Death-defying dash

 

 

 

“Organised chaos,” Oprah Winfrey’s comment on Indian roads has stayed with me ever since she uttered it. Like her, and like many other visitors who travel to our great country, like the million citizens who travel on Indian roads daily, including me, we find it difficult to decipher our traffic, the purpose of our traffic rules as well as functioning of the authorities who are supposed to regulate and keep an eye on the ever burgeoning traffic. I have travelled in buses while in school and college, I drive to work every day, my choice of vehicles have ranged from the bicycle to a two-wheeler, and then I graduated to a four-wheeler. While I have always enjoyed this ‘organised chaos’ when I am in control of a motorised vehicle, I dread one thing - walking on our roads, and dread more- crossing a road. I feel there can be no tougher test of character, courage and coordination than crossing an Indian road. I do not speak of the blessed zebra crossings - our roads are dotted with these black and white lines, but they serve as mere decorations on the black tar, like those Diwali rangolis - that no one tramples on, but walks around ensuring that one does not spoil it.

 

 

Here I am referring to the real ‘Road’, the arteries of any town, any city that connects places, the one where cars, scooters, cows and the occasional vegetable vendor with his cart, abound and all believe they have the ultimate right of way. There is one person, with whom I have spent a better part of my adult life - my partner - who I strongly suspect might have been a traffic cop in his previous life, or a stunt double in Fast & Furious franchise, who thrives in this chaos. I have seen him cross the road - and not for a second does his confident stride fumble. I am sure he was absent from his class when the teacher taught rules of the road - “Look to the left, then right, then left again...” For there is no break in his stride when he steps off the pavement onto the road where traffic is chaotic and consistent. No pausing, no calculating, no glancing - just a purposeful walk straight through whizzing vehicles. This reminds me of the biblical story of Moses parting the Red Sea. Except that this sea includes huge buses honking like warships, helmetless teenagers zig-zagging, drivers rushing off to God knows where... And then on the other side of the spectrum there’s me - the pedestrian version of a surprised deer caught in harsh headlights, or someone trying to cross the Formula 1 racetrack in slow motion.

 

While I try my level best not to walk on the roads - (these days thanks to Uber and Ola, I can quickly book them to travel to a spot a few hundred metres away) - once in a blue moon, I am forced to stagger on the roads. With dread and fear writ large on my face, I stand at the edge of the road, like a school kid outside a Principal’s Office, waiting for some divine intervention. I wait for that perfect, rare, once-in-a-century moment when there is nary a vehicle in sight, not even a cyclist. Of course, in our country, that’s about as likely as Vijay Mallya returning the money that he owes me - the Kingfisher flight that I was booked on to travel from Mumbai to Glasgow and back that he cancelled, and refused to return the money. On one memorable occasion, it so happened that both of us were on foot, walking to the main square to get to the restaurant on the other side. The road to be crossed was not wide - perhaps a distance of just 20 steps. He walked right across, I was left behind. Inwards I was trembling like a lone leaf caught in a storm. He looked from across the road, gesticulated wildly. I had frozen, unable to move. Exasperated, he crossed back, grabbed my hand, and walked back. I squealed. I protested.

 

I clutched his hand as if I were Rose and he Jack from Titanic, saving me from the iceberg that was shaped like a speeding auto-rickshaw. No kidding - but I simply closed my eyes and left myself to fate, walking blindly as he led me (read dragged). In my mind I pictured the next day’s headlines - “Wife blindly follows husband. Both end up in hospital”. It seems that his luck had rubbed off on me. We, without any mishap, reached the other side. Now I knew a tirade would spill forth. “You have to walk like you own the road,” he told me. The road isn’t named Shenolikar Marg - it’s simply called Cement Road, so how can I even feel that I own the road. I do not understand his logic. But talking any kind of sense or drilling some logic into his thought process is of no use. While he simply flows with the traffic, I inch forward like a detective in a thriller, darting left and right, trying to anticipate who’s about to run me down. In foreign lands, crossing a road is simple - you’ve all seen videos of traffic coming to a standstill when ducks are crossing a road, or an exasperated bear mom trying to coax her cubs to go on the other side. The traffic lights are sacrosanct, and pedestrians have the right of way. Many traffic lights, where there is no zebra crossing, have a button - press it, the light turns red and you get the right to cross. Back home, even the traffic lights don’t help. On the rare occasions when I become a pedestrian, I try to cross only when the pedestrian light turns green. Do the vehicles stop? Of course not. That’s just the drivers cue to honk louder as they inch closer until you start running in sheer panic. Dignity be damned, as you huff and puff and try to save your skin.

 

While crossing I once raised my hand, and waved at a bus to slow down as I was crossing. The driver slowed, only to accelerate and zoom past, triumphant I am sure of scaring the lady. The worst is when my husband, gestures to me from the other side to cross. “Come on, it’s clear!” Clear? I see two auto rickshaws, three SUVs and a cow gunning for the same spot that I am expected to cross through in five seconds. Over time I have realised that there is safety in numbers, and now I cross only when I find a little posse - an elderly gentleman, school children, a beggar or a vendor - we band together, form a human wall and shuffle across. Sometimes it works, other times we are left clutching our pacing hearts. Someday, I hope to emulate my husband on the road - be brisk, brave, and possibly blind. But until then, I’ll stand on the edge, waiting for a miracle, or for someone to drag me across with my eyes tightly shut, pretending I’m at a meditation retreat and not on a death-defying dash to the other side. Because in India, crossing the road is a leap of faith! n