On the roads – the psychology

Um........ I don’t know how many of the people have had the experience of driving/riding cars/bikes on Indian roads. I am sure most of my blog readers do have. I have been riding my bike for years now and have started again after I have returned to India. It has been great, great experience being there, in the midst of chaos. All of them complain no traffic sense, no rules being followed, bad roads, blah blah ....and I don’t deny any of that. All of it is true and you would know if you are a part of it every day. It is easy to notice it; however it is fairly not so common when someone says, the traffic on roads in India has a charm of its own. An innate thing which is rarely seen in any part of the world, at least not while driving on roads. Imagine this picture

You are on your bike; there is an auto rickshaw (a three wheeled car with a canopy on the top, which can go anywhereJ. This is how one of my acquaintances in the UK had described an auto after his visit to India) in front of you. You are approximately 200 feet away from it and the rickshaw has reached the end of the road and he has to take a turn (either right or left). Something in you, will tell you the direction he would take. He wouldn’t have given you any indication what so ever, but you will still know the direction he would take. Some signals are being sent, may be your intuition or may be your imagination. I guess there is something more here. May be there is an underlying philosophy of psychology. Some vibes are being sent and these vibes are decoded and understood, if not there would be uncountable number of accidents on roads.

I have noticed this many times, another biker on the road, kind of turns his handle to the right or left, hinting he would make a turn now, the message is being recorded by you or any other biker behind the first one. You don’t yell at him for not showing any signal, you just carry on with your ride. I guess it defies the rules of the roads and assure that we Indians are not restless people on roads; we are a group of well understood people travelling at the same time, on the same road and still getting things done with some struggle and finally living in harmony.

A paradox!