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How Indians travel says a lot about India

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Palash Krishna Mehrotra
Palash Krishna MehrotraNov 19, 2017 | 11:15

How Indians travel says a lot about India

Each mode of transport makes us look differently at the world outside.

India, they say, is always on the move. And India moves in mysterious ways. How we move tells us something about us. Each mode of transport makes us look differently at the world outside. I remember taking a horse-drawn carriage from the Old Delhi station to Mall Road in Delhi. This was in the 1990s. Given the levels of pollution in Delhi, this still might be a solution for the future.

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Kicks

Like many of us, I keep switching between modes of transport, sometimes in the same day. I go from my yellow Nano to a Vikram or "tempo", to my blue BSA SLR to my TVS scooty. I also walk. India lives in hierarchies. Forget about right of way for pedestrians.

When I went to England for the first time, I couldn’t get over the fact that cars actually slowed down on zebra crossings to let the walker cross the road. How dignified is that.

In India, we like to run them over. An Indian in an SUV is the worst offender, followed by the motorcyclist. We drive like maniacs, and yet each time a car touches another car, the desi reflexively screams: “Andha hai kya (are you blind!)”

The pedestrian is to be toyed with. The motorcyclist, at least in small towns, loves to scare the walker. He will come close to you, make you jump in alarm, and zoom away. Just for kicks. We apply a strange gender division when it comes to two-wheelers. Scooter is "puling" (male). Scooty is "streeling" (female).

In some countries, cars slow down on zebra crossings to let the walker cross the road. In India, we like to run them over. Photo: Reuters/File
In some countries, cars slow down on zebra crossings to let the walker cross the road. In India, we like to run them over. Photo: Reuters/File

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I’ve sort of given up on the scooter myself. But I have pleasant memories of growing up on the front of my father’s grey Bajaj Chetak. With every passing year, one would sprout up a few inches higher, until standing in the front was no longer tenable.

Vikrams or "tempos" is the most common mode of transport in small towns. Always overloaded, a Vikram is the way to go if you want to sit on someone’s lap. Many a romance has blossomed here. Of course, the original Vikram was the tuk-tuk, the ones that ran on Harley Davidson engines.

What I’ve noticed driving my Nano is that everyone considers it a bicycle. Pedestrians cross the street with impunity. You never take your chances with a Toyota Corolla. But with a Nano, it’s par for the course. People feel that the Nano owner must be a friendly customer. It’s a type.

Conscience

I’ve been amazed at how even highly educated people transform once they are in their "lambi gaadi" (long car). They abuse, in Hindi, at every poor person on the road. Once they are home, with their wives and mothers, they switch back to posh English accents.

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As one such "friend" told me, if you’re a kitted-out eighteen-geared mountain bike guy, in green fluorescent shorts, then cycling is acceptable. You get some respect. Talking of cycles, how can one forget the cycle-rickshaw? One respects cycle rick pullers. It pricks one’s conscience, especially when one is being pulled uphill.

In Delhi University, it was the accepted thing to do that one always got off the rick while going up an incline. You walk alongside the rickshaw puller, even give the rick a helpful shove. The rickshaw puller though doesn’t like it when you do this. Especially the younger ones. It’s an ego thing.

Whatever it is that we might be driving, we always drive to get ahead. There’s a not-so-quiet desperation to our driving habits. You might not make it past the car in front of you, but we still want to go that extra mile. It’s a push-shove mentality that says something about us as a nation. And it’s certainly not a nation of laid-back drivers.

It doesn’t take much to drive in single file. But we won’t. There is this gnawing fear of being left behind.

Licence

I read recently that Kathmandu has become a no-honking city. Yes, they did it. I can’t think of one Indian city that has managed to achieve this. One would have thought that at least some of the smaller towns would have pulled it off. But no. In fact, our honking habit is what unites us.

Languages and cultures change from region to region. But no matter where you go in India you will find a fellow Indian honking the daylights out of her car. I sometimes wonder if it’s our way of saying hello, exchanging greetings.

While there is much checking of licence and RC, it’s a known fact no Indian has ever taken a valid driving test. The licence comes from the pimp in the tea shop outside every Road Transport Office. And oh yes, we Indians love to drink and drive.

In chicken point after chicken point, across the length and breadth of north India, the car-o-bar tradition flourishes. We have a peculiar logic to this. As someone once explained to me: "If I sit in a place and drink, I get too high. If I keep driving, it keeps me sane." At times, driving in India reminds me of the Jamiroquai song: "Travelling Without Moving".

(Courtesy of Mail Today)

Last updated: November 19, 2017 | 21:42
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