Driving In India

Imagine sitting in a dark room, on a comfy couch. Now close your eyes, and think of the most basic car you have ever seen; now just imagine driving it….and that’s about it you are now officially a participant in the greatest and probably the scariest reality show in the world, Driving in INDIA. With a license validity of about 20 years and the kind of “rigorous” training that has gone into teaching you to drive and add to the equation that a BILLION other “highly-trained” drivers on the same road, there could be quite a possibility that your license might just outlive you... this I feel is a much easier and shorter way of getting a ‘license to kill’. Don’t know why Mr. Bond was making such a fuzz about his “license to kill” almost every resident Indian above 18 seems to have one of those here, and in some case even younger.

Driving in India is not about precision it’s not entirely about how well you control the car and its certainly not about how well you and others follow traffic rules ‘cause there’s virtually non-present, but it is about your Karma, if you kissed a cow’s arse in the morning, you’ll live to kiss it again, and if you did not…I hope you have a good insurance.

Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard, Nelson PQ. Jr., Lewis Hamilton, Adrian Sutil are a few names of the greatest drivers alive, they possess the ability to change directions in split seconds at un-imaginable speed…they can defy laws of physics and get through places and corner where normal logic would say otherwise, but there is one thing that binds all F1 drivers alike; none of them ever dared to drive on Indian roads. Agreed  they can change direction in split seconds, great, but the old fiat 1100 in front of you can will inevitable change directions at least twice or thrice in the same time. And forget unimaginable speeds; try doing….err 30 km/hr here. There is a reason why India hasn’t really gone with the speed cams you know.

 In a country where size matters (well, atleast in car-size) and the right of way is dictated by the number of political flags and stickers you have on your number-plate, there comes a ‘oasis in desert’ like moment when someone signal’s before changing lanes, and let’s a faster car pass by, so rare is this event that every time someone does this deed, you’d be tempted to stop them, kiss them and part with half your fortune. And this happens in the cities, don’t even get me started on what happens when you leave behind say the luxury of traffic signals and road-dividers, and as you may have guessed by now ‘all hell breaks loose’.

Over the years I have seen shows like ‘TopGear’ where in a man resembling a giant white gorilla by the name Mr.Jeremy Clarskon and his chimp-mates go on long 1000 mile(1600km) drives on their pre-historic cars bought for less then what they might use in fuel cost, and all throughout they have a rather smooth drive on smooth roads, yet cribbing about the transport authorities and how the power windows don’t work, but I have a feeling and a strong one at that, Mr.’jezza’ would not even dream of trying that here; and if at all he does go ahead by saying “how hard could it be”, he would be in a hospital before crossing the half way mark and his car would have been sold in bits, and ya he can’t even blame the authorities ‘cause then he’d be killed.

I have a dream and I say this from the bottom of my heart, I want a Anna hazare for the Indian automotive scene, only difference is he/she’d  should burn  more fuel for each day the demands are not met, anyway the point being I want a law to be passed empowering; if not me, every traffic cop to rip the horns out of any car found honking unnecessarily and engrave “I GOT MY _____ RIPPED OF” at the back of the car, trust me if this can’t stop the unnecessary honking nothing can, if you live in Mumbai you know what I am on about. it’s just the tip of the iceberg and we have a very long way before queuing is a norm and respecting other drivers and road-users won’t have to be forced upon.

The greatest driver the world has ever known, Mr.Rajni

I know I might sound and show a bad image here, but it isn’t all downhill as it may sound, driving here is like ‘chaos theory’ personified. It’s all wrong it’s all messed up…but somehow in a miraculous way everything just fits in right. Indian automotive scene has come a very long way since the economic flood gates opened up about two decades back, and we have the cars and the bling to be a respected automotive country, now all we need is some good drivers to drive them.


- JD

Revrange