Driving my car-in-law at Hyderabad

Aug 23 and 24, I was at my in-laws. My maavaiyyagaru bought a car recently. We spent some nice time at the Tank Bund – it is a huge water reservoir in the heart of Hyderabad. We were driving down on road XYZ… I was behind the wheel; I had been behind the wheel for quite sometime now (Man, why did I agree to take the wheel in the first place). I came by an intersection where there was little traffic, but it had become chaotic. If the traffic had observed signals, it would have been much smoother. But no, everyone was rushing in irrespective of whether there was a red, green, yellow, black, blue, or some other god-forsaken light at the signal. Only if people would have waited for their turn, there would have been no congestion at that intersection.

Earlier that Saturday at around 8:30 PM, we were at a junction opposite a restaurant called “paradise” in Secunderabad. The 4-way intersection is quite busy, with people coming in from all directions, obviously not obeying the traffic light. I had to take a right. I waited for the light to change twice, but the prevailing mob traffic would not let me through. I begun to agreed with my in-laws that patience would keep me at the junction forever. Next time the light went orange, I continued to push forward, got myself into a position where I blocked the traffic on my right hand side. The next time around, I was able to make the turn. There was considerable honking, but I made the turn before everyone else. There was another guy who made the turn with me. He was a chap who turned out to be a tad bit more patient than me. He had waited for the third signal, and avoided considerable headache for the traffic on our right.

I surmised with my in-laws that there is little driver training in the country. I admit that driving in the US is downright boring and has too many rules. But the disorder in our country is equally appalling. More so, because the Indian driver can easily do better at following traffic. Only fools and short-sighted individuals can stand behind the façade of population and say that population is what causes current disorders in traffic. It is our lack of patience at following rules set by other Indians.