the monk who sold his honk.

now i know i have written an earlier post on "the great indian driver"... but i couldn't help writing one more post on traffic rules and behaviour, given my recent trip abroad. most of you are already living in foreign lands and other half of you all have traveled to foreign lands. so i am guessing you might have a lot of opinions. but this being my first trip outside my comfort zone, my country, it was an eye opener of sorts.

the first thing that hits you when you are travelling on the road, is the silence. now i spent all of 5 days in singapore but the silence was deafening. not a HONK! not even an 'excuse me but i am coming out of my lane' warning HONK! not even a 'WTf are you doing in my lane' HONK! and forget the 'take your bullock cart somewhere else' HONK! everyone was just.... cruising! you can feel the rush hour chaos, you can feel the urgency in the cars wanting to over take; but all this chaos and urgency was in an orderly and organised manner. in certain parts of india, people are 'trigger happy'. but in mumbai we are all 'horn happy'. don't like the face of the guy who overtook you, HONK. don't like the way some idiot showing off his drawing skills by going zig-zag, HONK. want to double park your car, HONK and tell the cabbie already double parked there to move.so for a person who rides a scooter in such a city, singapore was a cultural shock. i feel incomplete without honking in protest to the cabbie who decides to show off his manliness which is in direct proportion to his stupidity on the road. i mean how idiotic can you be to honk from behind when you can clearly see that there are ten cars lined up in front of me.

no one in singapore felt the need to roll down their windows and yell..."alibaug se aaya kya!!!!???" not one sole dreamed of overtaking the guy in front even if he had a more powerful car which could easily put schumacher to the test. so why then cant we adopt this road decency?! the answer is simple, we dont know how. as much as i want to keep my mouth shut while riding my scooter, i cant. as much as i want to stick to my lane, i cant. i mean what is the sense of waiting at a signal at 7.30 in the morning when clearly there is no vehicle in sight from the other side. i am guilty as charged. i dont know if i will survive driving on foreign soil. but i know this much, in Rome do as the romans do and in alibaug drive like the people in alibaug do. that is the law of the traffic jungle. and if you dont like it you are free to HONK in protest.