“This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic”
Sir Terry Pratchett
Music: Speedball Tucker, Jim Croce
All good things come in three, so it is with ghosts of Christmas and so it is with pieces of advise on crossing the street in Delhi. The three pieces of the road-crossing-puzzle are: confident feet, one hand, and a certain comfort with the concept of one’s own mortality. It is not dissimilar to jumping off a boat into the deep ocean. Waves upon noisy waves pass in front of you and you just have to believe and trust you won’t be dragged away by it all. Once you are in, you better keep paddling. This is where confident feet come in.
A quarter of the way in you may start to doubt a couple of things. Did I lock the front door this morning? Should I have tried harder in math class? Was Jar Jar really that bad? Most of all you start to question what the hell you were thinking. Doubting all the things that brought you here, to the about-a-quater-of-the-way-over-a-street-in-Delhi-point. The trick is to keep your feet out of this vortex of doubt. The feet must plot on with the confidence of a mediocre sing a song writer on a college open mic night. It is the only way of getting through ‘Wonderwall’ and it is the only way of getting through Delhi traffic.
The precise point of the hand is a little harder to explain. Mostly because I don’t really understand it. I can however describe it to you. When you embark on your crossing you put your hand forward, palm open, as if you are indicating direction. It is forward. Of f-ing course it is forward! There is no other way to go if you want to survive. Perhaps it is something different, perhaps it is a way to calm the great traffic spirit. The grand Tuk-Tuk in the sky. I don’t really know. I just do it, hoping it is some hidden superpower. I am not here to doubt the people around me. They have survived this traffic for years. If they believe it works, then I am bloody well going to give it a try. Mid-way through Delhi traffic is not a place for skepticism.
If it isn’t obvious why a good relationship with mortality is essential, don’t worry, it will be. After three steps or so it will be overwhelmingly clear. When the lorries come, and the cars honk, and motorcycles wiz by; you will feel that death is lingering between a distinct possibility and an all but a certainty. I have wondered mid-way if it would be a good time to start believing in reincarnation. Hoping that if I die as a pedestrian I will reincarnate as a Tuk-Tuk driver, and after my inevitable Tuk-Tuk death, I might return as a cab driver. Slowly making it all the way up to become India’s first astronaut. There I may transcend traffic altogether.
Maybe there is a sort of traffic Valhalla to which those who die in the heat of Delhi traffic go. There we feast on samosas and gin. Recounting grand tales of our greatest rides and road crossings. Always sticking out our hands in direction feast while we fearlessly cross the crowded crossroads of our Valhalla. I have no doubt we are many. The casualty statistics of Delhi traffic surely make for a depressing read. The great Tuk-Tuk in the sky is a vicious deity and it takes without mercy. Either by the quick hit of a lorry, or the slow strangle of pollution. Surprisingly though, it is not a real deity. Out off all the deities that humanity has come up with; a deity of traffic is notably missing.
By whatever hand; mine or that of God; I have learned to cross these streets. It is a leap of faith, every time. Every time it feels like a small gamble with my body on the table. Just pushing my chips forward, preferably all the way to the other side of the road. Hoping not to meet the grand Tuk-Tuk on more time.