is a very old school and when they built it there was hardly any traffic here. Slowly the residential buildings grew taller and more and more people started buying vehicles which started choking up the street. The school is at the right place" he said, looking back at me from his driver's seat, flashing an innocent yet wise wide grin that revealed two missing incisors in his upper jaw.

Quite often, it is us who are in the wrong place and/or at the wrong time, but unknowingly end up cursing/blaming the surrounding place/people for our woes. Ironically, sitting in that auto at that moment, I was adding to the traffic, probably delaying the school kids from reaching their school/home.