The Art of Navigating on Indian Roads

The Multi-purpose Indian Road

An Indian road, in addition to its main role, may mean many things to many people. It can be a toilet, it can be a barn, or it can be a place to build a place of worship – temporary as well as permanent (be it of any religion). The kind of surprises it may throw up are nothing new to the regular driver (hence, no more surprising). A good looking road may have a nasty pothole at the middle, a wide road may suddenly become narrow, and sometimes a road may  vanish just like that. Added to that, our law abiding fellow drivers make it such a  challenging experience. You have to have the awareness of a Buddha to be a master of the Indian Road. I feel the mindfulness meditation of Buddha is more relevant today than it was two thousand years ago.

Two days back, I discovered that the short cut I used to take back home from office (to save ten minutes) at a point, is suddenly closed down, adding 30 minutes more to my usual commuting time, as I had to take a very complicated detour.

In India, quite often, even the google navigation gets so confused that if you do not make a reality check with a localite every now and then, you are in for a harrowing time. The exit from the highway that the google lady directs you to take may not be there. Or, the google lady may take you to the back of the temple premises instead of the entrance and you may find yourself in a place where neither can you go ahead nor come back. (It actually happened when I visited the museum at Tanjavur a couple of years back.)

For the office bound city commuter, the road may be two hours of hell, but not for these ‘holy’ animals. They can enjoy their moments of ‘bliss’ anywhere, including at the middle of a busy city road.

You may also read: Sunday Musings and Random Notes #1

Driven by the Divine

Around this time of the year, we do the Ayudh Puja, which is a must, particularly the vahana puja. One needs a lot of divine intervention to survive on an Indian Road. Sometimes, the decoration may cover the entire body blocking the front and the rear view. It  does not matter. Once things are left to divine care, there is nothing to worry about. Just relax.