The
last two weeks I have been the guest of India; the second country in the world,
when it comes to population.
I,
together with a group of colleagues from my employer – a large supermarket
chain in The Netherlands – had the opportunity to visit one of our key
suppliers in India, in a sheer unforgettable business trip.
We
all resided in Noida, a neighbouring city of Indian capital Delhi, and that was
also the city were the supplier was established. It was the trip of a lifetime
for me and the hospitality and friendliness of the Indian people have been heartwarming!
I genuinely loved this country and its sometimes peculiar, but special, culture
during the last two weeks made an enormous impression on me.
A
trip to India is a culture shock for Western people, to say the least…
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| A street corner in Delhi, India Picture copyright of Ernst Labruyère |
The
streets are litterally clotted with masses of garbage and people living on the
streets in tents… or just in a blanket or sleeping-bag. Beggars approach you
everywhere and street sellers of litterally everything don’t take a simple ‘No’
for an answer, but try to persuade you into buying some of their stuff with
enormous perseverance.
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| A Sunday market in Delhi, India Picture copyright of Ernst Labruyère |
Poverty
and backwardedness is always extremely palpable and tangible in India, wherever
one goes. And so is the sheer wealth at some places.
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| Gathering at a hotel of the Lamborghini club of Delhi, India Picture copyright of Ernst Labruyère |
These are the sometimes painful
consequences of life in a Third World country, being in an unstoppable march
towards more business success and prosperity than ever before: the dot on the
horizon is very much visible, but the road towards it is long and winding.
Tens
of thousands of stray animals (mainly dogs and (holy) cows) are walking in the
streets and straight through the dense traffic or they are browsing through the
massive stockpiles of garbage for their daily meal.
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| Two cows eating from a stockpile of garbage in one of the streets of Noida, India Picture copyright of Ernst Labruyère |
And
last, but not least, the traffic itself makes Western people wonder…
One
thing that probably strikes every Western visitor is the blatant chaos of
Indian traffic and the 24*7 continuous honking of cars, scooter cars, motorbikes,
lorries, rickshaws and anything else with a horn mounted (i.e. which is everything,
except people, cows and dogs).
“I honk
and therefore I am”, could be a statement of an Indian René Descartes
these days.
Where
excess honking is a habit in traffic that can make people angry in about every
other country in the world, the Indians react indifferent or even with an
understanding smile. Some lorries even beg their fellow traffickers to user their
horn as a warning signal!
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| A picture of the traffic in Delhi, India Picture copyright of Ernst Labruyère |
When
you honk, the Indians might give you a little bit of space. Just enough to not
directly crash in the fifteen cars, lorries, rickshaws and scooter-cars immediately
surrounding you.
For
the rest the survival of the fittest rules in Indian traffic: if you don’t
fight for your square meter of street space before you, someone else will claim
that. Giving precedence to other traffic will make you a fool, who will wait
forever. Simply because nobody else will give precedence to you. So you blow
your horn with a confident smile, step on the gas and fight for every meter of
space, without stopping too clearly for the other traffic or for pedestrians
and bikers. They are aware of you and won’t move one centimeter to both sides.
If
you can pass somebody with 20 cm of space, you clearly gave them too much room
to drive. Stopping for other traffic is futile, so you blow your horn once more
and pass them with serious speeds. Who goes first, wins. The others are clearly
sheep in search of a shepherd.
At
this moment you might wonder if the daily Indian traffic is not laden with the
most gruesome accidents, seeing their driving style.
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| A picture of the traffic in Delhi, India Picture copyright of Ernst Labruyère |
Well,
it isn’t actually… That was the most amazing discovery that I did during my fortnight
trip to India.
Taking
the constant, 24*7 traffic chaos in consideration, there were amazingly few
accidents. To be honest: I only saw one small quarrel caused by a tiny traffic
accident, to be honest. For the rest, the traffic in Delhi seemed to run like a
Swiss clockwork in all its chaos.
And
that amazing fact set my mind to work: what if the totally disorderly “outlaw state”
of Indian traffic, was actually safer than the watertight web of traffic
regulations in The Netherlands?! It was almost impossible to believe!
The
Netherlands is a country with a huge web, consisting of thousands and thousands
of traffic rules for every possible situation and far, far beyond.
Pedestrians
and bikes are protected by traffic laws that declare cars guilty for every
accident, in which they are involved with the former.
Was
the bike riding through red? Not paying attention to approaching cars? Riding
in the middle of the road, while ignoring the other traffic? Looking at this
telephone, while riding? Never mind! The car is guilty anyway.
The
logical consequence is that bikers in The Netherlands stopped paying attention
to the other traffic at all, until they find out the hard way that they are perhaps
legally invulnerable, but far from immortal or physically invulnerable.
The
same is true with other participants – cars, trucks, bikes and pedestrians – of
Dutch traffic. Their instincts for the strange habits of their fellow-participants
in traffic have all been replaced. Either by the vast web of Dutch traffic
rules or by the pseudo-safety of airbags, extra strong cage constructions in
cars and all kinds of modern technology, like anti-slip software and brake
assistants.
Where
machines get smarter over the years, the humans operating them become
inevitably less smart and less skilled. That is a law of nature! Or do you
still know somebody, who can calculate his supermarket sales slips by heart or
find a complex route without the usage of a navigation system?!
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| A picture of the traffic in Delhi, India Picture copyright of Ernst Labruyère |
So
perhaps the Indians, with their utterly chaotic and seemingly hopeless traffic,
are touching a sensitive point of the West indeed: that too many traffic rules
and too much technology actually not make the traffic in Western countries much
safer, but rather to the contrary. People lose their skill set and their
ability to watch out for themselves.
That
would be a surprising lesson to learn for us. This lesson is extremely hard to
believe, but Indian traffic might prove that it could be right anyway. Then it
would be an extremely important lessons for traffic officials too.
So
step in your car, blow your horn and let the survival of the fittest begin! In
the meantime, I say “Hi” from India.
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