India's a system built on politeness

India is far different than I thought it would be. That might well be because I’m sequestered in a college environment, and I realize that India is a huge collection of communities.  Although there are lots of people around, it’s not as crowded as, say, Manhattan except that the sidewalks are much smaller so it seems crowded.  As I walk around, I notice that people do stare. It isn’t often they see people who look like me.  Whenever I’m in this situation, I realize how people of color must feel in much of the U.S.

 

I’m struck by how this system works on politeness.  It isn’t being deferential to foreigners, although I’ve certainly seen much of that. It’s more that the system works because people understand that they cannot function without others, and that getting along revolves around everyone’s vested interest in getting along.  Take traffic, for example.  The roadways are where I’ve seen the “chaos of India” that I’ve read about for so long. They are crowded with pedestrians, cyclists, animals, buses, trucks and automobiles. Horns are constantly honking as the many entities of the road swerve around, in front of, past, behind, sideways to, and just about every other path they could take. There is no way to adequately describe the traffic here.  Ashley and I plan to take a motorized rickshaw and a couple of video cameras around just to capture the flow of traffic.  But the point is, as Bill Thorn observed today, it works. All of these vehicles – from the bicycle to the scooter to the rickshaw to the camel wagon (yes, I’ve seen two so far, along with a donkey cart) to the SUV – weave and swirl their way down the same streets, through the same intersections without hitting.  Father Vinayak says there’s only one rule: To not hit each other.  I believe it. He was driving us over to a shop today heading down a street, when he came to an intersection where all the traffic was headed our way. He turned, but I asked Carole, who was along for the ride, “Did you see a one-way sign?” No. There wasn’t any. So how does everyone know it’s one-way? “Just don’t hit each other,” I guess.