Two years ago, while walking by a street in New Delhi, I came across a Swedish family huddled at a zebra crossing before a malfunctioning traffic junction, waiting interminably for the mass of speeding cars to give them the right of pedestrian way. Sensing that such a wait could only be successful once the cows came home by evening, or if a cat happened to scamper across the road, I suggested that they eye the approaching cars, judge their speeds, maintain a good safety space and tactfully dodge past them. Much like the casual, artful manner by which we Indians do it, without the cars needing to either apply brakes or lower their speeds.
The zebra crossing, once an indication of the area of pedestrian passage, is now a colonial relic converted into a street art of wildlife conservation representing the striped quadruped in its abstract form. Its diminishing utility is indicative of the chaos that describes roads and traffic in the country.
Adaptation of traffic rules across the country is perhaps one common bond in a sea of chaos. The pedestrian rules too are inked with the same pen. Here, cows and buffaloes have a greater right of ambling, loitering, strolling along or across roads or even sunbathing at busy junctions, a right of passage and occupancy that all vehicles accord them under a mutually acceptable and universally unstated code.
This phenomenon of a flourishing animal life on all motorable roads is a particularly true in north and central India. It is not entirely out of place to use buffalo-stations as landmarks – “Take the main road. You will reach a herd of buffaloes basking in afternoon siesta; take a left from there…”. In places like Mathura, Jabalpur, Kanpur etc you can often see an entire traffic use a masticating, pensive cow as a roundabout at a tri-junction crossing. The cat may be a less preferred domesticated pet than a dog but is a sure traffic-stopper! While stray dogs face the wrath of onrushing vehicles, the crossing of a road by a cat forces the reverse gear (otherwise a rarely applied poor cousin of the fourth gear) to come to life.
Traffic rules have versatile interpretations, ranging from the subtly wayward ways in Mumbai to the downright unabashed transgressions in UP, Andhra et al. In smaller towns, you will be surprised to find a whole convoy of uncomplaining, slow moving traffic led by a bored, creaking ox-cart or a herd of frolicking goats. You will probably be misled by such methods of enforced speed limits into believing that time is perhaps not an entirely important consideration. That’s when you will find the motorbikes and other two-wheelers dancing, weaving and dribbling their contraptions past all kinds of obstacles (which includes other vehicles, large animals on an after-meal stroll or sunbathing, smaller ones like stray-dogs, unmindful pedestrians, potholes, manholes, , beggars, hawkers and any other impediment on the road) with a speed, daredevilry and dexterity that can only be matched by the samba rhythm of Brazilian soccer stars. Or by a Lionel Messi.
The traffic congestion has inspired the noisy legacy of the Great Indian Horny Traffic. The horn in this respect has stimulated memorable graffiti to adorn the rears of trucks and lorries. Reading stuff like ‘Honk before you make a pass’ may originally seem like a chronicle in reverse! ‘Use dipper at night’ obviously assumes your awareness of the presence of a dipper on your car! There are those ludicrous ones too, like the one I once saw - ‘Clap if you don’t have a horn.’ Or the aggressively prophetic –‘Buri nazar wala tera muh kala.’ Or the ubiquitous ‘hum do, hamare do.’ Which can perhaps also mean it takes two of us to tango on the road!
The sight of waiting vehicles at a signal playing a cacophony of beeps and toots reminds you of the music of Viva, the former all-girl band. It’s a novel, aggregated imploration through sounds meant to persuade a change in the traffic signal. The signal lights have little relevance except for some places like Mumbai. Red means to drive slowly, orange indicates the need to change gear and green stands for 60kmph. In some places like Raipur in Chattisgarh and Ahmedabad, cycle-rickshaw drivers use legs to indicate the direction they wish to turn. So if you are trailing behind a cycle-rickshaw there and you see a leg jutting out, know there are humans in there and don’t be fooled.
Most of the driving that we do on roads is dictated by other people. You may be happily zipping on a one-way lane till forced into an unprepared pit-stop upon seeing the bumbling figure of a clumsy rider, having stumbled into a wrong lane, making his way on your windscreen. You may find an auto-rickshaw attempting to overtake your car, making you wonder whether you were actually a Minardi up against a Ferrari in disguise. To not overtake or be easily overtaken is to surrender the gender supremacy of your automobile, never mind the flouting of some irrelevant road rules. One visit to the RTO to see how the driving licenses are doled out will enlighten you on the need to disbelieve in the assumption of invincibility bequeathed to you by your driving license.
Safety has never been a concept on our roads. Speed breakers are more designed to break your bones. I have been on a cab in Calcutta where the driver had a seatbelt in the form of an old piece of sari-cloth. Seatbelts are a must, even on ponderously slow Calcutta roads. Considering the speed and smoothness of ride that roads permit there, the seat-belt protects your head more from the knocks it is likely to receive through regular bumps against the roof of the car rather than from a high-voltage crash. About the autorikshaws all over the country, the less said the better. Their presence has often been likened to cockroaches, but unlike the domestic insect that can survive a nuclear holocaust; this three-wheeled demon can cause one by breathing clouds of smoke, causing traffic snarls and generally negotiating roads as if playing a videogame. The roadies that surpass them are the Delhi buses – inoffensively named blueline and redline - with unstoppable speedometers, unscheduled stops and carrying unapologetic threats to mortals all around.
In cities like Mumbai, the traffic gets worse in the suburbs with the onset of monsoons. India’s commercial capital appears squalid on the roads and the difference between potholes and manholes gets reduced more to one of spelling than depth! The non-existent sidewalks reappear in the form of frighteningly open gutters that spew unmentionables. Every year I get the feeling that the bored authorities love drilling holes into roads. Digging for oil or for fun (as an advertisement hoarding says)? The Western Express highway, originally meant to allow for quick, hassle-free travel, often resembles the world’s largest garage from an aerial view– with a frozen pilgrimage of bored automobiles. It heads west alright but the middle name express is a criminal misnomer. The road signs require you to be a winner of one of those ‘spot the ball contests’ in order to spot and read them. To figure out a no-parking area from a parking lot becomes tricky. Traffic junctions look like the rush and charge of Jewish vehicles out of Palestine.
The Mumbai-Pune highway, the Delhi-Jaipur highway and the Golden Quadrangle may be a few silver linings on the tarmac, but it is the state of inner city roads and traffic that needs attention. Till then, we may end up spending most of our time seeing red and cursing the scars around the bends and curves that make for a backbreaking roller-coaster ride.
