Ever wonder how the history of post-independence India would look like on a Facebook wall? Wonder no more. What Ho! is at hand. Without further ado, here it is – India’s Wall on Facebook. Originally published on What Ho! here.
Happy Republic Day!
Inspired by Teddy Wayne, Mike Sachs and Thomas Ng ‘s Op-Art “America’s Wall” at New York Times
The Uninformed Reader might scoff at, and even under-estimate the significance of the dark art of driving in India. To her, I must point out that data collected from observation of Indian drivers has been the only reason that scientists have been nail down the exact moment in time we homo sapiens branched off from our ancestors.
Say what? What ho, let me explain. Scientists estimate that humans branched off from chimpanzees exactly 7 million years, 240 days ago, at 11am in the morning. They were able to nail this date and time down precisely by comparing remnants of chimpanzee DNA found in Expert Indian Drivers and DNA found in normal Homo Sapiens (aka lesser mortals). By analyzing the differences, they were able to compute the time it must have taken for 100% pure chimpanzees to mutate into half-ape, half-human entities – otherwise known as – yep, you got it – Expert Indian Drivers.
So, scoff not and read on.
1. Never assume anything. Assumption is the mother of all screw ups
Let’s start with an example. When driving on the Outer Ring Road in Bangalore, you might consider yourself blameless for assuming it to be a major roadway of sorts, on which traffic flows unencumbered. In an unguarded moment, you might carelessly flirt with the notion of putting metal to the pedal and speeding things up. Wrong assumption.
India is a country of 1.2 billion people, living on 3.3 million square kilometres of land. Unfortunately, the Reddy brothers own 75% of land in India, and so the area available to the rest of us boils down to a fraction of what it could be. There’s not much room to move around in this country of ours. What this means is that the average Indian has to conduct his business in public. Consequently, terms like Outer Ring Road, National Highway 4 (NH4), etc. are loosely meant to describe anything along the lines of children’s parks, playgrounds, parking lots, race courses, cattle sheds, places of worship, venues for cricket matches, etc. However, I will concede that on rare occasions, traffic might be allowed to pass through. But, that’s besides the point. The point is – don’t let names lull you into making wrong assumptions.
A sure sign that you don’t have active remnants of chimpanzee DNA in your system is that reading this will have the effect of either frightening or depressing you or both. Despair not. There is good news. There still exist those places you can drive freely with abandon. It’s just that, thanks to our lack of attention to detail, we’ve named these places wrongly. For example, pavements, airport runways, residential streets, gated communities and parking lots are places where you can roll the windows down and experience the joys of driving on an open road. When you find yourself in one of these locations, feel free to let your hair down and have a wild time.
While we’re on the subject of assumptions, I feel compelled to go on a tangent to belabor a related point. I’ve often noticed a mistake committed by neophytes in the process of mastering the road shastra. Which is to assume that there will be sign boards at the sides of the roads, and these aforesaid sign boards will convey meaningful information. Out here in this lovely land of ours, sign boards are akin to newspapers. They are the best places to get information on movies that have been just released or the scoop on the local elections. Experts are beginning to come around to the point of view that traffic sign boards may be the sole and ultimate reason why we have a citizenry that has unusually high levels of general knowledge.
2. There is something called “Too much information”
The fact that you are driving on the road does not imply that you should pay attention to or know everything that is going on around you. Listen carefully when I say that there is something called “too much information”. There is no better place in the world that this phrase applies than on Indian roads. What this means is simply, you must not, I repeat, must not absorb any information about the goings on around you. Road nirvana, which is the zero information state, has thus far been achieved only by auto rickshaw drivers and cyclists who, scientists claim, closely resemble random particles in Brownian motion. The Nirvana state has been described as a blissful state of simply being, in which illusions of material activities around the self are obliterated into complete nothingness. Trust me when I say that your iPod may be your best friend on the roads. Put on your favorite music, crank up the volume and get set to experience moments of bliss. In fact, this article was conceived, typed up and posted while driving from work to home.
In other words, do what you feel compelled to, unmindful of anything else that may be going on around you. Stay focused on gaps in spaces ahead of you (or behind you, as the case maybe). Make it the sole purpose of your existence to penetrate those gaps faster than a photon shot through the Large Hadron Collider.
3. Be aware of the power of stationary objects
Technically, this falls both into both categories of “wrong assumption” and “too much information”. But, this insight carries such enormous significance that I felt compelled to call it out separately so what ho! readers do not miss its import.
Surprising as it may sound, some of us are human. And, it is a natural human tendency to associate driving with motion. For the humans amongst us, driving raises strong visual images of steering an object that is moving. Under certain circumstances, it turns out that nothing could be farther from the truth. Yes, there will be those situations when the best form of driving is to suspend all motion.
First, let’s understand the critical benefits of static energy on Indian roads. The case for stillness and complete lack of motion starts with the important point that a stationary object will never be blamed. This is especially true of static objects found in middle of roads. Examples of stationary objects are bull dozers, city buses, large groups of people buying and selling stuff, Manmohan Singh, traffic policemen, abandoned vehicles, small and large sized animals, and occasionally birds in addition to the usual fare of impediments such as stupas, edifices and national monuments which are there on roads for the sole reason that it hasn’t yet occurred to anyone to move them. In fact, a team of archaelogists have carbon-dated a 5-foot tall granite stump smack in the middle of NH4 as belonging to Chandragupta Maurya’s period. So, for thousands of years, we Indians have learned to navigate around animate and inanimate objects that we encounter in our paths.
Now for how to convert this blinding insight into an actionable plan. When in trouble or doubt, immediately convert yourself into a stationary object. If you’ve been slipping and making the mistake of absorbing information from your surroundings while driving, you will find yourself nervous and paralyzed with shock from time to time. When this happens – Come to a complete halt, switch the engine off and have a cigarette. Use the break wisely by catching up with the latest bhangra beat or calling your near and dear ones. Because you’ve converted yourself into a stationary object, no harm can and will befall you. The traffic will begin to magically adjust, weave and make its way around you, while you enjoy beatific solitude and the stiff drink that you so richly deserve.
So, there you go. The 3 commandments from our “Beginner’s Bible for Driving in India”.
Astute readers will point out that there are those other rookie mistakes like assuming that – to drive, you’ll need a driver’s license, should be possessed of eyesight, should be older than five years of age, etc. etc. – all of which, I’m sure you’ll agree with me by now, fall into the categories of wrong assumptions and too much information.
In parting, I must point out that you must realize that not every one amongst us is destined to master the road shastra and get behind the wheel. For those who have suffered Fate’s cruel sleight of hand in not having adequate chimp DNA in the system, all I can say is – Treat your driver like a Greek god and make burnt offerings every day at the altar.
If you liked this, you’ll enjoy reading Horn OK Please – on the delightful practice of honking on Indian roads.
We live in an incredibly fascinating world. I found more evidence of this in the last couple of weeks while reading a couple of different but related articles.
The first insight came from a video by Professor Philip Zimbardo on the “The Secret Powers of Time“. The good professor posits that we, humans, tend to live in one of six ‘time zones’ – 2 of which focus on the past, 2 on the present, and 2 on the future. Of those who live in the past, there are those who are ‘past positive‘ who focus on the ‘good’ memories (birthdays, weddings, past glory, etc.). And there are those who are ‘past negative‘ and wallow in regrets and failures. Those who live in the present can be divided into hedonistic “seeking knowledge, pleasure and living for now” and those who view life as fated “my life is destined to be thus and no amount of planning will help”.
Most of us are ‘future oriented’, mainly because evolutionary forces have favored this approach. That’s the reason we are here and carry this genetic predisposition. According to Prof. Zimbardo, there are two ways of living in the future – One is to be disciplined, learn to work than play, to avoid temptation of the present and postpone gratification. There is another way to be future oriented, which depending on your religious views, starts with the premise that life begins after the death of the mortal body, and one has to earn the rewards for what happens in the after life, in this life.
For example, Protestant nations tend to be very future oriented and consistently outperform others in every economic measure thanks in big part to the Protestant ethic of ‘trusting the future, working hard and earning the right to be called God’s chosen people’. Interestingly, countries that lie along the equator, where weather patterns are uniform and things don’t often change, tend to be more present oriented. Catholic nations such as Spain or Italy tend to be more past oriented. In fact, incredibly so much so that there are cultures (in Southern Italy) which do not have words for ‘plan’ or denoting the future tense.
How about the quality of life in the time zones? Countries which tend to be present oriented tend to have the longest life expectancy. And cities like New York City and London which lie at the furthest end of the future planning spectrum have been observed to have the highest rates of coronary heart disease.
So, the “time culture” of the people makes a profound impact on the personality for a nation and on the personal outcomes for its inhabitants. Fascinating! Another way of internalizing this might be to say – you are likely to be happiest when living in a country/city/neighborhood or working for a company which matches your own personal “time culture”, assuming we have the luxury of being to able to make that choice. As much as some of us might complain about how slowly things happen in India, there are those of us who believe it to be one of its charms and the secret of its endurance.
The second insight came from an article from Psyblog, which describes the “amazing power of regret to shape our future“. The key observation made by the author is that – regret is not just a backward looking emotion. It is also forward looking. Which is to say that we have the power to anticipate regret and we try to avoid it. This is truly a powerful insight into the workings of our minds.
The article also provides a very cool example of how anticipation of regret works, and sometimes in very irrational ways!
Swapping Lottery Tickets – An example of how we anticipate regret: In a study, people were asked to first choose lottery tickets. Once they had chosen, they were asked if they’d be willing to exchange their ticket with another person. Those willing to exchange were offered a chocolate truffle as incentive. Surprisingly, less than 50% agreed. Why surprising? Because all lottery tickets have an equal chance of winning, and there is nothing better or worse about any ticket. So, it would make sense to take the chocolate truffle and exchange your ticket every single time.
So, why did more than 50% of the people act irrationally?
This is where anticipation of regret kicks in. We tend to project into the future when making decisions and imagine consequences. Though this is usually the right thing to do, sometimes it works against us. What if we exchanged our ticket and it ends up being the winning one? It is this anticipation of regret that at times stops us from acting rationally and taking the no-brainer chances that come our way. By the way, the only species of organic life observed to be immune to anticipatory regret are auto drivers in Chennai who would rather turn down a handsome offer and wait it out in the auto stand for more. Again, this is one of those things we might have always known instinctively. But, it’s worth a pause to reflect on how anticipatory regret shapes the decisions we make in our lives.
On this note, I leave you with a few questions, the answers to which could improve the quality of the lives we lead.
Which cultural time zone do you belong to? Are you past positive, hedonistic or future oriented? Do you believe in after-life? Does the company you work for or the neighborhood, city, country you live in – reflect your time zone preferences?
I’ve heard a few people claim that they don’t have any regrets. The more useful question to ask is – Do you have any anticipated regrets?
You can watch Prof. Zimbardo’s video on YouTube. And, you can read the Psyblog article here.
pip pip and toodles.
In an aggressive bid to stay afloat, Kingfisher Airlines has announced massive discounts for passengers who are willing to fly the plane. However, the airlines has put in strict qualification standards for eligibility. “Only those with a two wheeler license and a helmet are eligible for the scheme”, cautioned the airlines spokesperson. “Also, preference will be given to those passengers who’ve downed a couple of quarts of whisky in the sixty minutes preceding the flight”, she added. In a related announcement, the company chairman revealed that, due to budget cuts, this year’s edition of the Kingfisher calendar will feature Air India staff instead of the usual glamorous fare.
In Other News
Inspired by Dr. Manmohan Singh’s track record in politics, Jawaharlal Nehru University in India has announced a brand new master’s degree program in Political Silence. “A leader is known by the silence he keeps. We can’t think of a better person to serve as honorary head for this new department”, said the University Chancellor in a press release.
In a continuing aftermath of cyclone Thane, which swept through coastal Tamil Nadu, millions of households in the state continue to remain without political power.
It is rumored that Kim Jong Un, the new Supreme Leader of North Korea, has suffered a nervous breakdown just one week after taking over as head honcho. An anonymous inside source said that the new leader “is seriously worried about whether he is crazy enough for the job. I mean, he knows that he’s clearly nuts. But, this job calls for an all new level of insanity”
Presidential candidates in the US primary, in the meanwhile, have warned that the US may not be able to wage war against terrorism and gay rights at the same time. “It’s time to pick our priorities. With Bin Laden dead, Elton John has emerged as the biggest threat to the free world”, said Newt Gingrich at a rally in South Carolina.
The Zen Moment of the Week
Reacting to criticism that the government has remained indifferent to the travails of the common man, Home Minister P. Chidambaram today unveiled what he described “a color-coded apathy alert system” that will help the public gauge exactly how sluggish the government’s attitude is likely to be.
“In the past, people have wondered if the government is up to anything” Mr. Chidambaram said in a press conference in New Delhi. “I’d like to clarify that we remain firmly committed to total indifference. And, it’s my belief that this new system, based on just 3 color codes, will keep the public better informed about the government’s exact level of apathy. This will take any guesswork out of the equation”
“Each of the three colors denotes a specific level of government apathy”, Mr. Chidambaram explained. According to the new system, the color green will signal “normal apathy – ignore real issues, pooh pooh allegations and issue denials in face of mounting evidence”. Orange will denote “enhanced apathy – continue to deny even after Supreme Court convictions”. Red color code will stand for “extremely severe apathy – subversion of Parliament, and token Cabinet shuffles combined with sudden amnesia”.
“As you might have observed, we’ve been able to move the Jan Lokpal bill from green to red in just three months”, added the Home Minister.
However, Mr. Chidambaram was evasive and indifferent to questions on how and when the system was going to be implemented. “I don’t see why we should rush this,” he told reporters. “This is just getting off the ground. We’ll get it to red in due course of time”
The What Ho! Report: Headlines, baseless rumors and no news whatsoever. We read Times of India so you shouldn’t have to.
In an encouraging sign, India has agreed to send its entire cabinet of Union Ministers into Iran in an internationally orchestrated attempt to disrupt and halt Iran’s nuclear program. “These guys can stop anything from happening. They are an A-team when it comes to creating internal tussles, leaking confidential information, paralyzing programs and not taking decisions. We have the utmost confidence in them”, said UN secretary general, Ban-Ki Moon in a press release. “We’re standing by and fully prepared to send in the US Congress along with Dr. Manmohan Singh, if this crew can’t get the job done”
In other news
Digvijay Singh has entered a twelve step program to help him stop blaming RSS. “I have a problem”, acknowledged Diggy when reached over the phone. “A big problem”. He added, “The problem is serious. At first, I used to feel the urge just after meals, 3 times a day. And, pretty soon, I started blaming RSS during drinking sessions. And then, it got out of control and I now blame the RSS at least 20 times a day, and often three times before breakfast”. A health expert advising Diggy has warned that it was not going to be easy. “Often the person experiencing addictive behavior substitutes one addiction with another. In this case, we’ve asked Diggy to substitute RSS blaming with something more socially useful like an anti-Karan Johar position, which we all can wholeheartedly approve”. Later in the day, Diggy came out swinging with a verbally abusive tirade filled with invectives against the release of Agneepath.
Fears that the upcoming elections in UP might turn into a fiasco have been somewhat alleviated by the announcement that Bollywood director duo, Abbas-Mustan has agreed to direct and produce the elections. A political analyst, who preferred to remain anonymous, commented, “There have been serious concerns that elections in India’s largest state could turn into an international laughing stock. But, we’re now relieved that this dynamic duo has signed up to making this into a blockbuster action hit”. Abbas-Mustan have already got off to a swinging start, sacking two thousand candidates “who lack oomph” and have promised to get actors, Bipasha Basu and Katrina Kaif, onto the ballot. The move has already been criticized by political insiders who questioned the actors’ lack of leadership experience. “The critics can go to hell”, said the confident duo. “These are the same guys who questioned if Abhishek Bachchan and Bobby Deol could rob a moving train”
In a move to boost sagging fortunes, Kingfisher Airlines announced that it will now begin stowing passengers in overhead compartments. “Every rupee counts”, explained the airlines spokesperson tersely.
The Times of India group has announced a merger with the Congress party. It is rumored that the financial terms include a sound-bites-for-cash swap. “We’ve been working lock step with the Congress party for the last decade. This move is a mere acknowledgement of the fact”, said a Times group spokesperson. In the new org structure announced, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will now report to Indu Jain, chairperson of the Times Group.
Zen Moment of the Week
Just a year after a team of scientists determined that Pluto was not a planet after all, the same team reconvened in Mumbai today to pronounce that batsmen on the Indian cricket team were, in fact, not batsmen at all. Indian cricket fans have long suspected that the original characterization of the top order in the Indian batting line up as batsmen may have been in error, but today’s announcement removed any shred of doubt.
“While the likes of Gautam, Virat and Mahender undoubtedly possess some qualities consistent with what you’d expect from batsmen, we’ve come to the conclusion that they are something else entirely”, said Dr. Kolaravi Shastri of the University of Mumbai. “It would be more accurate to characterize them as dwarves”. Dr. Kolaravi also added that it was “understandable” why scientists had assumed that these individuals were batsmen for many years. “They looked like batsmen. They walked like batsmen. They carried bats and wore helmets. For God’s sake, some of these chaps even scored runs in ODIs. Based on observations made in Melbourne and Sydney in the last two weeks, we now understand these mysterious objects better. We’ve changed our theory because they have consistently failed to exhibit one important characteristic that is common to batsmen”, Dr. Shastri clarified, “scoring runs in test cricket”.
BCCI welcomed the findings and announced a test series against Netherlands, in which all the matches will be played at Ferozeshah Kotla and the toss to be won by Indians.
A very happy new year to what ho! readers! God bless.
The What Ho! Report: Headlines, baseless rumors and no news whatsoever. We read Times of India so you shouldn’t have to.
What Ho! 