Calling all citizens: Is your confidence at the Traffic signal proving fatal ?

10:00 AM

Abhay, 22 has just graduated from college and is on his way for an interview of a sales job on his motorbike. He loves to ride. He has been fond of bikes since childhood and seeing his good performance in academics his father chose to buy him his first bike as a gift.

He is nervous thinking whether he will get the job or not. He has always been considered as one of the smartest personalities of his college and he thinks that getting this job is going to help him enhance his reputation.

He is thoroughly prepared for the interview but, as of this moment he is rushing.

The journey to the interview venue is just 8 kilometers but, it feels like 80 as he is not able to hurl the tension out of his mind.  

To calm himself down and feel better he decides to stop at a temple on his way to the venue to pray for the best. He is thinking of spending just 2 minutes in the temple and is sure that after the prayer he will surely get the job because God will be on his side.

10:30 AM

Things have not been going well with Avinash Rastogi.

He left his studies in 9^th grade to pursue uselessness and hopelessness. He found pleasure in sitting with his friends for hours and eve-teasing.

This uselessness added up over a period of time and soon due to adverse conditions his family had to struggle a lot to make ends meet.

He is 31 years old and today he has been fired from a counter job because of his misdemeanors with the customers of the store as well with his own boss. He got upset, in a fit of anger took out his uniform, threw it on the floor, and trampled it with his right foot as a token of disrespect to his workplace.

He opens the door, turns his head holding the door knob with his right hand and gives a finger salute to all the people in the store using his left hand. He slams the door shut vowing that he will never see this place again. He imagines that one day he would buy this store and his current boss would be his slave.

10:30 AM

Yash Thakur is very happy today. Today, he has got his learning license and also, he’s turned 18.

He wrote his IITs 2 days ago which went well as expected so he is hopeful and confident that he will get into one of the IITs to pursue his passion for Machines.

This feeling is driving him crazy. He feels he is on top of the world and wants to drive around the entire city.

He is currently in his favorite eatery having his regular samosa with a hot cup of tea and is planning to catch a movie with his friend at 15:00 hrs.

10:40 AM

Avinash Rastogi is driving insanely fast on the road to his home. He slows down at the red light of Magna Square and then suddenly, thinking that he is unstoppable he accelerates again, breaches the signal and penetrates the traffic flowing from the left.

He stops at the pan shop of his neighborhood, gets off his bike and sits on a rickety chair. He finds two of his friends sitting on the chairs beside him.

Avinash Rastogi has been sitting at this Pan shop since he was 15 along with those two friends. They have been wasting all the time of their prime procrastinating at this pan shop. The one thing they loved doing here is abusing the world for all the bad things happened to them.

It was the same situation today. He was totally ignorant of the mistakes he made which led his boss fire him.  He first abused his boss then each and every colleague with whom he worked with. Finally, he cursed the store where he worked and wished that one day, it gets charred to ashes.

He along with his two friends have always dreamt of winning the world but 16 years passed and there was no action on executing this dream.

Instead, he has always been a costly liability to his parents. He never spoke well, complained and blamed others for everything.

Bottom line: he was a loser!

11:00 AM

Abhay has reached the interview venue. He is sitting right now in the lobby at the 10^th floor of Sky Towers and is waiting for his turn.

Though, he faces adrenaline rush every time he sees a candidate coming out of the interview room but still he is confident that he will get the job.

He waits, waits and waits.

It is 12:00 noon now, suddenly when he hears a junior HR calling his name. He turns his head towards her, gets up to acknowledge that he is the person she is looking for. He picks up his file from the table and walks towards her.

She ushers him in the interview room. He walks towards it, halts for a second, takes a deep breath, opens the door with confidence and walks in.

11:30 AM

Yash has left the eatery. He is now thinking of stopping by at his coaching center, discuss with his teachers regarding the solutions that he has written in his IITs.

He stops at the red light at the Magna Square. He sees 72 seconds in the signal timer but that doesn’t matter, he is ecstatic today and delves into his own world of dreams.

He dreams about his life at the IIT and after IIT. He will be earning good probably the best and how his entire life will change.

He promises himself to be a good engineer and looks forward to many innovations in his career. His American dream is now on the cards.

The reverie breaks when he hears all the vehicles behind honking him to move. He starts his scooter just by pressing the switch and accelerates.

12:25 PM

The interview is finally over. Abhay comes out of the interview room and gently closes the door. He has been asked to wait outside.

He didn’t expect himself performing so well in front of a panel of 3. His interview went well. He was now waiting for the HR while shaking his left leg out of excitement.

After a few minutes, the HR who ushered him in, approaches him and tells him that he has been selected by the panel. Hearing this, he gets up, shakes hands with her and gives an ecstatic smile. 

His habit of winning everywhere has taken a new course. He has won today also.

Now, only the salary negotiation was left to which he has been told by the HR to visit the interview premises again tomorrow.

He plans to leave the venue, uses the lift to come down to the parking, gets on his bike, starts it and rushes out of the parking of the Sky Towers.

12:30 PM

Yash Thakur has reached the coaching center and is sitting with his Physics teacher discussing about the solutions he wrote in the IIT exam.  He has completed the discussions with all his faculties and is set to leave the coaching premises.

He is sure after the discussions that he is going to crack IIT. He is all set for the movie now and is thinking of picking his friend up 2 hours before the movie so that they can chill for some time in the mall.

He starts his scooter, and drives towards the Magna Square. He is in a different world altogether because of the intense pleasure which has engulfed him.

12:50 PM

Avinash Rastogi is filled with rage now even after he has taken out his entire frustration with 2 of his friends. He has cursed the entire world.

He considers his rage as passion and thinks that he needs to get somewhere. He is thinking of breaking all the barriers and considers himself as an unstoppable force at this moment. So, he starts his bike, and rushes past everyone at a thrilling speed.

1:00 PM

The traffic signal at the Magna Square is now visible to Abhay. It is green at this moment and he is around 400 metres from the green lights. He accelerates, but just a 100 metres from the line the signal turns yellow and then red. Abhay stops at the signal as he sees vehicles proceeding from the left since the traffic lights turn green for them.

He is very excited now and can’t wait to share his happiness with his father.  He is totally being impatient.

Avinash Rastogi sees the traffic moving at the Magna Square. He doesn’t want to stop at the red light therefore, he shows his driving skills to get past a car and a loading truck to catch the signal. 

But unfortunately, the light turns red the moment he is about to cross.

He has no choice but to put his brakes on because he sees a heavy flow of traffic coming from the front. It would be suicidal to breach at this point.

Yash Thakur has got one more opportunity of day dreaming. There are 75 seconds left before the traffic at his end will move as it’s the turn of the traffic from his left to flow.

Avinash Rastogi has been breaching the signal for his entire life. He is thoroughly confident that nothing will happen to him. He had all the experience of penetrating the traffic coming from the opposite direction. He was just waiting for a little gap in the traffic. His mindset was that traffic lights were too trivial to stop him from moving.

Abhay is also feeling impatience. He has done this before too and was looking for a little gap in the traffic moving from his right. He wanted to cross and move to the other end. He knew that nothing would ever happen to him.

Suddenly, he sees a gap in the traffic. He sees that a truck his way behind on the right and he can utilize this time to cross so, he accelerates and breaches the signal. Avinash Rastogi also does the same thing when he too observes a gap in the traffic flow. They both cross each other, one going straight and the other one to the right.

This incident was enough to motivate Yash Thakur and break his day-dreaming. He is ecstatic today and he also thinks at this moment that he can cross the traffic flow but he gets a little late to accelerate.

When he reaches in the middle, the truck from his left has moved very close to him. He turns his head to the left and watches that a giant truck is approaching at a killer speed towards him.

This was dangerous enough to make him panic. His hands get jammed on the handle of his scooter by the sudden astonishment he encounters.

He can’t accelerate and the truck driver despite realizing that he has to stop can’t apply the brakes at the right time and fatally hits the back of the scooter.

Yash Thakur gets thrown away and his head just hits the road brutally. Blood splatters on the floor and by the time all the people gather to attend him he is dead.

Both, Abhay and Avinash Rastogi move on with their respective lives unknowing of the event that has just taken place because of them.

They both have just led an 18 years old kid to DEATH.

Confidence shown at the wrong place can lead to someone’s death

You might be 110% confident that you will make it in case you break the signal but remember others might not.

Whether, it is your passion to conquer the world or your instinct to remove all the barriers nothing should outrage you to break the signal, since, this act might cause a life.

The statistics suggest that the number of deaths by road accidents in India have been increasing at a rapid rate.

It is very easy to blame the government in power about not taking enough protective measures or establishing stringent measures to make citizens abide by the law.

It is very easy to blame the traffic policemen for not catching the rule violators.

But, when will we start blaming ourselves for breaking the red light?

When will we start controlling our urge to break the signal?

The law is same for everybody and we should enforce ourselves to abide by it.

If we have to catch the train and there are 4 signals on our way to the station. A simple math suggests that, in the worst case scenario, if all of them showed red at our arrival it would take simply 2 minutes extra or maximum 5 minutes extra (in case of traffic) to reach the station. We should factor in this time too before we leave.

Some people break the signal just out of impatience. It’s not like they would turn millionaires if they saved 60 seconds every day at the red light. A to-be millionaire wouldn’t do that in any case.

The number of such people is too big in metropolitan cities and a few emerging tier-2 cities of our country. Below graph shows that -

WRAP UP

An empire is formed by its people.

An empire can fight and win against any enemy, even if the enemy forces outnumber its force, only when its people are united and understand their responsibility of fighting the enemy forces, but no miraculous force can save an empire which is crumbled from within.

A crumbled empire is the one where people are lazy enough to fulfill their duties and responsibilities.

We, as citizens, have certain responsibilities of following some rules imposed by the constitution and we must abide by them. Or else, we cannot expect some external forces to do the job of serving prosperous times to us in a plate because as they say, “God helps those who help themselves.”

9 Thriller Novels which will give you adrenaline rush from the first page itself

There are many of us who seek everyday thrill. There is a separate category of people altogether who seek adventures more than anything in this world.

Their day wouldn’t pass properly unless they did something which sends chill down the spine. People indulge in bungee-jumping, skydiving, paragliding, deep sea-diving and many more in order to get into thrill zone that stays tantamount to breathing for them.

However, sometimes there is more fun in thrill which builds up or adds up gradually over time.

So, where to get this thrill?

There are many options but my favorite is to simply pick up a thriller novel and the fun simply starts because from the first page on wards you start visualizing and if it’s a good thriller then the visualization becomes more apparent and there you go ! You get thrill with excitement in your life.

So, if you are looking for the next adventure seeking thrill then why not try few books of good mysteries and with every page you achieve the motive of attaining adrenaline rush.

In case, you are not a reader then this may be your opportunity to explore the world of reading and if you are a voracious reader or a moderate reader then it’s the time to taste an entirely different genre of thriller novels.

Since, I have raised the subject of achieving thrill through reading, hence it would be better, if I introduced you with best thriller novels to read.

So let the fun begin.

The Krishna Key

The Krishna Key is the third novel of Ashwin Sanghi. The novel is about a history professor who is accused with the charges of murder of his own friend.

The thing that makes this thriller exciting is that it revolves around the character of Lord Krishna. The author travels from Dwarka, where Lord Krishna reigned as a King, to Vrindavan, where he grew up to prove his innocence and catch the killer who is on a killing spree.

Readers who have an interest in Indian ancient history, particularly Mahabharata must read this thriller as it is one of the best historical thriller books I have ever read.

It is neither a modern-version of the Mahabharata nor the story runs synonymous with that of the Mahabharata, however, the novel describes the post Mahabharata period which has been known to very less people in the world.

The Krishna key has all those things which a good thriller must have, a major felony, obnoxious motive, an innocent victim, a story very much connected with the ancient history, and a key to the treasure of Lord Krishna which can be found by putting together four pieces of a seal.

The Rozabel Line

The plot of the Rozabel Line runs on the same lines as ‘The Da Vinci Code’. Like in ‘The Da Vinci Code’, there is a secret society which would do anything to keep a secret from getting unrevealed to the world.

A major catastrophe is impending, the key to its stoppage lies in the riddle which originates in Jerusalem and ends in the Shrine of Vaishno Devi in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Novel includes characters from different continents and religions. It is based on the controversial subject of Jesus living in India and buried in the Rozabel shrine of Srinagar.  

This subject was first touched in the books ‘Jesus lived in India’ by Holger Kersten and ‘The 

Unknown Life of Jesus’ by Nicolas Notovich.

The magnitude of the success of the novel can be determined by the fact that the tomb of Rozabel in Kashmir got more popular after it was published. Visitors from around the world kept coming to India to visit the shrine.

If are fond of novels like 'The Da Vinci Code' and by any chance if you have read it already then you must read ‘The Rozabel Line’, you will definitely find it more intriguing and thrilling.

Killing Floor – Lee Child

Killing floor is the first novel of the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. I would put this novel in the must read thriller novels category.

Published in 1997, it is about a homicide that takes place in a small town and how an ex-army man with a vagabond lifestyle is dragged into it and is made a victim.

Jack Reacher gets involved in the murder and is imprisoned until he finds himself an alibi. He steps forward to solve the mystery behind the killings happening in the town during which he comes across the terrifying and obnoxious motive of the people who are behind those killings.

The most beautiful trait of this novel is that you won’t see a downfall in the confidence of the protagonist even once in the entire novel. His mental strength stays the same throughout.

The thrill in the novel increases with each page and when the mystery unravels itself, it surely sends a chill down the spine . However, you don’t have to wait till the end for the thrill because the novel is capable of giving you shocks at regular intervals.

Zero Day – David Baldacci

This is one of the best of the David Baldacci novels. It bears resemblance with the Lee Child’s Killing Floor, however, it doesn’t mean that you skip reading it because it is original in its own way.

The suspense in this novel arises from the murders which are happening in a small town of West Virginia in the United States. To find the reason behind the surging dead bodies in the town, an ex-army man is called.

A local police officer, who knows about the town and its people from tip to toe, helps the protagonist find the brutal motive behind the murders. 

The narrative by the author is intriguing enough to keep you in a thrill zone every moment during reading. It helps make the visualization of the town and every incidence happening in the novel more conspicuous.

So, if you are looking for a novel to read in a train or a bus journey then I would recommend it to you.

Why? All the small and deserted town stations, the train or the bus stops at are definitely going to give you a kick, giving you a thrilling fun that the story is running in one of those towns. 

Night without end – Alistair Maclean

This is the first novel of Alistair Maclean which I picked up from a Chennai book store. As, it was recommended to me that he has written very good thrillers on the subjects of government services like navy and scientific research.

I don’t recommend anyone to read a book in a particular weather but I would definitely recommend you to read this thriller in either monsoon or in a winter night with a cup of tea in hand.  Why?

The reason is that the stage in the novel is set in the arctic region where the temperature goes as low as 70 degrees below 0.

An aero plane crashes near a research station in the snow. After the protagonist and his accomplices reaches the crash site, they find survivors in the wrecked plane with the pilot dead.

What makes the novel more thrilling is the fact that pilot was shot at a point blank range and the killer is alive and is among the survivors. Now, there is a challenge for the passengers to survive the cold with the clothing they are carrying and also, with the killer around.

Although, the plot itself is thrilling enough to send a chill down the spine but while reading it you will have to be extremely patient as the language used is of a level more above than the usual one.

Inferno – Dan Brown

Inferno is the fourth novel of Dan Brown in the Robert Landon series which got published in 2013. The theme of Inferno is population control.

A genius eccentric scientist creates a virus which is a fatal threat to the people of the world.

The protagonist Robert Langdon along with his lady accomplice goes in search of the virus to stop it from spreading. Again, in inferno, Robert Langdon uses his knowledge of symbolism and history to find out the location of the virus.

Most of the novel runs in Florence, Italy and Istanbul, Turkey. The masterpieces, iconic sights and architecture of all the places like Palazzo Vecchio and Hagia Sophia have been beautifully described by Dan Brown in Inferno.

I have never been to Florence or Istanbul but, if in the future I get a chance to visit either of the two, I will definitely explore all the secret passages and the doors in the monuments and sights described in this great thriller novel.

The beautiful thing about Dan Brown’s novels is that every time he introduces you to a great character from the history like Leonardo Da Vinci in ‘The Da Vinci Code’ .Well, this time it’s Dante Alighieri and the chart of Hell. 

One Shot – Lee Child

This is the ninth novel in the Jack Reacher series.

The plot of the novel is pure adrenaline like Killing floor. An ex-army sniper is convicted for a crime which he has not committed. He calls for Jack Reacher, the protagonist, to come and prove his innocence.

Jack Reacher living his nomadic life miles away from the town, where the crime took place, arrives to untangle the entangled. He has to use his skills to reveal the truth behind the crime.

One of the good mysteries which will make you stick till the end, the highlight is the modus operandi of the crime committed and the original motive behind it. Six shots are fired from a parking space at point-blank range and five people have been massacred. The sniper killer fired the last shot on purpose. What is the reason behind it?

The novel has also been made into a movie named ‘Jack Reacher’, released in 2012, featuring Tom Cruise.

The Scarecrow – Michael Connelly

I consider ‘The Scarecrow’ as one of my good picks. The author has done a fantastic job in storytelling and keeping the level of the thrill unchanged.

If you engross yourself in it, I promise, you will get goose bumps.

This is the story of a journalist who is forced to leave his job because of cost cuts and finds himself in a mystery when his replacement goes missing. Solving this mystery can win him the highest honor in the journalism – the Pulitzer’s prize.

The antagonist happens to be a serial killer; a person who sits in a data farm using his technical skills to leverage his killing spree.

Though the antagonist is revealed in the beginning of the novel even then the novel is capable of holding you to its pages unmoved.

Beware! If you try to take a break from this novel for some other work, you won’t be able to concentrate much over there; you will be forced  by your own self to pick it up again and read.

The Girl who played with Fire – Stieg Larsson

‘The Girl who played with Fire’ has been written by the author of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ and features many characters from it including the main character Lisbeth Salander who is a hacker and doesn’t get along well with the society.

The plot depicts three murders and Lisbeth Salander has been charged for them because her fingerprints have found on the gun near the victims but she is an expert hacker and will do anything to catch the murderer because of whom she is in trouble.

The novel was originally published in Swedish in 2006 and was later translated in English in 2009.

 Wrap Up

Seeking thrill through books is a kind of fun in itself. If you are not a reader then initially, you might find it a bit difficult to extract this thrilling fun from the novels but when you get addicted to it then this thrill will seem synonymous to sky-diving.

Also, as a reader if your genre is self-help books, or business & management or romantic novels, give yourself a break with mystery thrillers. The point here is that mystery thriller novels, apart from giving you an adrenaline rush, can act as refreshments.

And suppose you are planning to start reading or develop a reading habit, thriller novels are the best books to pick. There won’t be any case of discontinuity, commonly seen among new readers, because you won’t lose the interest at any point of time if your pick is from the 9 best thriller novels mentioned above.

So which is the first thriller you will start reading?

Have you read any of the thrillers mentioned above?

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