From Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, by Mary Roach, 2005, WW Norton, pp 31-32
The traffic jam has dissolved, leaving our driver free
to proceed in the manner he enjoys. This entails driving as fast
as possible until the rear end of the car in front is practically
in his mouth, then laying on the horn until the car pulls into
the other lane. If the other car won't move over, he veers into
the path of oncoming traffic-for sheer drama, an approaching semi
truck is best-and then back, at the last possible instant.
Livestock and crater-sized potholes materialize out of nowhere,
prompting sudden James-Bond-style swervings and brakings. It's
like living inside a video game.
"Why doesn't he just get into the fast lane and stay
there?"
"There isn't a fast lane, as such," says Dr. Rawat. He
gazes calmly out his window, as goats and a billboard for
"Relaxo" footwear flash past. "The lanes are both
the same. Whoever is slower pulls over." He speaks in a
neutral, narrative tone, as though describing a safe and
civilized code of the road. Aggressive honking and light-flashing
is considered good manners: You're simply alerting the driver
ahead of your presence. (Rearview mirrors are apparently for
checking your hairdo. Likewise, the driver's-side mirror
currently registers a clear and unobstructed view of the
dashboard.) Exhortations to BLOW HORN PLEASE and USE DIPPER are
painted on the backs of most trucks, so that even the most
laid-back driver goes along honking and flashing his lights like
his team has just won the World Cup. I am finding it hard to
"relaxo".
In India, everywhere you look, people are calmly comporting
themselves in a manner that we in the States would consider a
terrible risk, a beseeching of death with signal flare and
megaphone. Women in saris perch sidesaddle, unhelmeted, on the
backs of freeway-fast Vespas. Bicyclists weave through clots of
city traffic, breathing diesel fumes. Passengers sit atop truck
cabs and hang off the sides like those acrobat troupes that pile
onto a single bicycle. Trucks overladen with bulbous muffin-top
loads threaten to topple and bury nearby motorists under illegal
tonnages of cauliflower and potatoes. (ACCIDENT PRONE AREA, the
signs say, as though the area itself were somehow responsible for
the carnage.) People don't seem to approach life with the same
terrified, risk-aversive tenacity that we do. I'm beginning to
understand why, religious doctrine aside, the concept of
reincarnation might be so popular here. Rural India seems like a
place where life is taken away too easily -- accidents, childhood
diseases, poverty, murder. If you'll be back for another go, why
get too worked up about the leaving?
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