Metro Plus
Chennai
Hyderabad
We are like this only
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A Formula One race driver can begin his lesson right on our city roads. Not so much for the speed, but for the hurdles that range from speed breakers to cows.
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Collage: K. Ramesh Babu
VROOM!!!! ZOOOOM!!!! Screech, crash, bang, boom. A typical day or night on the roads of Hyderabad.
Cows have a higher rate of fatality than pedestrians. This is due to the fact that cows are generally as ignorant of the traffic rules as the average Hyderabadi driver. While over-taking is allowed from both sides of the road, usually the pavement is preferred due to the rundown condition of the road.
Using the indicator is considered a hoot. Of course, there is a lot of hooting once metal meets metal. The average Hyderabadi is well ... average, but a frightening transformation takes place when he gets behind the wheel of a car. His vision clears, he hears better and his vocabulary increases considerably. Caution is thrown to the winds as cars are manoeuvred into miniscule bylanes, driven over man-made hills (generally referred to as speed breakers), and "barged'' across vast expanses of standing water. Despite the various hurdles, the driver somehow manages to reach his destination.
As in any from of hierarchy, there are the doers and the followers. The RTC buses do and the ambulances follow. Two wheelers frequent the workshops the most, probably because the degree of their manoeuverability is obscene (read as obtuse). There is always the mad rush to the signal in the futile hope that it will remain green, until the driver crosses it. Speed records are broken with the occasional bone or skull. Nevertheless, it is still preserved with a passion that is equal only to the thrill of chasing the fairer sex. Speaking of which, there are hardly any drivers in Hyderabad, or for that matter the world, who can out-race or out-crash a lady driver. Recently in an unnamed fictitious location, there occurred an accident. A male driver supposedly crashed into a female driver. On being questioned, the man stated that the lady driver in front of him indicated a right turn and then turned right.Therefore, he was completely helpless and ploughed right into her. Such accidents are few and bumpers apart. The traffic police are prominent accelerators in this motor driven turmoil. They are without doubt the most efficient money fleecers of automobile history. All you need to avoid the long arm of the law is Rs. 20 toRs.30. With an offhand look in either direction, you can slip the money into the constable's waiting and greed-stained hand and drive away.
There really is nothing wrong with that, financially speaking, not everybody carries a five hundred rupee note. This is the voice of experience. The auto-wallahs are without any doubt the shadiest, fastest talkers in town. They can make a 20 kilometre journey through the roughest parts of Hyderabad seem like the next best thing to the very much hyped Hyderabadi biryani. They will, till their last cigarette (or beedi, tastes vary) puff, try to extract the now out-of-print one rupee note. Then they will leave you with the choicest words of their extensive vocabulary. You really cannot blame them; they all aspire to be the next Daler Mehndi, even though he drove a taxi.
Now for the most entertaining and daring of all commuters on the roads of Hyderabad... the pedestrians. If cows weren't barred from publishing houses, they would be the first to write a pedestrian how-to-survive-the-next-few-steps manual. They take to heart the belief that human life is treasured above all things else; therefore, they just stroll out onto the busy roads. If a vehicle hits them, goes over them, or they go over the vehicle...well, pity the driver, he has hell to pay. Just when our driver thinks that he is out of the woods, he finds a pedestrian splattering (without prior consent) himself over his windshield, wearing a constipated look. A spatula wielding guy is called every time something like this happens. The traffic police, meanwhile, make a killing by ticketing all the bemused bystanders.
Remember the golden rule every time you venture out; forget what you left behind, let the spatula guy take care of it.
KASHIF ALI
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Metro Plus
Chennai
Hyderabad
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