Cosmic Chicken Dance

BKK April 2025

Tamil Nadu's southern veins, barely wide enough for a goat and a prayer, 

pulsing with the audacity of metal and momentum.

I’m driving. More accurately, I'm participating in a high-speed ritual sacrifice 

to Shiva, Vishnu, and possibly the Mad Hatter.

Eyebrows? Long retired from their job as early warning systems.

My face is now a sweaty, wax mask of resigned disbelief.

A leathery old man pedals ahead of me, skin sun-steeped and story-thick.

He’s riding a bicycle that looks like it survived colonialism, two floods, and a marriage.

To his front: a car being overtaken by a bus.

To his rear: me overtaking a truck.

To the left and right: no room to sneeze.

Everyone’s honking. The bus in particular, whose horn sounds like an opera singer mid-breakdown.

It’s gorgeous.

It’s terrifying.

It’s India.

At this moment, physics becomes theology.

If I clip the cyclist, he goes down.

If I face the bus head-on at 80km/h, we all become blood-marbled poetry on asphalt.

And yet...

This man doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t veer. Doesn’t even blink.

Like he’s playing cosmic chicken with Kali, and she’s not even winning.

I’ve thought about him endlessly.

Was he oblivious? Proud?

Some holy lunatic drunk on fate?

But today - today I saw it differently.

What if he wasn’t playing chicken?

What if this wasn’t arrogance or madness… but faith?

Faith in the great, humming chaos.

Faith that the universe isn’t out to get him - and if it is, that’s fine too.

Just pedals spinning in sweet surrender.

Not faith, exactly.

Faith still expects something.

This was… trust.

A cosmic dance, feathered in dust and diesel.

No music.

No partner.

Just a bicycle, a bus, and the unspoken rhythm of a man who’s made peace with the cosmos.

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This story is my homage to a great author who passed away recently.

RIP Tom Robbins