The Horny Indian and the Big B on our Bonnets... (written on World No Honking Day)
Mumbai, April 8, 02008.
Today, I was surprised to read that a Destination Day has been set aside to improve the ghastly travelling conditions on Bombay’s bylanes (not to be confused with the words: roads, highways, flyovers, sea-links etc. - which mean something totally different, in cities where they actually exist). Perhaps, there is hope yet in this rapidly degenerating megapolis of millions - rapidly hurtling towards a lifestyle where invasion of privacy has become meritorious. For honking, is nothing short of just that. A brazen, restless invasion of another person’s right to travel unhindered. We may have become prosthetized, but the average number of honks one hears while travelling for an hour, is over 400 times! If one explores the genesis of this annoying habit pattern, there are a few deep-rooted causes to the legendary Indian horniness.
For starters, the natives of this terrain have been hastily ill-advised to take to cars - before effort was invested in explaining what the basics of driving are. A responsibility that Henry Ford should have institutionalized before rolling out assembly line plants. It is no secret that one can buy a car and a “driver” in India, without learning the ABC of driving or reading. Statistically, nearly half of India’s drivers are probably illiterate and give a thumb-impression on the drivers application (in English!) - instead of a signature. Had driving schools and licensing authorities instructed us as they do globally, that it is not OK to horn, the habit would have been nipped in the bud. A horn-free road is not something that needs to be remedied, after a pandemic has broken loose upon us! It’s like having a “no rape” day or “no-cheating-at-exams-day” or something as ominously preposterous. Albeit, in a city where rampant horniness preys on the streets AND the pavements and classrooms, this is perhaps the only solution. A gimmicky effort to correct offenses that should not have been allowed to begin with!
Compounding the physical deformity, is the psychology of the Great Indian Motorist. Most of our urban fellows hail from the hinterlands of India - where using a real bugle was to signal an invasion, or to celebrate a victory or sound an alarm. All three mental conditions have evolved today to represent our traffic woes and manifest in different kinds of drivers, on the basis of the cars they possess. At the bottom of the pyramid are the lower-class motorists, who have recently discovered that there are cars beyond their Maruti’s or Hyndai’s, and are in a tearing hurry to get to their next upgrade. This breed of hornets honk out of sheer jealousy. BEEEEEEP!!!! BEEEEPPPPP!!! Signaling their invasive intent. You may have observed the contorted expression on the driver of a Maruti “ZEN” (ironical, huh?), to notice the bitterness with which he pumps that sweet spot, on his steering wheel. Unconcerned of journey, in haste to get to non-destinations, they invade unchecked. Heaven forbid the Nano terror that is waiting to be unleashed for one “lack", and the ensuing rage against the German machines.
In this German delight would be sitting the nouveau riche. With their bigger cars, this type uses the horns to celebrate their status symbol and attract attention. Especially, from the pretty working class girls sweating it out in a taxi or autos. One must not forget, that this is perhaps the only country in the world where you get “fancy” horns - that make musical (?) sounds. This breed uses horns to show their omnipotent horniness, a mating call with green notes written all over it. This breed is now becoming a menace, purely because they can also afford a migrant driver - who is as trigger happy on the horn, as a crazed american shooter in a suburban high school. These cars, apart from being mating beeps, end up scaring the daylights, out of other drivers.
This petrified bunch of motorists, use the horn to sound alarms - at the slightest perception of fear. This species can be identified easily: a) Most of this lot does not know how to drive to save their lives, and have probably got a license by paying some cash. These poor guys honk in panic, hoping the car ahead will get out of the way, before they ram into it! b) Some drive with one palm constantly ON the horn - which goes “BEEP", when the car meets a pothole or stray pedestrian/dog (and we all know how many of these we have around us), c) Then there are the chic drivers, in mortal fear of missing out the opening credits of their crazy soaps honking away, in spasms or d) there are the “north indian” auto-wallahs or cabbies, in mortal danger of being pelted by some jobless mob for being “outsiders". If any of these hear a horn, they sound theirs in alarm. Like when the signal goes from RED to GREEN, and all hell breaks loose, at traffic junctions… Run, Road-Runner, Run!
And between this unholy troika of motorists, is a bunch of us freaks, who believe that not using a horn is basics of civic sense. It is the first instruction that I have given a cabbie or a newly appointed driver, for the last ten years. And i cannot understand why educated, white-collar car owners cannot enforce the same courtesy on their own. Considering that most cars today, from the tiny getz to the looming hummer have a “sarathi", it will be a more effective and quicker method than pasting stickers on Bachchan’s Lexus. (What that and the Bentley are doing on Indian roads, where they cannot be u-turned, is another story!). Think about it, all it takes for us to minimize horns from our city, is to tell our drivers, to stop honking. We can have a no horn day on April 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 - and on every day of the bloody year.
One plastic sticker on cars, saying NO HORN, is not going to wipe out the psychosomatic compulsion impressed upon an entire nation by the MOST commonly visible sentence across every corner of India - HORN, OK, PLEASE.
It’s just going to put a Big B on our bonnets.
Today, I was surprised to read that a Destination Day has been set aside to improve the ghastly travelling conditions on Bombay’s bylanes (not to be confused with the words: roads, highways, flyovers, sea-links etc. - which mean something totally different, in cities where they actually exist). Perhaps, there is hope yet in this rapidly degenerating megapolis of millions - rapidly hurtling towards a lifestyle where invasion of privacy has become meritorious. For honking, is nothing short of just that. A brazen, restless invasion of another person’s right to travel unhindered. We may have become prosthetized, but the average number of honks one hears while travelling for an hour, is over 400 times! If one explores the genesis of this annoying habit pattern, there are a few deep-rooted causes to the legendary Indian horniness.
For starters, the natives of this terrain have been hastily ill-advised to take to cars - before effort was invested in explaining what the basics of driving are. A responsibility that Henry Ford should have institutionalized before rolling out assembly line plants. It is no secret that one can buy a car and a “driver” in India, without learning the ABC of driving or reading. Statistically, nearly half of India’s drivers are probably illiterate and give a thumb-impression on the drivers application (in English!) - instead of a signature. Had driving schools and licensing authorities instructed us as they do globally, that it is not OK to horn, the habit would have been nipped in the bud. A horn-free road is not something that needs to be remedied, after a pandemic has broken loose upon us! It’s like having a “no rape” day or “no-cheating-at-exams-day” or something as ominously preposterous. Albeit, in a city where rampant horniness preys on the streets AND the pavements and classrooms, this is perhaps the only solution. A gimmicky effort to correct offenses that should not have been allowed to begin with!
Compounding the physical deformity, is the psychology of the Great Indian Motorist. Most of our urban fellows hail from the hinterlands of India - where using a real bugle was to signal an invasion, or to celebrate a victory or sound an alarm. All three mental conditions have evolved today to represent our traffic woes and manifest in different kinds of drivers, on the basis of the cars they possess. At the bottom of the pyramid are the lower-class motorists, who have recently discovered that there are cars beyond their Maruti’s or Hyndai’s, and are in a tearing hurry to get to their next upgrade. This breed of hornets honk out of sheer jealousy. BEEEEEEP!!!! BEEEEPPPPP!!! Signaling their invasive intent. You may have observed the contorted expression on the driver of a Maruti “ZEN” (ironical, huh?), to notice the bitterness with which he pumps that sweet spot, on his steering wheel. Unconcerned of journey, in haste to get to non-destinations, they invade unchecked. Heaven forbid the Nano terror that is waiting to be unleashed for one “lack", and the ensuing rage against the German machines.
In this German delight would be sitting the nouveau riche. With their bigger cars, this type uses the horns to celebrate their status symbol and attract attention. Especially, from the pretty working class girls sweating it out in a taxi or autos. One must not forget, that this is perhaps the only country in the world where you get “fancy” horns - that make musical (?) sounds. This breed uses horns to show their omnipotent horniness, a mating call with green notes written all over it. This breed is now becoming a menace, purely because they can also afford a migrant driver - who is as trigger happy on the horn, as a crazed american shooter in a suburban high school. These cars, apart from being mating beeps, end up scaring the daylights, out of other drivers.
This petrified bunch of motorists, use the horn to sound alarms - at the slightest perception of fear. This species can be identified easily: a) Most of this lot does not know how to drive to save their lives, and have probably got a license by paying some cash. These poor guys honk in panic, hoping the car ahead will get out of the way, before they ram into it! b) Some drive with one palm constantly ON the horn - which goes “BEEP", when the car meets a pothole or stray pedestrian/dog (and we all know how many of these we have around us), c) Then there are the chic drivers, in mortal fear of missing out the opening credits of their crazy soaps honking away, in spasms or d) there are the “north indian” auto-wallahs or cabbies, in mortal danger of being pelted by some jobless mob for being “outsiders". If any of these hear a horn, they sound theirs in alarm. Like when the signal goes from RED to GREEN, and all hell breaks loose, at traffic junctions… Run, Road-Runner, Run!
And between this unholy troika of motorists, is a bunch of us freaks, who believe that not using a horn is basics of civic sense. It is the first instruction that I have given a cabbie or a newly appointed driver, for the last ten years. And i cannot understand why educated, white-collar car owners cannot enforce the same courtesy on their own. Considering that most cars today, from the tiny getz to the looming hummer have a “sarathi", it will be a more effective and quicker method than pasting stickers on Bachchan’s Lexus. (What that and the Bentley are doing on Indian roads, where they cannot be u-turned, is another story!). Think about it, all it takes for us to minimize horns from our city, is to tell our drivers, to stop honking. We can have a no horn day on April 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 - and on every day of the bloody year.
One plastic sticker on cars, saying NO HORN, is not going to wipe out the psychosomatic compulsion impressed upon an entire nation by the MOST commonly visible sentence across every corner of India - HORN, OK, PLEASE.
It’s just going to put a Big B on our bonnets.
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