Straight Face

In Delhi, we take our traffic tangles very seriously. You could even say that a traffic jam is part of the bread and butter of our daily existence. Ever so often — more often than ever — the god of traffic lights working to some larger cosmic plan, no doubt, decides to go on the blink. That is when absolute chaos, of the kind that the gods requisitioned to furnish the nether regions, descends on the roads of this city of the damned.

There are several kinds of traffic jams but the really plum ones are those that occur at the crossroads of the city’s thoroughfares during rush-hour traffic. These are the snarled and snarling ones, more difficult to solve than the Improved Rubik’s Cube.

Now it has become something of a universal law of nature that the moment the traffic lights go out from the motorist’s life, so does the traffic policeman. In aninstant, pandemonium descends and thousands of years of human civilisation disappear without a trace as traffic management is left entirely to the devices of the men and women behind steering wheels. And, as Russell Baker had once so tellingly observed, there are no liberals behind steering wheels.

Wave upon wave of motorists then converge from all direction on to this cursed spot, until they are all locked in a neat knot of metal. Scrunching accelerator and brake alternatively, motorists headed north make a valiant effort to graze past those headed east but are soon brought to a grinding halt by the ones headed west. It is at this decisive moment of deadlock that the true character of Delhi motorists emerges with a rare clarity. They fall into two broad categories: the Happy Hooter and the Plain Cussed.

For the Happy Hooter, freedom of expression is an article of faith. In times of distress and in times of doubt, this individual’s right hand heads straight for the “horun” in a reflex movement. Ifhe/she had a personal anthem it would go something like this: With a honk-honk here and a honk-honk there, here a honk, there a honk, everywhere a honk, honk…” (sung, not surprisingly, to the tune of `Old MacDonald Had A Farm’). In an average rush-hour traffic jam, they honk away as if they were auditioning for Steven Speilberg’s Jurassic Park-III, threatening to send everyone else caught in that cloud of carbon monoxide into a catatonic convulsion.

Then there is the Plain Cussed. This obstreperous individual considers every inch of public road as his/her personal fiefdom. They will not give an inch if they can help it. When asked to back up or wait, until the incoming traffic can be cleared, the Plain Cusseds of the world scream blue murder about the unfairness of it all. “We were here first and we will remain first even if it takes all night to uphold this principle,” is the summum bonum of their raves and rants.

Every traffic jam then has its sprinkling of Happy Hooters andPlain Cusseds and they keep creating their own sub-plots in the larger tragicomedy. For instance, the Happy Hooter’s incessant honking can sometimes provoke Plain Cussed to abandon his car and lope menancingly towards the object of his rage, who hurriedly rolls up his window in self-defence even as he keeps up the honking. It requires the services of professional peacekeepers (fortunately, there are always a couple of them in every jam) to diffuse the situation by dissuading Plain Cussed from accomplishing his project of scalping Happy Hooter with his bare hands and gently coaxing him back into his car. Peacemakers then have to assume the role of traffic cops and slowly bring order into the universe once again as the knot of traffic slowly dissolves.

Two Plain Cusseds in a traffic jam and you begin to feel sorry that you hadn’t informed your spouse that you would be late from work. Three Plain Cusseds in a traffic jam and you wish you had packed dinner. Seven of them and you tell yourself that you mustremember to carry your toothpaste and nightwear before setting out for work next time.

The four-wheeled four-stroke wonder that is civilisation’s chariot has changed not only the way we dress, shop and socialise. It has put its stamp on our ECG readings, our blood pressure levels and our hysteria thresholds.