To drive in any other city than in Chennai is great, because here you can drive only if you violate roughly around 186 rules in the driving handbook. This is how I go everyday to my office, which is roughly 20 KMS from my home. Sit back, relax and enjoy yourself on this roller coaster ride which I normally undertake.
To start with, there is only one main rule of driving in Chennai that operates on the fact that you are the best and leave the rest to the insurance company. This is due to the road condition, which is a clear example of Darwin’s theory – “Survival of the Fastest”.
The male protagonist of this story, my driver, goes in with a set algorithm. He usually starts in the left unless it’s occupied. In that case he tries to go to the right, unless that is also occupied. If both are occupied he goes for the center. Then he proceeds by occupying the next available slots in the road, as in a chess game. He does not believe in my back seat driving ability and firmly relies on his instincts and ascertains the direction and proceeds without any damage.
We would have traveled just 50 meters into the road when a pedestrian comes from nowhere. Blowing the horn is not a sign of protest in some courteous cities like New York but in Chennai it is used for almost all emotions such as expressing joy, resentment, frustration, romance, driving with your neighbour’s wife, no reason and finally to wade away a herd of buffalos in the middle of the road.
This pedestrian causes my car to slow down or rather come to a screeching halt. Speaking of which, there are 2 types of speed breakers you find once you hit the road. First of them is the innocent pedestrians, bi-cyclist, auto rickshaws and potholes. The second type are the man made speed breakers. Before I start about the first type, let me finish of with the man-made speed breakers. Providing a “speed breaker”, roughly 2 per house, has prevented rash and fast driving in residential areas. This mound incidentally not only slows down the automobiles speed, but also BREAKS most of the chassis of the vehicle. Perhaps that’s the reason for naming it a “Speed Breaker”.
The first type of breaker that you encounter in Chennai is the Auto rickshaw. The autos carry iron rods, gas cylinders, passengers or all of them. During rush hours (i.e. when I leave for office) we first meet the auto. The autos, after careful geometric calculations, are stuffed with school children carefully folded and loaded with some of them barely in contact with the vehicle. Then their school bags are pushed into the microscopic gaps all round so those minor collisions with other vehicles on the road cause no permanent damage to the bag (I can’t say the same regarding the child). The auto drivers follow only one driving rules that were depicted in the film Ben Hur and have a license to irritate any other vehicle that comes in its way.
The bi-cycles are a less pain than the autos but do cause the same effect – jamming your brakes. Also after a while, people don’t expend their energy in swearing at these creatures that never care even to listen to them in the first place. The next vexation comes from the busses, which are an absolute mayhem. There are passengers hanging off other passengers, who in turn hang off the railings causing the bus to defy laws of gravity but obey the laws of surface tension. The only rule that my driver follows is to stay three buses width away, which means I am well behind the moving traffic.
If this weren’t adventurous journey to you, then there are a few roads that I have to go. They are named as ONE-WAY streets, which for all-purpose is a fully functional Bi-Directional traffic. In metaphysical terms, it means that you cannot proceed in two directions at the same time. So choose the direction as you please. Hence, don’t take the meaning literally and follow the sign, you are better off by following the man before you.
Having finished talking about the major speed breakers, the next obstacle for speed is the Potholes. Roughly 80% of the cities in the world have roads, which have potholes. Here in Chennai it is better if you have a board saying “Caution: Road Ahead”. All that you have here are bits of road in between potholes. Drivers have to be really acumen in trying to avoid the roads and ride on the potholes.
The most deadly obstacle that you can ever meet in Chennai is the one named as “Lord of Death – Yama” or in common man’s term “Water Tankers”. It may the speed of the vehicle or the laden weight of it, but will surely crush a giant Brontosaurus on impact. The break system of these tankers work in direct proportionality to the size of the opposite vehicle, if you are driving a motorcycle then you can’t even think of the tanker decelerating at 25cms/minute with its course in line with your bike. These tanker drivers I presume have no use for their eyes. Perhaps they are getting trained personally by P.C.Sorcar (magician) to find out what is your license plate number blindfolded while driving.
If you are wondering why there is so much of chaos between 8-10AM and 5-7PM, then here is the answer. This is the only time that a police constable gets to go to their home or have Tiffin or Dinner. The citizen is then free to enjoy the 'FREEDOM OF SPEED' and ‘FREEDOM OF SWEARING’ which is enshrined in our constitution to protect the rights of a mad driver.
Through this time I have managed to travel 10 KMS and consumed 45 minutes in my watch. This equation makes my driver a bit tensed and results in landmark judgments like if you can’t beat them join them. My driver shuts of his antennas thereby ignoring my comments about his driving and drives just like everyone else so that we reach the office with an ETA (Expected Time of Arrival) of 1 hour and has done it safely till today.(Source: I am alive and typing)
Having said all these, one thing still bewilders me is that HOW come we have a lesser accident rate and road accident related deaths in Chennai than in New York or San Francisco – Some things can’t be answered. Perhaps like the X-Files, the “Truth is OUT there”.
1 comment:
Good post.
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