
Leaving Mumbai and moving to another city, Bangalore (Bengalooru for you, in case you are hyperventilating about the usage) was a life altering change for me. Culturally, spiritually, mentally, academically and physically.
Let's talk about the culturally part.
I came face to face with the following facts:
- Footpaths are not meant for pedestrians alone.
- You are equal to a low society disaster if you are walking on your feet on tarred roads.
- Traffic signals are pretty light posts that add some color to otherwise dull roads.
- Motorcycles are super-machines with the capacity to support three adults and two adults with four children too.
So guess what? Most of the times, I would be looking on, in stunned horror/fascination/etc, when I would see families of six pass me by on a Pulsar 150cc. I would be even more surprised when people in cars would bypass the signal red and drive on, expecting people to freeze on their zebra crossings. And of course, pedestrians who would show the hand to riders, walking on as if the approaching car, speeding at 60kmph would just bounce off and allow safe passage.
Hyderabad is another culture altogether. People are laidback and the traffic reflects that. how else do you explain being stuck in traffic for 40 minutes in exactly the same place and find out, when you reach the jam junction, that the only reason we all got held up was because three vehicles were wedged diagonally, each wanting to go in different directions, all men unready to back off and they fought for 20 minutes before the traffic cop stepped in?
And I remember my short trip to Delhi long ago - everybody worth any mention would stick their head out of the car window to holler - Tu jaanta nahi main kaun hu (You don't know who I am) - to all and sundry.
Am I glorifying Mumbai/Bombay? Well no...we do not have traffic that halts for aeons. We do not holler at each other. But we honk. Like our life depends on it. The traffic keeps moving, slow and steady, and you see the world pass you by in slo-mo, vendors manage to sell you pirated copies of expensive magazines (Esquire, The Time etc) and you manage to get out.
You know what's sad about Bombay? Totally? The thick smog you are going to inhale as you slowly move out of the jam. And the little street children who will come and beg at your feet. The women in rags who will try to sell you flowers that they gathered form the nearby graveyard, fresh and still not wilted. The beggar who will ask for loose change and spit on your windshield if you hand him a 2-rupee coin.
But the worse part? The worse part is when the news travels down the jammed roads that you and hundreds like you are stuck here because the railway station close to the road you are on is under high alert. When you hear that explosions ripped apart trains and people and lives. When you hear that members of a well known radical political party burned down buses and went on a public hooliganism rash to prove their point: no non-Maharashtrians in Mumbai.
The worse part is when you are stuck because politicians from the opposition party are lying down on the signal crossing, staging a rail-roko for some inane demand that doesn't affect lives in any significant way.
But of course, it is Mumbai. The best part about getting stuck with bad traffic is not always about a devolving culture and decaying ethics. Sometimes, its the victory march of the national Indian cricket team, driving from the airport to Wankhede stadium, to meet their supporters.
It is then that you don't mind being asked to hurry up and clear the way, when the heroes come marching in.




