let it be known to the world which has audaciously begun to ask Indians for international drivers' licences before they can showcase their skills, that road traffic anarchy is true democracy in India
Nowhere in the world do traffic regulations mirror society as truly as they do in Delhi.
It starts with the driver’s licence. Unlike in Europe, there are no gruelling practicals, swotting from manuals as thick as a Rolls Royce’s backside and lengthy tests full of nasty, trick questions.
Here, it is enough to ‘know’ someone in the traffic office: The one in the swivel chair draped with a furry towel and a dozen paperweights on the desk. If the issuing officer’s conscience tweaks (there are some nuisances like that), he may request you to get behind the wheel. But a quick reverse and back, is all it will take.
Having acquired the authority to unleash oneself on the world, one should now get acquainted with traffic rules. In the world’s largest democracy, they are as follows:
There is no such thing as ‘giving way to traffic’: In India’s case, on one’s right. This is an entirely undemocratic idea and an unacceptable attempt by India’s traffic authorities to align regulations with other countries. The bigger, more muscular and more expensive vehicle always has precedence. (Especially if it bears a light with a rexin cover on its hood). It is good to note that our sensible authorities have not wasted money on inverted triangles. Instead, the few installed are upright triangles. The apex on top indicates the pecking order. If you drive a Jaguar, you’ve arrived at the pinnacle, ergo, you have right of way.
Accept that nobody has the right to stride across a zebra crossing. Stripes are just meant to break the monotony of grey tar. As also multi-coloured lights in the middle of carriageways, that blink furiously and blind drivers, much like the loreley maiden on the Rhine river, whose singing crashed ships on rocks. Don’t knock this brilliant idea.
Their purchase achieves two things: To show that our traffic authorities are using our tax money to do something, anything, and — if the loreley analogy works — to continue Sanjay Gandhi’s noble work and control our population.
The term ‘jaywalker’ ought not to feature in traffic manuals. Political parties — and the authorities who take their orders from them — work primarily for the ‘common man’. If a pedestrian is knocked down by a cyclist, no problem. The two social strata are more or less the same. Even an auto-rickshaw driver (lower middle class, so only slightly better off) may get away with nudging an errant stroller. But a carIJ A car signifies prosperity and is, therefore, always to blame.
What, pray, is a ‘no horn’ areaIJ How dare authorities demand that the purchaser of a car — with a ‘power’ horn included in the price — not use itIJ If people are trying to sleep at 2am, surely that’s their problemIJ Aren’t drunk and happy wedding revellers allowed to announce it to the world through sustained parping and a few shots in the air from a ‘country-made’ pistol providing the percussionIJ
Give way to glaring, armed Punjab Police piloting huge SUVs with dark glasses and license plates that read ‘CH B o n d 007’. There is a Chandigarh wife or two going shopping; her time in Delhi is limited. After all, the BRT was created only for such emergencies.
Please, there is no such thing as a ‘bus lane’. That was just something painted on the streets to impress visitors to the Commonwealth Games. Buses can stop anywhere and at any time. It is the common man who uses buses, remember. Since there is no such thing as bus time-tables, it is his right to dart on to the middle of a road and stop a bus — a rare sighting, as those who wait hours every day will vouch.
There is no absolutely no need for vehicles to have functioning brake-lights, or to use brakes at all. Keeping a distance of ‘three cars’ length’ from the vehicle in front of you, especially in wet weather, is a silly rule invented in rainy, Western countries. Any driver who crashes into a brake-light-less vehicle from behind is always at fault. And if the driver with working brake-lights ahead wishes to conserve energy by only taking his foot off the accelerator and not stepping on the brake pedal, then that is his birthright.
Do not even think of overtaking a stationary bus and yelling at anyone crossing the road from in front of it. Even if there is a pile-up, car-drivers should wait, while the bus driver — another common man — finishes chatting with his pal in another bus that has pulled up alongside his.
Know your rules when waiting at toll booths, or for a neta to drive to the airport to catch a flight for his six-week junket to cooler climes. By all means start a second, and third line on the opposite carriageway, while doing so. Cars coming in from that direction can go to hell. After all, if you wait, so should they — that is only democratic.
Study the flashing red light and its use in emergencies. What could be of greater urgency than a ‘leader’ headed to the wedding reception of an industrialist’s daughter, six months before electionIJ Give him right of way, he is your elected representative.
Accept with karmic wisdom that there are no sarkari helicopters for critical patients. If traffic is clogged and ambulances can’t move, then what’s one more dead person in a nation of 1.2 billionIJ Besides, do understand that sarkari choppers are busy in election year. There are rallies to be attended, (empty) promises to be made. It is morally wrong to expect public services to be diverted for trivial trips like lifting patients — who are on their way out anyway — to hospitals.
We are a religious nation. Do not mess with kanwariyas and taziyas on the move. The same goes for demonstrators wearing white caps and carrying red flags with sickles. They are angry, and have every right to be. Nobody should expect them to proceed in an orderly fashion on (non-existent) pavements, or even on the fringes of the road.
And, finally, remember that though you may be a double PhD behind the wheel of your Nano, drivers of BMWs and Mercedes Benzes — even if they are not the owners — have the better car and therewith the unquestionable right to park ‘for two’ in parking lots.
If this guide has missed out on some important aspects, please feel free to add. let it be known to the world that has audaciously begun to ask Indians for international drivers’ licences before showcasing their skills, that anarchy is true democracy.