DELHI DRIVING ETIQUETTES (PART 2)

There are so many candid scenes on the road that make me burst into laughter,  the bikers are like locusts who are swarming into those empty spots that are left on the otherwise jampacked road. They are the ones who always seem to to be in a haste and would do all sorts of acrobats just to get ahead of you. For the bikers the road is like a maze with cars, busses, autos suv’s as obstacles they must cross to reach a certain destination, and somehow they enjoy believing the fact that because they are on bikes and scooters , roads are not linear. A birds eye view of a jampacked road will look like millions of vehiles stuck behind each other and a few million bikes and scooters crawling up their way on these roads in between busses ,cars etc.

Everyone would of course want to reach wherever he/she wants to go asap and so is the case in Delhi. But the scenario is quite opposite when it comes to an accident on delhi roads. Well my friend , accidents on delhi roads are not just something that happen on a regular basis, they are much more than that. Accidents here are like a carnival of fists and exchange of pleasantries like the ones I mentioned before. And when it comes to an accident one would have all the time in the world to get out of their respective vehiles, assess the damage , exchange pleasantries and more often than not get into a fist fight. The funny part here being, there would form a tag team just before the fight of onlookers who support both the parties involved in the accident.
number plates are something of great importance and an area of study you would need to focus before you start driving on delhi roads.

There are some thumb rules you must memorize before you set foot in a car to drive in delhi.
Any car with “HR” on the number plate on delhi roads is like corleone taking a stroll in Sicily.
Golden rules are to try and stay as far as  practical from these cars
God forbid you meet with an accident with hr numbered cars, own up to everything and say sorry.
Well the flipside to this drama is to get your car registered with an hr number and you are the king of the road, and that’s what I have J
(Please note this number plate would be feared only in northern parts of India and driving a car with an hr plate elsewhere in east or south India would make you feel like a oversized goon ,physically and mentally).

The buses in delhi are technologically superior than anything that has ever been invented in the world.. It is just recently that the new buses ( a sissy version of DTC) are being inducted but they are no where close to the road presence the older DTC busses had. The older dtc busses had different colors namely red green and blue and were called the red line green line and the blue line respectively.

the red line busses were for all the people( in and out of the bus) who felt guilty of some crime they committed or were guilty of something the DTC knew of like tax evasion, eve teasing etc. and apart from transporting innocent people they would temperaturequite talked about back in those days all over the country.

soon the delhi government decided that the buses should not be given such a responsibility and let an organization called the police take care of delivering justice.

Public transportation in delhi has been most sought after and has been ranked as one of the best in the world. A decade back if you didn’t own a car or a bike and decided to use delhi’s public transportation as a means to commute daily to office you could be rest assured that you would win any reality series like survivor or man vs wild…

After almost spending my entire life in delhi I have failed to understand the concept of auto rickshaws in delhi. The easiest way an auto driver could take you for a ride or know for sure that you are an alien to this city is if you asked the auto guy to turn on the meter, coz there is none here, none that works to be precise. So there are flat rates depending upon the drivers mood, the time of the day ,the  temperature,and if you are an outsider. Its hilarious because when you bargain about the fare (yes taxi and auto fares can be bargained too) the auto driver will invariably give you these precise excuses….bahut garmi hai, late ho gaya etc etc….

And now if you have seen transformers you will know how autos in delhi have deadlier siblings called the vikram or  fatfati. These oversized or transformed autos as I would like to call them are a treat to watch …why because these vehicles are in a race to enter the guiness book for the most people fitted inside a three wheeler. The driver would literally be driving from outside the vehicle or at least that’s what it seems like to an outsider.the ride would definitely be an experience and is a must for tourists.