Indian Driving

For the people who can manage to get their driving licenses at 15 or 16 yrs or maybe even earlier than that, it is no big issue to have problems in their driving sense.

Who Cares: Signs are Greek to most people on road!

When you go to apply the driving license, you are 'asked'- if you would like to give a test to the Motor Inspector or not. 
And if you are reluctant to give the test, you can get your license by paying some extra bucks. No way someone would have any idea of the rules.

So Rules hardly matter to the Indian Government officials at lower levels. That is very well observed from how people drive in most of the cities. Some general rules that people have made- 
>> Wrong way is just another route and the other people are okay with it.
>> Indicators are less effective than hands.
>> Pushing horn can-
. Eliminate the traffic.
. Start the engine of the person in front.
. Can change the signal from RED to GREEN.
>> The person coming from the other direction has no problem with high beam.
>> It is convenient to block the wrong side on the rail crossing.

These are just some assumptions that people make while driving in India. The skills of the people are not bad. Mostly people in metropolitan cities drive better. They develop patience and ignore small issues. People in Delhi won't mind a small touch with the nearby car but in Amritsar, the people would be out fighting over it.


I have heard from my Uncle how his friend reacted who was from England. They were driving usually on a highway road. And the person sitting along was amazed and startled at the sight of a truck coming from the wrong side while my uncle was relaxed about it. I've read same kind of article in Autocar India some years back from the editor himself. It tells us how ignorant we are and how fine are the driving skills of the normal people are.


Next time you are on road while driving, do keep an eye for people who might be coming from the wrong side while driving, because "It is good to check the side before you cross the road, but it is wise to look on both the sides anyway."

The Jansewa Express: A Spectacle at any Station

This is from my trip to back home from the University for the summer break. And I was waiting there for my train- Shaan-E- Punjab. It was 20 minutes late. I have boarded train from Rajpura many times. And mostly it’s in the evening. I mostly get to see the Jansewa Express at that time. And when I hear it coming from the announcer, I find a place that is airy. I love travelling by rail. The travelling time is surely lesser, more comfortable than bus and cheaper, and at the same time entertaining seeing so many different people around. But this train: Jansewa Express is quite a spectacle to see.

The train travels from Amritsar to Saharsa through Saharanpur which also means that it does not pass through Delhi. The route ends in Uttar Pradesh. The story of the people is like going to a foreign country to earn. These people from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh come to Punjab for better jobs and they do work real hard. This is not enough to get them a reserved seat. They prefer to go on a normal ticket which is around 70% of the normal ticket and half of a sleeper berth. But what one wonders is how do they manage to travel so much on a single go without proper place to sleep? It is simply 'will'.

I get to see this train usually while waiting for my train. This time it was in morning. I would normally have left by that time if my train was not late. Apart from the train being so unhygienic, smelling of sweat and urinals, it is in the way people board that train that is serious and amusing at the same time. There are no reservation seats in this train. Everyone can sit in this train. There might not be any check in this train either and I doubt if they even clean it.

(not my click)

About the people boarding the train, they belong to poor class. The train is their lifeline and a cheap means to go home. There can’t be any means at this price and at the same speed. All the boogies are of the general type.  The train is almost always packed with people standing on one foot over each other. Adding to the misery, they are all sweating in 35 degrees temperature without proper clothes on. Most of them are just wearing vests most of the time. Now you can imagine how they manage to continue like that for a whole journey through the night. They have to sleep but I can’t imagine how!

And now is what I saw on the station- boarding of the train. The people are so crazy to get on it that they want to cling to it by any means. I am sure if ‘Fevicol’ was strong enough, they would have pasted themselves on it. They don’t mind hanging outside nor do they mind entering in the latrines through the toilet windows. They have just one aim- To get in at any cost.  Had the route not been electrified, they would surely have got on top of the train. So if people are all over the place, how do they ever manage to piss when there’s an urge. People are already in the toilets due to shortage of space. Maybe they do it in their presence. But then what about the women?

There’s only one way to know and I’d never like to know how they manage ‘everything’ because that means one has to travel in it and that surely is a bad option. Well, anyhow you can surely board that train from the same station at 10.50 am. and see the new kind of people and how they live in completely different circumstances.

Like a Program

public class LIFE()

{

 public static void main(String[] args)

  {

   new object(confusion)

...

...

Living each day is a routine. That routine has sub routines like a program or a code of java. Sometimes inbuilt functions would suffice to carry out the required tasks while at other times, you might need to build another user defined function of your own for a unique task that is limited to you. In a scenario, it is not mandatory that the logic upon which you’re building the program will work the way it should be. You might have problem in your algorithms or Functions. Various classes might not have been linked correctly. But there’s a certainty that gradually, you will make the code work error free in the way you want it to be. That is not so in life!

That is simply because we cannot be programmed for ever. We have our independent minds and they work on their own logics. Other people can only manipulate you which you can undo according to your wish. Dealing with other human-beings is one of the most unique and important part of our lives. I have felt bad at times from people whom I don’t even know so well. “Their school of thought differs from mine”, I thought. But human mind is not simple. It would take years to process the information of how mind interprets. We only have theories about our psyche. And those theories are pertaining to the action of psyche for usual things that someone has observed over the years. There’s no theory to know the exact result of how someone will respond in a unique situation. That’s the complexity of the human mind that I love. So now I have learnt to respect how others think. And understanding them, I have come to accept listening first and then sharing about my thoughts.

So I am trying to run a dynamic program here. After all, we are intelligent beings. So far it works well and is giving the desired results. More than any others, I have usually ended up making up syntax errors more than any other error. 

...

...

}

}

}