Bumper to Bumper

Invariably anybody who starts learning driving a vehicle in India at any age understands sooner than later that ‘Gaadi kabhi seedhi seedhi mat chalao – warna thuk jayegi!’ Our entire eco-system on the road exists on one principle – never follow your lane and to some extent it goes even beyond this – never allow anybody to follow their lane.

My early lessons of learning the art of driving happened on our humble white Maruti 800. I call it humble apropos of today’s swanky cars plying on our much improved roads. Going back in history, we had to wait for eight long months to possess it. I remember our (I & my brother) much younger cousin sister one day driving in a Tata Sumo to our place. For a moment everybody in our lane who saw the Sumo approaching felt as if the Sumo was being automatically driven (like a Google car), till the time they saw her screeching it to a halt and jumping out of it. She became our quintessential choice as a driving teacher from whom, during our vacation, we would take lessons to learn the basics. As luck could have it, she used stay in an area of Delhi which boasted of believing in perfect co-existence on the road. Its crowded narrow lanes had shops on both sides, had traffic ranging from hand-pulled rickshaws to cycles to scooters to cars to trucks. Whatever little space was left out was taken by a group of buffaloes idling on every cross-road. Having learnt my early lessons in such an ambiance, it never bothered me to drive in a crowded area.

For the next few years, I mastered the art of maneuvering my car on Delhi roads, experiencing the brash traffic and to some extent became almost one to survive. At some point in time I observed that it sinks in you and even if you want to, you cannot drive differently. Those who have driven in Delhi during the days when Metro Rail was being built would vouch for the extreme patience one had to keep to reach one’s destination. Shifting to Dwarka, my brashness got accentuated, thanks to a single approach road inside & out and that too having a flyover under construction.

Transferred to Mumbai, I experienced some semblance in traffic sense, mainly sense of following one’s own lane; however I soon realized that the pleasure of my discovery was quite short-lived. If in Delhi it were the cars which didn’t stick to their lanes, in Mumbai, it were Taxis and Autos. The behaviour of buses in these two places was no different. Personally for me, Mumbai didn’t bring much change in my approach.

My first opportunity to experience a totally different world of traffic sense was in 2008, on the roads of New Jersey & Philadelphia, during the road trip from NJ to Florida, also to Niagara Falls. For a person from India, this world appears to be somewhat magical, where as if every vehicle has inculcated a sense of discipline from its inception, which is followed, be the traffic fast or slow, light or dense. This experience was repeated in each of many countries of Europe and also in South East Asia (except for China & Vietnam to some extent).

After each of the above experiences, I have wondered why we behave as we behave on Indian roads. It’s difficult to find an answer. Last few weeks I’ve been experimenting to take a conscious ownership of my behaviour on the road and I’m finding good results. I’ve been more engrossed in my audio book, I’ve many times consciously given way to somebody who wants to overtake me, tried to keep myself in my lane, ridden more smoothly that I have been in the past. The results are interesting. I’ve been at more peace, less tired when I reach home. I’ve found more green lights than red signals coming my way, have found at almost each red signal those who have overtaken me, waiting for me! Now I have started wondering whether life is also like Indian traffic!!!