Cha Chi Makes Good Business

Arriving at my hotel I swore I would never venture back out onto the streets. Obviously, my wish was not someone else’s command, and venture out I did. It may have been safer inside but the excitement was outside and you couldn’t help but find the whole experience exhilarating. First you have to convince the gauntlet of rickshaw drivers that you really are equipped with the necessary appendages to walk to your destination. Then you are met with a chorus of “yes madames?” and “excuse me excuse mes” as people try to tempt you into their shop. The thing is that you cannot resist turning round even though you know better, heads are on some kind of swivel radar reaction, and you have to be iron willed and minus all reflexes to make it through the gauntlet without being snared. And then there is the begging which is everywhere. Little children pulling at your clothes calling “rupee, rupee”, rubbing their stomachs eyes as round as chapatis. Dirt smeared party dress clad little barefoot girls calling out “Hello chocolate”, “hello chewing gum”, as you become sweetness personified in a nice white wrapper. It’s such a guilt trip, but what can you do, the whole idea is not to encourage dependence upon the tourist, not to encourage begging and yet you’re weighed down by plastic bags full of carpets and pashminas and expensive jewellery. Sometimes it’s hard to even feel anything at all. You temporarily mislay your sense of humanity, and the sympathy vote is lost when the cute little child trails you for half a mile wrapped around your ankles, pulling on you clothes, calling out relentlessly, till the aggression in your voice begins to scare you and you force yourself to blink rapidly and remember this annoyance is actually a hungry child.

Driving rules are somewhat unique and you can learn over time how best to put them into effect, but they were most appropriately and immediately summed up in three short phrases. “Good brakes, good horn, good luck!” And brakes have nothing to do with anything when faced with a challenging obstacle course of pot holes, pigs, sleeping dogs, and hurtling on coming traffic. In fact, more often than not it’s the accelerator which is the preferred pedal (the clutch long ago burnt out and was not deemed important enough to replace!) Most journeys are accompanied by fervent prayer, clenched fists, closed eyes and a blasphemous stream of consciousness.

“Good horn” had me thrown for a while, I didn’t really believe it to be some sexual overture from long distance truck drivers, but every lorry did state in very large ornate letters “Horn Please”. It seemed a strange request. I wondered whether it was an attempt to pre-empt road rage and create some kind of holistic approach to anger management. “Reiki on the road”, “massage on the motor ways”, “assertiveness training for articulated lorry drivers” – a whole host of Therapeutic activities could be learnt from behind the wheel, but I sensed that anger management was perhaps not behind the all pervading honk! After all, every beep of every horn seemed to communicate something different. Honk to express joy, resentment, frustration, romance, bare lust, or simply to mobilize a dozing cow, but not for anger. Maybe there is something to say for beeping ones horn as part of regular driving etiquette. Forget about gesticulation and flaying arms or wordless abuse mouthed at you from behind the safety of windscreens. Get your fist on your horn, change pressure, duration and urgency and you have morse code of the roads.

Sitting in traffic jams in the early hours of the morning, gives you plenty of time to contemplate….I was already immersed in sensory overload, I was already overwhelmed, and terrified. My breathing became erratic as we dodged steaming trucks and kamikaze moped drivers and rickshaw wallahs who thought that even three wheels on their vehicle was too much and so insisted on taking every bend at a pace and angle that defied all laws of gravity ….contemplation soon gave way to acceptance. You don’t try to understand you just soak it all in and hope you’re still alive at the end of the experience. Surprisingly I came to realize that actually the madness has method, or at the very least, consistency. There is a Highway Code of sorts. It isn’t published but it is mutually understood by all road users from the cow to the truck, from the public bus to the camel and starts with that all important Rule Number One, the assumption of immortality! Just as there is an order in the natural world, there is order on the Indian roads. Every road user needs to know his place; there is a strict precedent that dictates who gives way to whom and who is top dog (or should I say top cow!). Needless to say, it is the everyday pedestrian that sits at the bottom of the heap. There is a universally understood mantra that to slow is to falter, to brake is to fail and to stop is defeat. This is observed without exception. It is understood that advance warning of any manoeuvre is not expected and is assumed to be cowardly. It is also to be duly noted that everybody has right of way and if at all possible vehicles should spend at least half their allotted journey on the wrong side of the road at top speed with horn blaring continuously. The horn tone and duration at this point is of the up most importance, and communicates the urgency of most truck driver’s missions. It says in no uncertain terms that a heavy vehicle of a weight far past it’s capacity is hurtling past without any intention of stopping even if it could, which is normally unlikely. Overtaking is an institution in India, you must overtake at every possibility preferably in the face of great danger and at the cost of all lives. Appropriate conditions for overtaking are on blind bends, in rural villages, on roundabouts (going in the wrong direction) and in confined spaces but above all when there is on coming traffic that is larger, faster and even more delapidated!

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