Sunday, January 16, 2005
Road Rage India Style
I had persuaded myself, naively as it would turn out, that Road Rage was a problem confined to the West. After all my recollections of Roads in India was that of controlled chaos. Traffic rules had a way of evolving out of necessity. If you see a truck coming at you, unless you’re in a bigger and sturdier truck, get out of the way. If you’re a cyclist, accept your limited leverage and stick to the extreme left of the road (India drives on the left hand side of the road, for most part at least). Numbers prevailed – for instance if you’re on a two wheeler, yield to four wheelers.
You knew your place in the pecking order and similar rules of thumb existed in other spheres of life. There was no point trying to question how things worked for nobody would listen to you, so occasionally you would get frustrated, say things like “what will become of this country” and when things inevitably remained as they were, you would move on with life. This led to an equilibrium of sorts, however delicately so at times.
On my recent visit to my hometown of Baroda, I was returning home after meeting my favourite teacher at high school in an auto-rickshaw. A fairly mundane ride beginning at Makarpura Teen Rasta right in front of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan School where I had spent the best part of 13 years of my life followed. The Rickshaw driver was a gentleman in his late fifties probably.
We crossed the Lal Bagh Railway Crossing on to the Rajmahal Road. Many years ago, Raj Mahal Road passed in front of a very vibrant Laxmi Vilas Palace where the royal family for decades, prided itself on being in charge of a culturally progressive, artsy and intellectually evolved city. Today a large section of the palace estate has been earmarked for commercial and residential construction.
We made a left and were now on our way towards the Vishwamitri flyover. With no radio to distract you and with my mobile charge running low, I had not much to do but be lost in my thoughts as we meandered through the streets of the city I had grown up in. Suddenly the rickshaw came to a screeching halt and as I looked through the dashboard, we had missed hitting a white Maruti 800 by about 1.4 inches.
The gentleman driving the Maruti decided to get out of the car - bringing to a standstill all traffic. Before I had a chance to realize what was happening here, the man in his late 30's, slightly pot bellied and with his wife and a couple of others in his entourage in tow, confronted the rickshaw driver and standing a foot away from him said in Gujarati with the odd word of broken English thrown in: "Didn't you see I showed my right indicator? Are you blind?” The rickshaw driver, also slightly heated up at the time, pointed out that he had the right of way (is there such a thing near Vishwamitri Bridge I wondered) and the turning party needed to wait for a break in traffic.
At this point, with a captive audience watching him in anticipation, Mr. Maruti 800 decided enough was enough. After all who the heck is a 50 something rickshaw driver to tell him the rules? Wasn't he the one in a car? How could he take a retort from the rickshaw driver quietly? Maybe Mr. Maruti 800 lacked the sophistication of the new yuppie class that was emerging that spoke better English than him. He might not be driving a Scorpio like them. He might not even hang out at the Baristas and Inox like them. So what if he watched ZeeTV and not CNBC India. But as far as this confrontation went, he clearly should be the one calling the shots.
He grabbed the rickshaw driver by the collar and mouthed off a series of expletives, and finally challenged him to a fist fight to prove who the stronger party of the two was. I decided to then step in, I wasn't about to play the Hindi film hero and save the underdog in this duel. I simply persuaded the rickshaw driver to not indulge Mr. Maruti any further and added some weight to my good natured advice by saying I was getting late. Much to my relief, the rickshaw driver relented and eyeballed the Maruti guy on his way out, not before he heard a few more challenges to his manhood.
We then uneventfully made our way back to my apartment on Vasna Road. As I paid the rickshaw driver a little more than the rate he quoted, he was profusely thankful. I finally said the words "Drive carefully". He said he appreciated my concern but just as he reached to pull the ignition rod on his left to breathe life into his Bajaj rick, he said something that disturbed me "Sir, if I was only 10 years younger and a little stronger - I would have taught him a lesson he would never forget". He then pulled out of sight through the apartment gates.
Road rage had arrived in India. More significantly, it had arrived in my home city with several local flavours of bottled up frustrations mixed in. Class, age, wealth and appearance played their parts in shaping up how it unfolded.
The steeped in history and heritage, Laxmi Vilas Palace giving way to a commercial property was an indicator of how the delicate equilibrium of the past based on old socio-economic equations was giving way to a consumer culture that was taking down several barriers and creating a fresh set of them.
The rage that is taken out on the roads of the west had made its way to India. And India also presents unique and creative ways of those frustrations to come out. To name but a few:
Local train rage (when the 6.30 Virar Local is running 30 mins late).
Movie theater rage (if the electricity goes off during the screening of Veer Zaara).
Cricket match rage (when India again manages that famous “defeat from the jaws of victory” act).
Rajdhani Express Food rage (when the food is too cold in the AC Chair Car compartment).
The possibilities are limitless.
You knew your place in the pecking order and similar rules of thumb existed in other spheres of life. There was no point trying to question how things worked for nobody would listen to you, so occasionally you would get frustrated, say things like “what will become of this country” and when things inevitably remained as they were, you would move on with life. This led to an equilibrium of sorts, however delicately so at times.
On my recent visit to my hometown of Baroda, I was returning home after meeting my favourite teacher at high school in an auto-rickshaw. A fairly mundane ride beginning at Makarpura Teen Rasta right in front of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan School where I had spent the best part of 13 years of my life followed. The Rickshaw driver was a gentleman in his late fifties probably.
We crossed the Lal Bagh Railway Crossing on to the Rajmahal Road. Many years ago, Raj Mahal Road passed in front of a very vibrant Laxmi Vilas Palace where the royal family for decades, prided itself on being in charge of a culturally progressive, artsy and intellectually evolved city. Today a large section of the palace estate has been earmarked for commercial and residential construction.
We made a left and were now on our way towards the Vishwamitri flyover. With no radio to distract you and with my mobile charge running low, I had not much to do but be lost in my thoughts as we meandered through the streets of the city I had grown up in. Suddenly the rickshaw came to a screeching halt and as I looked through the dashboard, we had missed hitting a white Maruti 800 by about 1.4 inches.
The gentleman driving the Maruti decided to get out of the car - bringing to a standstill all traffic. Before I had a chance to realize what was happening here, the man in his late 30's, slightly pot bellied and with his wife and a couple of others in his entourage in tow, confronted the rickshaw driver and standing a foot away from him said in Gujarati with the odd word of broken English thrown in: "Didn't you see I showed my right indicator? Are you blind?” The rickshaw driver, also slightly heated up at the time, pointed out that he had the right of way (is there such a thing near Vishwamitri Bridge I wondered) and the turning party needed to wait for a break in traffic.
At this point, with a captive audience watching him in anticipation, Mr. Maruti 800 decided enough was enough. After all who the heck is a 50 something rickshaw driver to tell him the rules? Wasn't he the one in a car? How could he take a retort from the rickshaw driver quietly? Maybe Mr. Maruti 800 lacked the sophistication of the new yuppie class that was emerging that spoke better English than him. He might not be driving a Scorpio like them. He might not even hang out at the Baristas and Inox like them. So what if he watched ZeeTV and not CNBC India. But as far as this confrontation went, he clearly should be the one calling the shots.
He grabbed the rickshaw driver by the collar and mouthed off a series of expletives, and finally challenged him to a fist fight to prove who the stronger party of the two was. I decided to then step in, I wasn't about to play the Hindi film hero and save the underdog in this duel. I simply persuaded the rickshaw driver to not indulge Mr. Maruti any further and added some weight to my good natured advice by saying I was getting late. Much to my relief, the rickshaw driver relented and eyeballed the Maruti guy on his way out, not before he heard a few more challenges to his manhood.
We then uneventfully made our way back to my apartment on Vasna Road. As I paid the rickshaw driver a little more than the rate he quoted, he was profusely thankful. I finally said the words "Drive carefully". He said he appreciated my concern but just as he reached to pull the ignition rod on his left to breathe life into his Bajaj rick, he said something that disturbed me "Sir, if I was only 10 years younger and a little stronger - I would have taught him a lesson he would never forget". He then pulled out of sight through the apartment gates.
Road rage had arrived in India. More significantly, it had arrived in my home city with several local flavours of bottled up frustrations mixed in. Class, age, wealth and appearance played their parts in shaping up how it unfolded.
The steeped in history and heritage, Laxmi Vilas Palace giving way to a commercial property was an indicator of how the delicate equilibrium of the past based on old socio-economic equations was giving way to a consumer culture that was taking down several barriers and creating a fresh set of them.
The rage that is taken out on the roads of the west had made its way to India. And India also presents unique and creative ways of those frustrations to come out. To name but a few:
Local train rage (when the 6.30 Virar Local is running 30 mins late).
Movie theater rage (if the electricity goes off during the screening of Veer Zaara).
Cricket match rage (when India again manages that famous “defeat from the jaws of victory” act).
Rajdhani Express Food rage (when the food is too cold in the AC Chair Car compartment).
The possibilities are limitless.
