Horns, hurry and Hawk Tuah - an ode to India's civic sense
It was dark and cloudy even though it was 10 AM in the morning. The two of them were close to each other, there was a strange tension between them and at times- the 2 were almost touching one another but stopped short an inch apart almost half a dozen times. A couple of passers-by could feel the tension between the 2 and almost gasped when they got close to each other. This game went on for another minute or two when all of a sudden, one of them lost patience and blasted it’s horn for a good 5 seconds and it’s driver shouted “either drive faster or get out of my way”!
This, my friends, is my first and last ever attempt at a love story gone wrong and tries conveying the irritation that a vehicle horn triggers every…single…day.
In India, there are multitudes behind the tone of each blast of a horn with some examples being -
You are at a signal and just miss the green light and have to abruptly stop at a signal to not risk getting fined for a traffic violation. The auto driver just behind you would have happily violated the signal and moved on and blocked the passage of a few vehicles in the adjacent lane whose lane was now green - a vicious cycle that is only passed on from lane to lane in every traffic signal in India. Anyway, the auto driver, bless him, curses you under his breath for depriving him the glory of violating the red signal and curbing his rebellious streak. He waits till the countdown clock turns 5..4..3...2.. and then he BLASTS the horn and lets you “now get the **** out of my way” - his own way of getting back to you.
This is common in literally every busy traffic signal in India - whenever the signal turns green, you get blasted with a horn by the vehicle behind you, even if you are a good 20 metres from the front, in a mystical show of impatience as if him blasting the horn will help you grow wings and fly past the cars in front of you.The signal is busy with 4 exits but you are at the neglected tiny one that barely gets a 10 second window because the other 3 lanes are so busy (Ibbalur signal anyone?) and you have to wait for a good 3 minutes before your next turn comes. So you quietly wait till the 3 minutes are done but people around you get impatient and start blasting their horn - directed at the traffic cop who stands next to the switchboard telling him “for how much longer will you make us suffer!?” Horns can convey feelings in India.
There is an ***hole aka chappri who feels the road is his and speeds by everyone in his heady streak - he uses the vehicles horn generously and continuously, to irritate the daylight out of them and make them give way for him.
There is a delivery boy working as a gig worker for the quick commerce company run by adolescent teenagers (are they 22 now?) who in turn, don’t give a shit on how their pathetic USP has made India worse off in so many ways. The delivery boy is literally paid to be “deliver fast” and he races like a maniac, even if his e-scooter doesn’t allow him to go faster than 25 kmph, to reach his delivery destination ASAP. He liberally uses the loud and shrill horn on his e-scooty in order to pump up his adrenalin that makes him feel that he is going fast - even if that means that his actions wake up people in the homes on his way, at 6 AM in the morning.
There are a bunch of bored drivers waiting a singal - to pass time they start using their horns to a random tune that almost sounds like “Tujhe dekha toh yeh jaana sanam, pyaar hota hai dewaana sanam”.
I can go on an cite many more graphic descriptions of the innumeruous ways in which the horn of a vehicle is used in India and how it can convey a multitude of emotions.
Horn Ok Please? Not quite.
Back in 2022, I was driving in the English countryside in the beautiful heritage area called as the Cotswalds which consisted of stunning little idyllic villages. We managed to shake of some pesky “influencers” (who I later got to know had over 2L followers) and take our photo with the background of Castlecomb village. We were just about to exit the village when an old man was walking with his dog and I slowed down the car and tried slowly moving around him and in the process, let out a squeak from the horn of the car, just enough of a graze to alert him “hey, good morning, please be careful, there is a car behind you”. He however, got livid and starting blurting expletives at my incredulous face. My reaction back then was “what a grumpy idiotic man, I only did this carefully to alert him”. Looking back, I get why he got so angry - he was probably already pissed off about how his village has been sullied by idiotic Instagram influencers - and now these 2 tourists in a car use their horn in an otherwise extremely quiet environment.
In another short example, a was seeing a video by a white influencer who just landed in India and was walking on the streets and one of his very first comments was “Oh they use the horn quite liberally”.
You barely hear any traffic horns in most of Europe - cars would rather slow down rather than resort to the use of a horn - unlike India, where the horn is a tool used liberally and casually, to go faster than you should be.
I can’t think of a better parody that shows India’s love for horns than this video, especially around the 1:40 mark and the 3 16 mark. Trust me, it’s worth your time!
Hawk Tuah and India -
If you are not as disconnected with popular culture on the internet as my wife is, you would almost certain come across the “Hawk Tuah” girl. Please make sure you take out 20 seconds to watch this video.
The Hawk Tuah girl is a classic example of how the internet can make something out of nothing if it spots something that is differentiated just enough that can cause it to go viral. The Hawk Tuah girl temporarily became an international internet sensation and even had a documentary made about her and was talk of the town in the US.
However, what the US does not know, is that Hawk Tuah is a common thing everyday in India and its in our DNA - maybe someone would also feel great pride in India.
What am I even saying? The following photo will tell you what I’m trying to say -
India and civic sense:
My use of the traffic horn as an example of the malaise in Indian society of having extremely poor in our civic sense. Indians, in general, are proudly inconsiderate on how their actions can adversely impact others around. We have a -
Filthy sense of public cleanliness - as long as my home is clean, I don’t care how the environment looks like - damn the Himalayas and damn those rivers.
Are in such a mad rush all the time, that they don’t mind violating a hundred different rules while travelling - what the hell is this “lane discipline”? Apart from witness this all the time first-hand, I have been following a twitter handle called “third eye” who does public service by continuously putting up posts of some nasty traffic violations (and also scary accidents) and tags the relevant traffic police handle to catch the violators. If you are active on Twitter and don’t get triggered easily, you should follow it too.
Have ingrained DNA of wanting to break rules to display their inner chappri.
Spit everywhere, especially the red stuff, coz they, who cares, I do what I want
Dump garbage anywhere because - it’s someone else’s job to clean it up
Ogle at women at public spaces lest she dare show even in inch of her bare skin - have you wondered why there are such few women, especially younger women, in public spaces, especially in North India?
I think the biggest problem India faces, that goes absolutely under the radar, is the abysmal lack of civic sense that we have. I am increasingly certain that the reason most well educated people want to leave India is not really the dearth of opportunities, but the abysmal quality of life that India offers, no matter how much tax you cough up. You feel helpless to a point where you say “I’ve had enough of this, I’m moving to Canada” and settling there even if it means I’ll work in a job that you would find menial in India.
India will become prouder, happier, less impatient country if people learn to respect each other and their surroundings a little more - I am hopeful of this.
A classic success story is that of Indore and its rags to riches story of being voted the cleanest city in India for many years straight.
I got to see this in person back in March 2022 when I got to visit Indore for work and found the city pretty spick and span. Even their night food market called “Sarafa Bazar”, which is actually a jewellery market in the daytime, is absolutely spotless after the day’s closure at around 1 AM. The hawkers all stay back and spend the next 30 mins or so cleaning up all the food and other disposables and make the street fit for business the next morning.
The secret sauce here is how Indoris have a deep sense of pride in the cleanliness of their city - it’s now a part of their identity and once it goes to that stage, Indian’s do a lot to preserve this sense of identity. Instead of attaching our own identity and pride to bogus things like “Naya Bharat is the world’s fastest growing nation” or “Bangalore has the most commercial real estate rented amongst any city in India” or “Look how India can now call Kim Kadarshian or John Cena to come dance for us”, these are things that are constructive and help elevate your quality of life immediately.
I leave this blog with a video that is the stuff of fantasies - Mumbai is the “honking capital” of the world - so how did the Mumbai police tell the commuters -
“Horn NOT Ok Please!”