In this season of BAFTAs and Oscars and Razzies and Filmfare and Screen and Mayapuri awards I have taken it upon myself to institute a brand new set of awards that seek to be the crème de la crème of all awards ever presented. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these awards will be meaningful and not inane to the extent of “Best Star Parivar on TV” type awards that some brilliant production houses have come up with.
The criteria to make it to the awards is tough, very tough (No I am not reducing the criteria for anything, no amount of money can induce me to reduce the quality of awards…er…how much money are we talking about here?). These awards will be given to those individuals who have reached the pinnacle in the field of road-crossing on Hosur road. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosur_Road : This is a very tame description of this landmark in all those peoples lives who have to travel over it to reach their workplaces everyday. This is easily the most dangerous, overcrowded, ill-managed and crazy road I’ve ever seen, across all the cities I’ve stayed in, heck, even visited. Everyday that you negotiate this road without getting a scratch on your car is a miracle)
Apart from the myriad variety of traffic in this very-narrow-in-some stretches road - all kinds of vehicles ranging from trucks and buses to Motorcycles and mopeds to bicycles and tangas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanga_%28carriage%29 ) (yes, saw one day before yesterday neatly going along in the middle lane!) has; the biggest problem and threat comes from pedestrians who treat this road as a village square and walk across in insanely casual fashion.
Anyway, on to the awards. I shall be awarding awards to all categories of participants in the Hosur road menagerie.
Knight Bus Road Runner Award.
This easily goes to the office buses that despite their humungous size swing from one lane to the other at over 60 kmph. Truly the vehicle may have the size of a whale, but this doesn’t deter the monkey at its heart from swinging sharply from branch to branch.
I kid you not, many times when coolly driving straight in your lane, music wafting through your car with thoughts of the upcoming boisterous evening plans your reverie is broken by a loud honk and a roar. A second later a monstrous bus screams into the lane ahead of you and promptly applies brakes. This sort of takes your mind off the evening plans, because believe it or not, being alive constitutes a big part of whatever evening plans you may have.
(I wish such buses had the things-jump-out-of-their-way-and-then-jumps-back-in-place-without-any-harm property that the actual Knight Bus in Harry Potter series had (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Bus#Knight_Bus )
Brave (Stupid?) Fingers Road Runner Award
Have you ever seen a man driving a car and typing out a text message at the same time? And have you tut-tutted and muttered about irresponsibility, carelessness etc. Well that is baby stuff for the winner of this award. This man was driving a moped in the middle lane of the road with just one hand on the throttle while the other, which should’ve been on the brake, was busy typing out a message on his cellphone. Oh, and of course he wasn’t wearing a helmet – only wimps wear helmets OR my head is all stone anyway – can’t you see what I’m doing?
However an honorable mention will have to be given to the runner up for this award. This idiot..er..gentleman had his cell phone tucked between his shoulder and ear while going at around 50 kmph. If you think he was wearing a helmet you obviously haven’t read the earlier paragraph. Go back, read it again.
Catwalk under Fire Road Runner Award
This goes to those three people, a man and two women who were traipsing across the road slowly and coolly this morning in a perfect delta formation. One truck and my car had to screech almost to a halt in order to avoid these people. To give them their due credit none of them even batted an eyelid while we were skidding. The women did not even deign to look towards us and continued their conversation. The man though did turn his head towards me and gave a disdainful stare when he saw me making rude gestures and screaming my lungs out in Hindi at them. The stare was cold and oh-so-disgusted like what kind of idiots drive on this ramp..er..road!
Showing posts with label traffic jams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label traffic jams. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Difference between Delhi and Bangalore traffic jams...
Well as you know i've just returned from a trip to Delhi. Sigh...
One of the great things about going to Delhi is that I get to drive on the huge, wide roads for a change. So there I was, driving along ring road (New Delhi is built in the shape of a circle where two main roads called outer and inner ring roads respectively act as the main rivers into which the smaller roads flow in as tributaries)in the evening. (Would you be interested in knowing what all I did on my trip? hmmm lets see, if this traffic jam post doesn't turn out to be too long, I'll probably enumerate what all I did there).
Anyway, so I got stuck in a traffic jam near Moti Bagh enroute to Dhaula Kuan and further down to my home. Nudging the car slowly in the 4 lanes full of a medley of cars, autorickshaws, bikes, trucks and buses a sudden revelation flashed in my mind about the difference between traffic snarl ups in different cities.
Now i've been to a number of cities, but haven't really stayed too long, or driven too much in any city except Delhi and Bangalore, but jams have distinctive characteristics even in these cities. Maybe you could tell me about the characteristics of traffic jams in your city after you read this post.
Delhi Traffic jams:
1. Traffic doesn't really come to a standstill for a long time. Cars keep nudging forward.
2. One thing i've noticed is that nowadays many vehicles are sticking to their lanes in Delhi, even in traffic jams. Now earlier when the infrastructure there was still being built traffic jams had snarly characteristics with cars fighting and jostling and angling every which way just to gain a few yards. It was a race, and a winner-takes-all kind of race in which no quarters were given.
3. Jams are not made by human craziness, generally that is (making any sweeping statement about traffic in any part of India is just plain stupid). They are usually an effect of sheer number of vehicles stuck at red lights.
Bangalore Traffic jams:
1. Traffic comes to a dead halt for a long time. So long that you end up fidgeting in your seat with sheer exasperation. ok, by traffic I mean cars - the bikes, mopeds, people, cows create a canvas of flux in which sane car drivers try to adhere to lanes etc here.
2. Vehicles DO NOT adhere to lanes, much less in traffic jams. I'm sure an aerial shot of a Bangalore jam would make a very interesting picture as most vehicles would be at angles to each other and to the lanes. Little corners of cars, helmet locks and leg guards from bikes, angled handles of cycles and of course the suddenly spurting movements of people trying to cross the roads come together to form a deadly nexus in which everyday that you come home without scratching your car should be deemed a miracle of nature.
3. Jams ARE caused my human insanity. Some places, yes, the roads are narrow, too much traffic, but at others? Sheer stupidity. Some of the weirdest red lights i've seen in my life. I don't know who's designed the traffic systems here but s/he must be cross-eyed, myopic, drugged,psychologically challenged and just a plain sadistic. And the people just make the job easier for this psycho. Absolutley no traffic sense. Lanes have been drawn, cos i guess the roads would look too drab without them, for all the purpose they serve. Everyone makes strange lane-cutting turns, awkward and sudden U-turns. The sheer selfishness in driving here, the fights over yards of road, make Delhi traffic seem like heaven. And thats saying a lot, cos heaven knows that traffic is pretty bad in Delhi as well...
Anyway thats my take, and as I've managed to stretch even this small post to such lengths, I'll tell you about my Delhi vacation in the next post.
One of the great things about going to Delhi is that I get to drive on the huge, wide roads for a change. So there I was, driving along ring road (New Delhi is built in the shape of a circle where two main roads called outer and inner ring roads respectively act as the main rivers into which the smaller roads flow in as tributaries)in the evening. (Would you be interested in knowing what all I did on my trip? hmmm lets see, if this traffic jam post doesn't turn out to be too long, I'll probably enumerate what all I did there).
Anyway, so I got stuck in a traffic jam near Moti Bagh enroute to Dhaula Kuan and further down to my home. Nudging the car slowly in the 4 lanes full of a medley of cars, autorickshaws, bikes, trucks and buses a sudden revelation flashed in my mind about the difference between traffic snarl ups in different cities.
Now i've been to a number of cities, but haven't really stayed too long, or driven too much in any city except Delhi and Bangalore, but jams have distinctive characteristics even in these cities. Maybe you could tell me about the characteristics of traffic jams in your city after you read this post.
Delhi Traffic jams:
1. Traffic doesn't really come to a standstill for a long time. Cars keep nudging forward.
2. One thing i've noticed is that nowadays many vehicles are sticking to their lanes in Delhi, even in traffic jams. Now earlier when the infrastructure there was still being built traffic jams had snarly characteristics with cars fighting and jostling and angling every which way just to gain a few yards. It was a race, and a winner-takes-all kind of race in which no quarters were given.
3. Jams are not made by human craziness, generally that is (making any sweeping statement about traffic in any part of India is just plain stupid). They are usually an effect of sheer number of vehicles stuck at red lights.
Bangalore Traffic jams:
1. Traffic comes to a dead halt for a long time. So long that you end up fidgeting in your seat with sheer exasperation. ok, by traffic I mean cars - the bikes, mopeds, people, cows create a canvas of flux in which sane car drivers try to adhere to lanes etc here.
2. Vehicles DO NOT adhere to lanes, much less in traffic jams. I'm sure an aerial shot of a Bangalore jam would make a very interesting picture as most vehicles would be at angles to each other and to the lanes. Little corners of cars, helmet locks and leg guards from bikes, angled handles of cycles and of course the suddenly spurting movements of people trying to cross the roads come together to form a deadly nexus in which everyday that you come home without scratching your car should be deemed a miracle of nature.
3. Jams ARE caused my human insanity. Some places, yes, the roads are narrow, too much traffic, but at others? Sheer stupidity. Some of the weirdest red lights i've seen in my life. I don't know who's designed the traffic systems here but s/he must be cross-eyed, myopic, drugged,psychologically challenged and just a plain sadistic. And the people just make the job easier for this psycho. Absolutley no traffic sense. Lanes have been drawn, cos i guess the roads would look too drab without them, for all the purpose they serve. Everyone makes strange lane-cutting turns, awkward and sudden U-turns. The sheer selfishness in driving here, the fights over yards of road, make Delhi traffic seem like heaven. And thats saying a lot, cos heaven knows that traffic is pretty bad in Delhi as well...
Anyway thats my take, and as I've managed to stretch even this small post to such lengths, I'll tell you about my Delhi vacation in the next post.
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