Bombay Drivers and their Horns

The demands that Bombay traffic places on drivers are something special. Although this is a major international city, even the main streets can be rutted with potholes (especially after the monsoon, when the rains simply force up the poorly-laid tarmac) making driving, er, fairly bumpy. Road-markings are often not in evidence, though, if you’re lucky, a central line of stones may suggest the median. At Regal Roundabout in Colaba, one of the busiest in the city, I was surprised to see no markings, yet there are stop-lights at three points around it. Moral: keep your eyes peeled. Pedestrians and bicyclists wander and wobble and zig zag along the roads at will, knowing cars will have to slow and swerve around them. It’s like an eternal game of chicken.
At traffic lights, the above factors make for a curious herding of the cars, all elbowing for position, forcing themselves forward into the tiniest of gaps, with as much order as cows at a closed farm-gate bunching and jostling and eager to be milked.

However, if drivers have some excuse for confusion because of the lack of ... let’s call it... infrastructure, then they have none for their traffic-discipline.

In a sense, it matters little if a cyclist cuts across a bus. If he were to be crushed by that bus, it’s unlikely anyone else would be hurt. It would be his own stupid fault. (But nearly everyone, oddly, will blame the bus-driver).
But the cyclist’s behaviour is in fact typical of the behaviour of... most of the motorists too. With utter indifference and without hesitation, they cut into the traffic flow from side-streets, they move from lane to lane at will (well, if there were lanes), and they come so close to each other that you can feel your paintwork warmed by the friction of air. (A lot of cars have their wing-mirrors folded in – a wise precaution, cos otherwise they’re liable to be smacked off). What to me looks like, at most, a two-lane highway, is, to the Mumbai driver, a four or possibly five-lane highway (depending on if s/he cares to drive on the wrong side of the road). All this is truly scary, which is why most visitors or ex-pats are driven by a Mumbaiker.

But you begin to realise two salient things after a few months on these apparently-suicidal roads.
First – the incessant, crazy horn-blowing has a purpose. Second – there are some incredibly good drivers on these roads….

The Mumbai police (and the local noise environmentalists) have this mad idea that the horn-blowing should stop. I agree it does seem random (I watched one taxi driver, stopped at a red-light, in the front row, sounding his horn the whole time. I give up on that one). But, if you watch carefully, you’ll know it’s an essential safety tactic.
Say you’re trying to pass someone – and you know he could swerve irrationally at any moment, you need to tell him, loudly, you’re at his side – sound horn. If some guy is walking in the street (pavements are often unusable, and slow to walk on), you have to tell him you’re there – sound horn. If you’re about to squeeze through the narrowest of gaps, you don’t need any other car to start thinking of doing the same – sound horn. In fact, if a motorist/pedestrian/handcart DOESN’T hear a horn, they will behave completely as if there were no one else on the street, and be mighty offended as you almost run into them.

I know what you’re thinking – if EVERYONE behaved courteously, even legally, no horn and no insane manoeuvering would be necessary. But, in my opinion – all that would then happen is that traffic simply would not flow. This is a very tiny peninsula and there are a lot of cars and few good roads. If Mumbai drivers behaved according to, say, British codes of driving, it would take four hours to drive the length of the city - instead of the present two. Believe it or not, these bunching twitchy drivers are what keeps the city moving. And most drivers do trust (with a little prayer to Ganesh) that the OTHER drivers around them do understand these Bombay-style Rules of The Road, and they proceed happily along
(Which isn’t to say that it isn’t dangerous – some of the young drivers especially seem to think that 60mph in this car-glutted city is a reasonable speed. Deaths happen.)

All of which… and here’s a contradiction… means there’s some absolutely brilliant and skilful drivers in this city. If you come to Bombay, and you’re not too scared to watch, just check out some of the tightest, nerveless driving in the world. But don’t think too long about it, or you wouldn’t do anything but walk.
And, whatever you do – DON’T tell your driver to lay off the horn, no matter how much your ears bleed from the noise. They’re trying to save your life.

The strange case of the Ear-Men

Walking south along the sea-wall from the Gateway of India, one quickly passes the monumental Taj Mahal Hotel – five-starred opulence. Shockingly quickly (at least to my Western eyes) the hotel-scene then changes. Just like so much of India there is no subtle blending; there is, instead, immediate contrast. Lining the street now come the two and three-star backpacker hotels – the cheapest and best way to wake up and see the bay of Bombay from old Colaba. In this stretch, in the heat of summertime anyway, it is virtually the only place to see Europeans strolling on the street.

Which could explain the unusual confidence trick (at least I assume it is one) going on there.

This is what happens.

As I walk (towards the Radio Club as a matter of fact), a casual young man coming towards me expresses surprise. Excuse me, he says, there is, he gesticulates, something sticking to the hair on the side of my head, or perhaps to my ear – something very unappealing, he seems to suggest.
It could be bird-droppings from the trees overhead, I wonder, and am grateful to the young man for his thoughtfulness.
He reaches, and his fingers brush around (and then, it seems, inside?) my right ear, and then seem to gather whatever it is. He shows me what he is now holding – a two-inch long string of an unpleasant material that looks like mucus, or phlegm.
I am astonished.

But suddenly fear comes over me, when I see what implement he has used to root out this objectionable stuff... a four-inch long steel needle. It is a chilling sight. Was that needle in my ear? Did he seek to puncture my ear-drum? Where did he suddenly get this tool?

Panic gets the better of me, and all I want to do is get away... I push him off, ignoring his apparently amazed protestations... anger and a heart banging at the rib-cage are all I feel.
Yards from him, I slow down, and examine my ear... but for what? A pin-prick of blood? Some object left there by sleight of hand? Or... is there really there a residue of that sap-like jelly? Nothing. But there is the shadow noise of his hand moving across my head; a slight echo still, in my ear, of his fingers – and it makes me uneasy. Am I damaged and don’t yet know it?

Later that day, another boy stops me – in the same street – and motions that he too has seen something in my hair. And the next day. And the next. All different young men.

Could these young men be distant cousins of the old men who sit on roadside-corners or outside railway stations waiting for passing trade and who use similar pins to remove collected ear-wax? In other words, are these young men touting for similar wax-extraction jobs?
(Don't ask me why anyone would consent to having their ears poked about with by these ear-men young or not. Whenever I ask about it, people say - to clean one's ears. Well, of course! But - is a flannel or a cotton bud not enough that India should need professionals? Or is ear-wax such a major problem here?)

By now, I realise that it is some sort of trick by these young men. But, what is it?
Or, is it an original way of attempting to start a conversation with a tourist, which then could lead to some more lucrative task?
But.... if they are legitimate ear-wax removers – what on earth makes them think a Westerner would consent to have an unregulated operator perform such a task? Do they ever get a tourist to agree to having it done?

Questions, questions.