Horn - ok please!

Driving in any Indian city is a nightmare – but as they say ‘All are equal, some are more equal than others’. Some cities are a little more nightmarish than most. Delhi because the folks are ready to pick up an argument at the drop of a hat; in Bangalore because the road are so conjusted that driving without a scrape is impossible (yes – you will miss the cows for sure, but rest assured, you will hit an auto or vice versa). Every city has its share of problems I am sure. No wonder then that driving a car in any Indian city is a challenge.
So – what parts of a car do you need most to ride the Indian city roads? Accelerator? Ha ha ha – if you can drive above 30 km per hr consistently, you will either hit the 1960 Ambassador in front of you, or worse still, enter a pothole that opens up to the center of the earth!). No – we can manage without an accelerator. Headlights? Hmmm – maybe. Mirror – no sir.. who sees the mirror anyway? Must be that aunty driving in front who wants to check if her makeup is still intact. Indicator? Nopes – lets pass… most people don’t even know that their car has a indicator. Horn? Bull’s eye. No wonder even that truck in front of you says ‘Horn Ok please’ (not ‘use indicator’ or ‘keep safe distance’ or ‘don’t overtake’). Rule No.1 (and the only rule) of Indian driving – Honk and drive, otherwise don’t (which makes you realize I am sure, why Indians are unable to participate in F1. The F1 circuits don’t allow honking, and we guys can’t drive without honking. Perhaps, we should ask Bernie Ecclestone to modify rules and permit honking. Narain Karthikeyan will beat all others!).
Talking of cars and roads, the other day, I set out to office driving my Alto early in the morning. The office is a mere 7 km away. But depending on the time of the day, it takes anything from 10 mins to 40 to get there (10 is ofcourse only if I am crazy enough to leave for work at 6:00 am – it is only 40 mins in my case). So, there I was, on my way to office, and as happens only in India, there was an obnoxiously slow moving good lorry on the fast lane! What the #$#*%$! I thought of being pragmatic and decided to switch lanes (honking wouldn’t have helped anyway, coz. the lorries own the Indian roads). I was midway into the lane, when the driver behind me gave me an earful (through his horn obviously). I was wondering why he was mad – I had obviously given the left indicator…or wait, had I? Hmm… the position of the indicator knob was right, but wait – why was there no green light inside? Ok – I tried changing the indicator to right (thinking it better to follow the good lorry now) but yet no light! Then I realized that the damn indicator was not working! Great! So – I thought I would also show my aggression by blasting my horn. But what the blazes – I pressed the horn with enough force to strangle King Kong’s neck – but there was no noise! I told myself ‘This is really neat!’ I downed the window and went back to old fashioned hand signals.
A little ahead, I encountered a moving speed breaker. Yes – what else but a cow to bring some excitement on the road! On normal days, I would have blared my horn like mad hoping that the cow would get the message (not like a cow’s peace is disrupted by merely blasting a horn. A cow does what it has to – treating the road as merely a nuisance in its path of reaching a grazing ground). But today was not that day – no sir. Today, I sat, no stood, no waited like an idiot near the cow, opening the window and saying ‘Shush’ and ‘Hush’ and ‘Go away’ and things like that. If only I had had the privilege of a rural upbringing, I would have known how to chase away cows. Ofcourse, the cow being uneducated didn’t understand words like ‘Go away’ and instead started inspecting my car! The traffic behind me went mad! They all blared horns and convinced the cow to indeed move on (this seems like a good idea for a Fastrack ad – cow on the road, horns blaring, cow leaving the road and the voiceover going ‘moo on’ heheheh).
This little adventure had sufficiently alerted me to the state of my car – I had no choice but to go to a service centre. Now, that was a problem. I had to pass through a narrow lane where people, cycles, rickshaws, scooters AND animals claimed right of passage! I got to the lane without incident, but after that it was almost Mission Impossible. Every few metres, a non vehicle would appear in front of me, and because I could not honk, I almost could not move. Yeah – cyclists were overtaking me. I was afraid that the bullock cart behind me would also beat me to the service centre! For a minute (actually several minutes), I got the feeling that the whole world was watching me and laughing (heck, I am dead sure they were). Finally I got to the service centre. The guy said ‘Not much, rat chewed off the wire.’ Yeah – inflation is really bad. No wonder – rats eat wires, not food ;)