Dances with Death

You may have missed this recent piece of news, but I am here to not only show it to you but also serve it with a side of "rant".

First notice that the news is from a website called "Overdrive". Newsflash: unless you have serious penis-envy, not everything "over" is good. For example, if you have buckteeth, it is called an "overbite". If you don't have enough money, you are "overdrawn".  Large vehicles today are called "gas guzzlers", not "chick magnets" - well, not any longer. If you can't have enough sex, you are "oversexed". Waittaminute, that last one don't sound too bad.

(Apologies, it took 6 seconds to type that out, and as a man, I must think of sex once every 6 seconds. I think this is Newton's zeroth law or the Golden Rule or something. I almost remembered, but there, that was another 6 seconds)

Back to the point: I find the article rather ironic. For recently I took a drive through National Highway 45 (or NH-45, unofficially known as the "Death Waltz"), a premier roadway in India. I am still shivering from the experience, but on the bright side, it is safe to say that my plaque levels have not reached the point where extreme panic leads to instant death by cardiac arrest.

First, imagine a 4-lane dual-carriageway with a divider, entry/exit lamps ramps, fast, smooth cars - say Jaguars, lights, no speed limits, betel-nut girls - i.e. all the ingredients for a fine motoring experience. Now refine this image to one-lane in each direction, no divider, pitch darkness at night, no barriers to prevent human or animal pedestrians and, saddest of all, no betel-nut girls. Then imagine a speed-limit that could dynamically change, like the weather, only much more unpredictable - for example, now you are braking to zero to avoid the barnyard animal on the road; a little later, say 10 kph behind a file of lazy cyclists, in school uniform, riding 3-abreast; now you are chugging along at 20 kph, looking at the lungi-clad bunch of 30 men piled on the tractor ahead; now, a little faster behind the auto-rickshaw; now, the road is all clear and you are flooring it, but sadly your puny car has a mechanical limitation of not being capable of going pas 80 kph. Then zooms past you a huge car called "Sumo" or something at 120 kph.

All of a sudden, you don't think "Overdrive" is such a bad word.

But as a very responsible person - why do you make that face? I saw you roll your eyes. Do you need eye drops? I have some Optrex here. Hmmm, I am not convinced you had something in your eye.

Here we go again - being a very responsible person I ride shotgun, keeping my eyes peeled through the entire journey so that we would not be in/up/against the wrong end of, say, an elephant - I am not making up seeing one on the highway. (Not that I would like the wrong end of anything or anybody - or would I?). This means not only not being able to sleep during a noisy, tiring journey when all the coolant in the world cannot make the air-conditioning good enough; but it also means finding your heart in your throat roughly once every six seconds. That's right - the very second meant to fantasize about sex. Goddammit!

The driver always drives close to the center-line, just a tad into the other side to keep an eye out for an opportunity to overtake, say, the dog trotting along on three legs, showing its mangy rump. I do not know if it knows the phrase "Stick it to the man", but boy it does a good job at it. Sensing an opportunity, he will swerve out, only to find some other looming disaster, such as a merry band of men jaywalking from the other side. In their defense, they do raise a hand, palm outward while doing this, and if that is not a polite way of saying "slow down, don't kill me, and if you do my villagers will beat you to a pulp", I do not know what is. Finally, as you crawl past a big barnyard animal, heaving a sigh of relief that it you did not hit it, the driver says "Boy, if it shook its head, (its long, strong, pointy horn) would leave a huge hole (in the window)".

This leads to many new realizations:

1. The glass in the car is not shatter-proof.

2. What are his priorities, what are yours and how are they aligned?

3. These poor drivers dance with death everyday.