Beyond Chaos and Conformity

Indians are terrible drivers, and that's a great thing!

Writing this while drunk (editing while sober) — obviously not alone. The day I started drinking, I made a pact with my friend that we will never drink without company. There is a very cynical undertone to drinking alone — it feels like an act of emotional self-harm. Arbitrary rules and principles like these help you keep your sanity intact.

However, not all rules are worth following. If that was the case, then Hitler, Mao, and Stalin probably didn’t do anything wrong. And this is where the spirit of a society lies. A society’s consciousness is not awake when they are following all the rules they are told to follow by a higher authority — that’s the dystopia and grimness of 1984. Society is truly WOKE when they know they can break some rules without facing serious repercussions. This is the central point of this blog, and how India’s roads and streets are evidence of how awake this country is.

The Mountains Took a Shit

If you follow me on Twitter, by now you probably know about my recent trek with a friend of mine. Spending two nights and three days in a place that has no electricity, no water or gas supply, and no washrooms as well. Met very interesting people. It was literally like what my Instagram caption said: I lived a movie. I have always been on the receiving end of these stories — feels good to be on the other side of the story for the first time.

Day 1 - we were supposed to be in Manali and start our trek in the morning. But because of a landslide, we were stuck for 8hrs since 5 am in the morning at the same place. Our bus won’t move at all. There were about 30 - 40 vehicles in front of us and a huge pile of mud after them.

The Way Out

There was only way out was booking a cab and driving through the narrow paths that the buses couldn’t take. So we did that. But because of our lack of resourcefulness, things got a bit more interesting. Booking a cab from Mandi to Manali would take us 4-5k and we were tight on budget. So like most people in that situation, we started hunting for people who could join us on our journey and split the bill. For 2-3 hours we were talking to people and networking to find two more people. We did well at that time, but most people found some other alternative and fucked off. Finally, my friend decided to ask a foreigner, thinking that they’d already be panicked, so they’ll stick with us. Plus we knew most people won’t have those charismatic conversational skills to ask them for it¹. We just wanted to get the fuck out of that place - because I had my office and an important project to work on right after our trip.

So a Canadian girl, Cassandra, agreed to join us and mentioned that there is another lady she knows, Sasha, who is willing to join us. So we called the cab guy and told him we are all set to go. However, it would take him 2hrs to come to us. We waited and had a great conversation with those two people. It turned out that the grandfather of the other lady (30-35) was a great Sufi artist based out of India. The cab guy took longer than expected to come. But it was alright, considering we had good company.

Finally, our cab ride started, and the round of Harsh Singh asking random ass questions without shutting up started. We talked throughout the journey about random things like paranormal activities, indigenous people in Canada and America and the atrocities they faced, sharing life-changing book recommendations, and a lot of other things.

Roads of India's Collective Consciousness

The most important reason I am writing this blog is about something I mentioned to the Canadian lady and it fascinated her (I am a narcissist and it’s my blog, plus white validation, so fuck it).

I told her how India is a great country, not because of our diversity or the geographical beauty or how welcoming people are in most parts. But because we break rules.

We, Indians, are infamous for breaking traffic rules and for our crazy driving etiquettes, how crossing red lights is not a big thing for us, how we never drive in a single lane, and how we drive on the wrong side of the road all time.

But if you look at the statistics we have the same number of traffic accidents as the US or any other rule-abiding nation².

People think of Indians as stupid illiterates but the academics-driven world fails to account for our intuitive knowledge on the road and that’s what makes us genius. Any country that follows all the rules that the government has prescribed them to follow has lost its soul — it’s ability to think for themselves — it’s ability to understand that all the rules fall on a spectrum and breaking some rules don’t cause as much damage as breaking other rules.

The fact that Indians don’t follow all the rules the government has told them is a testament to how awakened our consciousness is. And that is how I envision an ideal society to be — where people know that it’s okay to break some rules given the circumstances are alright. Now don’t be a dumbass and start commenting about murders and rapes, I am obviously not talking about that.

People from foreign nationalities think that Indians are crazy and chaotic on the roads. We are crazy but not chaotic. The fact that those people don’t understand and are confused about the way our traffic operates doesn’t mean that our road transport is dysfunctional. We are pretty skilled and aware of what we are doing on those roads. We are a lot smarter than our government thinks — because we comfortably break the rules they deem to be dangerous for us.

We are an awakened consciousness. I don’t see any point in Americans not changing their lanes when they can and there is space to do that. You are just sheeps in a herd, tied to the ropes of those who hold power. At least, we Indians understand the boundaries and exceptions to those rules³.

1. FYI: we had no mal intentions at that time.

2. Some Mathematics to justify the statistics:

India and US have almost the same number of vehicles. Deaths caused due to road accidents in the USA in 2021 were 42,939 (source) while the same number for India was 200,000 (source).

We obviously need to factor in the population of both countries. India’s population was 140 crores while the USA’s population was 34 crores.

• P (India) = 4 x P (USA)

• A (India) = 3.5 x A (USA)

Ideally, the number of deaths due to road accidents should be in the same ratio as the ratio of population. But the count of deaths falls short in India. So India’s traffic system is technically safer than the United States.

And if you take the approach of a realist, the wide population should cause more chaos and the ratio of deaths should follow an exponential curve rather than a linear one.

3. This is also why I am not very fond of the comparison people make as to how South Indians follow rules so religiously and are way more decent citizens than the North Indians.