Seeing Through Different Eyes
By Carl Chilley
7 Mar 2007
It hits you as soon as you leave the relative safety of the airport terminal and get into your car and direct your driver to your destination. WIth the smells and exuberance of India hitting you continuously, constantly assaulting all of your senses, you are not prepare for what happens next
Coming out of the car park is almost tranquil until you hit the main streets. Suddenly you are confronted with a cacophony of sound, the uncalled for din of drivers using their horns for no apparent purpose. As the noise rolls over you, embodies itself into the very fibre of your being then you begin to realise that the noise is a mere embellishment to the main show, the driving itself.
Lanes in the road appear to be a waste of paint as three lane highways magically blossom into five and six, with one lane often containing motorcycles and auto rickshaws going in the opposite direction to the flow. Traffic lights appear to signal a possibility of lane control rather than an absolute order as to proceed or not. Pedestrians mix in with cars, cycle-powered rickshaws, buses, trucks and bullock and horse drawn vehicles all studiously ignoring everything about them as them weave their way through imaginary paths in the road. Incongruous combinations of people, vehicles and goods appear in your vision, too odd at first to be anything other than impossible.
The melange starts to assault your western senses, flowing contrary to the order you expect. You start to believe that the journey can only have a bad outcome and that accidents will happen all around you at any time and from any direction. You start to worry.
If you are lucky you start to stop looking and feeling with western sensibilities. You accept your karma. You accept that these guys do this every day of their lives and that they must know what they are doing. The cacophony of noise starts to sound more like a raja, the different vehicles embellishing the main theme with their horns, forming constructs that seem to rise and fall in some natural rhythm. The random and senseless flow of traffic becomes an exotic, sensual dance in which the dancers seem to know their part in the invisible choreography.
You notice that there are no accidents, that horns are being used because they seem to help and not intimidate. You start to relax, knowing you will get there in one piece.
But when you get there, a little offer of thanks is always a good idea.
