India: Waste of Paint
It is absolutely shocking how much paint is wasted in India. Most of it is used to write “stop” across lanes, signify lane dividers, mark sides of the road or point out directions of traffic flow. Ridiculous. Everyone knows that if you’re in a hurry, which is always, the fastest way to get around the mass of cars ahead is to whip into opposing traffic and floor it. Really, any crack or hole between cars that you can find is a tunnel to your destination. If you hold down your horn continuously as you do it, the trucks will know you’re there and give you a few bonus seconds to scrape between them.
Here in America if the space between cars is wasteful, the space inside is worse. I’ve seen a Volkswagen microbus head out with a mere 6-7 people inside. In India I’ve seen that many hanging from the back of the same Volkswagen doing 65 mph on the highway!
And the circling! When you miss a turn in India, you just back that sucker up. Even if it’s a full sized bus full of people. Especially if it’s a full sized bus. They’re harder to turn. You’ll do fine as long as you keep a hammer foot on the brake and have someone hanging out the side shouting, “chal chal chal chal!” (Go go go go!)
Oh sure, we lost a rearview mirror off of the side of the bus, but you can always rip one off of the other side and bolt it on. We scraped off the side of another truck once too but since there’s no insurance, you just shout and wave your fist at the other driver and move on.
My favorite two-part sign on the side of a public bus literally overflowing with people, whose arms and heads protruded from every window orifice, was “Dear God”… “Save Us”.
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