Tackling the Mighty Tata

Wonder of wonders, our driver is waiting at 7:30 a.m. This will turn out to be the one and only instance of someone or something being on time (actually early) during our whole trip. We head upstairs to the car, and meet "Jack"; his name is actually something like Jakalamaranthamadrum, so we settle on Jack. The name goes over big with the kids who start singing "Hit the Road, Jack" at the top of their lungs, Jack doesn?t seem in the least offended, so I guess he passes his first test. The trip starts with the rites of an Indian driving professional; incense is lit on the dash, marigolds are strung on the hood, the tires are kicked and we're off. The car is a big old Ambassador car from the British era, and it hums along quite nicely. Like all Indian cars it does not have many working dials, but the important stuff works. According to Jack, a driver in India needs three things, a loud horn, reliable brakes and most importantly, good karma (hence the incense and flowers). I for one will trade a little good karma for a speedometer any day, driving in India is a fiasco.

The roads in this country all in varying degrees of disrepair, this is not to say that they are not working on them. There is near constant road construction or repair, but using people power as opposed to machinery can definitely slow things down. People pounding rocks with small hammers make the gravel the tar is poured from pots carried on women's heads and tamped down by the barefoot men, the process of building a one-kilometer stretch of road is considerably slower than the process of wear and tear. The Indian people are a steadfast lot, and this seemingly futile performance is carried out nonetheless. The volume of traffic on India's roads is colossal. Road traffic in India is not limited to the wheeled classification, the truck, car and motorcycle traffic is augmented by people, camels, buffalo, elephants, dancing bears (yup) and of course the king of the road, the cow.

Trailing the cow in hierarchy of importance is the mighty Tata truck. The Tata is a large Indian-made truck used for hauling every conceivable type of load. The crew of these trucks is generally comprised of a driver or two, a mechanic and a "boy". The driver well, he drives, the mechanic obviously helps out when things go wrong, but to my mind the most arduous and dangerous job goes to the "boy". The general modus operandi of the highway seems to be for everyone to drive in the middle of the road (allowing the non-wheeled traffic the edges) and swerve left (if possible) at the last possible moment, avoiding a head-on collision with oncoming traffic. The Tata trucks do not have an easy go of it, in that many roads are barely wide enough to accommodate two of these vehicles, let alone allow for roadside traffic. The horn comes into play in a big way here, as sort of "here I come, ready or not!" warning, the turn signal (dipper as it is quaintly referred to in India) is used to "mark" the edge of the truck, so the oncoming traffic has a fighting chance of avoiding instant death. The burnt-out hulls of many vehicles that litter the roadways are testimony to the fact that this does not always work! The "boy" in the crew has the deadly right hand seat, and one of his jobs is to thump on the side of the truck if it looks as if a collision is imminent. He also waves frantically at the other vehicles, advising them to slow down, veer left or speed up as necessity demands, often avoiding the loss of his arms or head by mere centimeters. This member of the team also attends to tea, makes the mealtime fire, and worst of all, should a breakdown occur (even in the middle of the road), sleeps beside the truck until help arrives or someone runs over him! The driver of course would not leave the truck in the middle of the road without marking it somehow for other traffic; he conscientiously piles rocks around the perimeter! The stones, which mark accidents or breakdowns, are often the cause of further accidents, but, then again, this is probably just evidence of bad karma. To avert the wrath of the gods, the Tata crew decorate their vehicles with gusto. Decorations for the trucks take a myriad of forms, most are elaborately painted with flowers, idols, and prayers in vibrant hues, and then the garlands of marigolds, sparkling tinsel, and plastic flowers serve to take this art form to even tackier heights. The mighty Tata is indeed king of the road (well, just behind the cow).

The one saving grace of hitting the Indian road is that traffic rarely moves along at more than 60 Km. per hour. The speed (or lack of) involved in driving surely accounts for a drop in collisions; on the down side, actually getting somewhere can take forever.