Wisdom strewn about on the Kanpur Roads

   I don't know if you have noticed, but the traffic situation in
Kanpur is a lot better these days. Now there are real traffic
lights. And many of them even work, going from red to green to red and
so on. One day, I was driving with a veteran Kanpur-wallah sitting
beside me. The light turned red and I brought the car to a halt (which
wasn't a large state change anyhow, but that is another story).
   "What are you doing?" asked my friend.
   "Why? Can't you see that red light?"
   "What's wrong with you? Do you want to be challaned or what?" rebuked 
my friend. "Who ever heard of stopping at a RED light?" 
   Indeed, even as he spoke a tempo came up behind me, squeezed past a
recumbent cow and pushed its nose into the intersection.  A foolish
bicyclist coming from the left was forced to stop. I say foolish
because he was no doubt under the impression that his green light
meant he had right of way.  The tempo chugged on relentlessly, and the
bicycle backed up.  I felt suddenly elevated, as if witnessing the
passage of a ship of rare majesty. "Dheuguli nirupay bhange du-dhare",
Tagore had said - the waters parting helplessly at the bow.
   I released my clutch and started forward, feeling ashamed at
my ignorance of Kanpur traffic rules. 
   In life one learns. One becomes wiser. 

   We were driving to a restaurant called Little Chef. This particular
restaurant is located on a road very carefully designed to be
difficult to locate. It is like a fold in the map - one moment you are
almost there, and next moment you are somewhere quite different.  You
are almost there when you reach the intersection with the unmanned
traffic police pedestal. I mean this pedestal, in the center of a
major intersection, umbrella roof and all, has simply never been
manned.  I mean, it is often dog-ged and occasionally cow-ed as well,
but never is it man-ned. In any event, you know that you are near
Little Chef here - in fact, you can just about smell the hamburgers -
but then suddenly you are in Parade, which you know is not where
Little Chef is. It is like you fold your newspaper, and Madhuri Dixit
on page 2 is lifting up a cricket cup on page 14.  Distance vanishes
in that fold of the map, and you can put Moscow right next to Delhi.
Physicists say that space in our universe may be like that, with lots 
of folds in the map.  I don't know about the Universe, but Kanpur is 
certainly a fold in the map. You can never find it.
   So we decide to ask some enlightened ones. Yes, there is this pan
vendor. No he has not heard of any little shef. There is a customer
with moustache, which undulates under his chewing motion.  He looks at
us as if he has something to say. He raises his hand, and expectantly
we await the maha sambhashan. With a majestic quiver of a majestic
moustache he turns to the roadside and spits his majestic red
glob. And then he turns to us:
   "You mean Littel CHIEF? No problem. Go this way, and then the first
turn right."
   Oops. We stand corrected. Hail the Chief, not the Shef! This is 
Kanpur, not Par-ee. 
   One learns. One un-learns. One becomes wiser.

   Sometime later we come to a really big crossing. It is in fact so
impressively big, that the imaginative locals call it "BIG FOUR-WAY
CROSSING."  There is a traffic pedestal in the middle, and - wonders
will never cease - there is a policeman on duty, complete with uniform! 
He has raised his palm as if he wants our line of traffic
to stop.  The right turn lane facing us is now
turning. Should I stop, or would would that be a display of further
ignorance? Just then a motorcycle ambles up besides me and continues
ambling. The policeman indicates to the traffic on the left and
signals it to pass through. In that split seccond, before the heaving
mass can tumble and stagger forward in honking confusion, our
motorcyclist has revved up his amble rate and disappeared into the
sunset.
   All this while I was also ambling forward next to the motorcycle, 
revelling in my new-found kanpur-wallah spirit. Now suddenly I 
find myself stranded, in the middle of the crossing, almost blocking
the surge about to come from the left. I quickly look back and am
deftly reversing into a small crevice while avoiding crushing the
bicyclist crossing the road behind me when my friend says:
   "What are you doing that for?"
   "Can't you see? I am too far ahead!" I tell him, my hand behind
his headrest.
   "This time you have really done it," he says. "You are simply
asking to be challaned! What rotten luck!"
   "But don't you think I am more likely to be challaned if I am 
blocking the middle of the road?"
   I can see the policeman looking at me from his pedestal. Is that
a glint of greed that I see in his eyes?
   "You see, you are in a car," lectures my friend. "You are a big
shot. The minister is your mama and your nephew is the IG.  So you
have every business to be standing in the middle of the biggest
crossing in Kanpur."  And now he thrusts in the knife. "But then you
start backing up, showing concern for the law, not to mention the
insignificant hoi polloi on the other side. What does that tell
Mr. Police Man? Quick Challan bucks, that's what." Suddenly
he becomes energized - "OK - go now - zip it before he nabs you". 
The traffic has thinned from the left and I shoot through the
opening, the policeman a wistful blur. 
   Sometimes one runs away. But one becomes wiser. 

   On the way back I am on a side road waiting to enter the traffic.
A policeman stands in the intersection, lackadasically controlling
traffic.  He notices my car and waves me through. I start moving
forward confidently.  A tempo bristling with milk cans and bangles
descends on me screaming like a banshee and narrow misses my left
fender. A hundred eyes pour their hatred on me the car-wallah.
   "What do you think you are doing?" Asks my friend. "Didn't you see
the traffic from that side?"
   "But then, that policeman signalled for me ... " I trail off. 
   "Who is doing the driving? You, or the policeman?"
   "But shouldn't the policeman have stopped the traffic on 
the other road before letting me thrugh?"
    "What do you think is the policeman's job? Get this straight: YOUR job is
to prevent accidents.  HIS job is to collect money from ALL sides
whenever there is an accident.  So you do your job, and don't get
near him when he is doing his."
    Indeed what could be simpler - every man to his job. That's what
Nelson said, didn't he - "England expects every man to do his 
duty." That's how the big battles are won. Certainly in Kanpur.
    Policemen. Tagore. Nelson. Paris. The amount one learns just
driving around Kanpur. I strongly recommend it to those interested in
rapid education. And anyhow, the traffic situation has improved
a lot. Why, they even have traffic lights. And they work!
    As for myself, though, don't expect me to take this course too 
often. 
   I have become wiser. A lot wiser. At least about driving in Kanpur.