Driving?!

               I’ve come to India pretty much every year since I was born (my first trip here, I was two and a half months old). But every trip here, I make some kind of new, startling revelation—startling to me, that is.

               Take driving in Mumbai. I’ve always been somewhat discombobulated by the fact that the driver’s side in India is on the right-hand side, versus America, where it is on the left. Yet I’ve never truly grasped the mind-bending mystery of the phrase “driving on the other side of the road” till this trip. Logically I can tell myself the ways of the roads here are just exactly the opposite from the way they are back home. But, crossing the road here, I just cannot un-train myself from the habit of looking left-right-left then the other way around. And I really cannot come to terms with the fact that right turns are the complicated ones, sweeping across lanes of opposing traffic. I miss the simple ease with which I grasped traffic rules back home. But compared to other aspects of driving here, driving on the wrong side of the road is the least of my complaints.

               Let me illustrate: my cousin, who recently got her driver’s license (you have to be 18 to get your license in India) drove me to her college the other day. I got to sit in the front seat, another first for me. After driving with her, I can honestly say that my cousin is a good, cautious driver. However, a good, cautious driver in India is worlds apart from a good, cautious driver in America.

               A good, cautious driver in America comes to a complete stop before making a right turn, checks to make sure that either there is no oncoming traffic approaching or that the traffic is a good distance away, then makes the turn. A good, cautious driver in India rolls practically onto the street before making a left turn, checks to see what kind of vehicle is swiftly approaching, and if the vehicle is small and can brake easily, turns right in front of the vehicle, causing the other vehicle to come swiftly to a halt. A good, cautious driver in America always, always yields to pedestrians, no matter what the circumstance. The only time a horn will ever be laid against a pedestrian is in an instance where said pedestrian wantonly walks directly in the path of a car on a road moving at a dangerously fast speed. A good, cautious driver in India knows how to weave between pedestrians, and knows how to make them yield to vehicles. Here, pedestrians are like squirrels, flitting in and out of the street, regardless of whether or not there are any cars on the road. A good, cautious driver in America rarely breaks any traffic law, except for perhaps occasionally driving over the speed limit. A good, cautious driver in India knows which rules are meant to be broken, and follows that logic accordingly. For example, red lights are generally regarded as suggestions rather than rules.

               So that day I drove with my cousin, I was unable to stop myself from pressing down on an imaginary brake while she drove. The crazy driving combined with the constant stream of people and animals unconcernedly crossing the road had my heart beating uncontrollably.

               All that said, there is also a terrifying beauty to driving in India. There’s a certain grace in the way the cars sweep past each other on the opposite side of the road, just inches apart from each other but able to drive away unscathed. Car honks are friendlier, more familiar, and almost musical in their constant protests. And truly, it’s amazing how many different vehicles pile together on one road. Tiny, three-wheeled black and yellow auto rickshaws putter alongside swanky foreign cars that edge past huge trucks that carefully avoid carts of milk pulled by bicyclists or oxen. The modern mixes with the ancient in a jarring, yet somehow fitting dance on Indian streets.