My first real impression of India took shape in the back seat of a taxi cab. Rightfully so, considering the country’s traffic is so internationally infamous.
After about 23 hours of travel, I arrived in Bangalore or Bengaluru at 8:40pm. It should be known that Bengaluru airport is some distance from the city itself. Stalin, my driver, informed me that I was lucky to have landed at night because the commute could easily last 2 hours during daytime traffic.
I filled our trip with curious conversation (any one of my friends knows that I don’t often hesitate to ask questions or speak with strangers) and intermittent yawns. He drove and honked, rapidly speed up and slowed down, as I watched countless cars move along, squeezing past one another. As I watched, I found it difficult not to liken the ride to some reality-based video game. I shared this thought with Stalin and he laughed, glancing at his steering wheel turned joystick. We weaved through traffic and a warm breeze blew through the taxi’s four open windows. The natural wind was much welcomed. My flight had been filled with artificially flowing, not to mention quite frigid, air. Scooters swerved and rickshaws honked. Many vehicles held what appeared to me to be an unsafe number of passengers.
I realized that here in Bangalore the “rules of the road” don’t exist except to be broken. I enjoyed the 1 hour and 10 minute ride with Stalin but I must admit my legs tightened in fear a few times. Terrible traffic like this is no big deal to the people who live here though, so I guess I’ll just have to get used to it.
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| Ganapathi Temple Road in the section of Bengaluru city known as Koramangala. The street looks relatively calm in this shot, but it took me 1 full day to muster up the courage to cross this road! |
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