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Published
in Gulf News, May 8, 2007
Do as the roamers
do
In
India,
the phrase "foreign returned" carries almost as much baggage
as the people it refers to. As well as the TV, the "two-in-one"
radio/CD player and a barrel of Tang, "foreign returned types"
are derisively looked at as importing a bundle of anti-India views.
Though
complaining about the traffic and pollution is now as much a part
of Bangalore conversation as wondering what's for dinner, it's wise
for the newly returned not to join in. Bangaloreans are pretentious
about being unpretentious, and comparing a drive on a US freeway
with one on Bangalore's Inner Ring Road is asking to be strung up
from a lamppost.
However,
once you've been away for more than a few months, no memory can
prepare you for the onslaught on the roads. It's easy to forget
how driving in India is about recklessly punching your car through
a seething mess of cars, motorcycles, scooters and autorickshaws.
On my first day back after six months, I was reduced to flinching
and cowering on the back seat. Just one day later, I'd thrown every
rule of the highway code out of the car window, and was driving
as if I'd never been away. Sure in the beginning, I did silly things
such as indicating before changing lanes… actually, make that,
I did silly things such as using a lane in the first place; but
I quickly adopted a motion more Brownian.
Soon
though, familiarity breeds anger. There are too many people doing
too many annoying things at the same time, and not being in the
least bit apologetic about them. The result is rage, but not just
any rage. Have you seen 28 Days Later?
My
friend A. is one of the most mild-mannered people I know. He's back
in India after studying in Hawaii, and recently emailed me. Apparently,
he has been going hoarse from screaming at autorickshaw and cab
drivers. "I think I need counselling in anger management,"
he wrote.
I know
what that feels like. When I was "foreign returned" after
my Dubai stint, I would get so angry on the road, that my chest
would tighten, I'd get light-headed and I'd think, "This is
it. Heart attack at 31."
I eventually
realised that road-rage management is about ending the tussle between
your morals and your health. The choice is: follow road rules and
blow out your aorta in fury, or drive like a chimp and stay happy
and healthy. I chose 'chimp', and began blithely driving at or through
everything in my path. My biggest secret though, was cunning. I
never used the horn.
People
who've never been to India, might find that puzzling. They should
know then that the horn is a lifeline on Indian roads and, in theory,
the only means to get home alive. The combination of driving like
a chimp and not sounding the horn is, therefore, terrifyingly aggressive
passive-aggression.
But
one must have balance in life. So while I cut off reckless cab drivers
and spatially dysfunctional motorcyclists, I learned to offset it
with stopping to let old men in 1974 Fiats pull out of side lanes,
and slowing to let children run across the street.
And
what happens when I'm "India returned" in a foreign land?
When I'm cut off by an SUV driver on a cell phone I suddenly understand
the value of being able to lean out of the window and tell somebody
loud tales of their forebears. But, keeping in mind that freeway
shootings are not fairy tales, I have to swallow my anger and remember
to take my life one country at a time.
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