Or: Arse-Buster ‘07

It’s been a while since I blogged, but I have a great excuse. No I don’t. Anyway, I have returned.

A stray cow on India’s highway system, shot from the car as we passed within about a foot of the beast.

Hyderabad had a lot of sites of interest, but we decided early on that we wanted to get a broader view of India. It’s a fairly diverse landscape after all, each area with its own unique languages, scenery, wildlife, and scents. (Especially scents. As Kalyan stated, ‘India is definitely a country of interesting smells.’ This was astutely pointed out as we passed within a mile or so of a truly acrid sugar rendering plant.) Since India is so large, we decided on a five day trip going to various points in South India, leaving North India for perhaps a future vacation. Following was a question of logistics: how would we travel?

In India, the two preferred means of long distance travel are planes and trains. Trains pose some problems: though less expensive, they are slow, run hours late (Kalyan experienced a ten hour wait once), and have a proportional relationship between sardine-style-packing and ticket price. Expensive tickets might get you your own bed (though at those prices you may as well fly), cheaper tickets might have you sharing a bed with a stranger, and dirt cheap tickets involve conditions most Westerners would demand general anaesthesia for. Despite being a fairly integral Indian experience, the long waits and ticket issues made us decide against train travel.

As for air travel, it possesses its own set of charming frustrations. Plus, it’s fairly expensive- maybe a bit cheaper than flying in the States, but after spending so much on the tickets flying to India, we wanted a more affordable option. I don’t remember who suggested it (so by default, I’ll blame Kalyan), but at that point, the topic of using a car came up.

It seemed an attractive option. The furthest point we wanted to check out were those famous Indian beaches at Goa, a mere 500 or so miles away- about equivalent to a drive from Irvine to San Francisco. It was surprisingly affordable as well, especially between the three of us. According to the guidebook we had, hiring a driver with a car is often cheaper than renting just a car. I guess that having a population above 1 billion tends to drive down costs of labour. With Indian driving making the busiest day on streets of New York City look like a charming and pleasant English countryside drive, it was also the saner option. We decided to go for a driver, and to find out first hand why nobody drives cross country in India.

A goatherd ushers his herd across the highway. Probably the least terrifying obstacle on India’s roads.

Though I’ve described driving in Indian cities, understood cultural road rules on the highway turned out to be completely different, and I was to get a good view of them from the front seat of our vehicle.

The agency sent us a driver with a small Tata vehicle. In case you’re unfamiliar with Tata, they make everything in India. No, really. I had already heard of Tata: at the CDMA company I work at, I occasionally have to program devices with India’s Tata service provider. I was surprised when I arrived and noticed pretty much all the vehicles in India, from small passenger vehicles to the massive buses that put out enough diesel fumes to single handedly shame Texas, said ‘TATA’ on them. I thought this was a coincidence, but learned that they are in fact one and the same company. To give you an idea of a few of the areas they are involved in, Tata group builds vehicles, provides cell phone service, refines iron and steel, makes ceramics, owns an airline, creates household goods from soaps to cooking oils, runs hydro-electric plants, engineers chemicals… and it all began with a family which made a fortune in textiles.

The Tata vehicle was fairly comfortable. It was a very compact hatchback, but had a TARDIS like ability to comfortably seat four of us plus luggage. Kalyan, his sense of adventure held carefully in check by a healthy fear of death, graciously volunteered me to be in the most dangerous spot, the passenger seat. (How does such a strong sense of self-preservation hold up in a guy who believes in reincarnation? He must have been misbehaving recently.) I even more graciously accepted, my reasoning being threefold- a) I found my legs a bit cramped in the back seat, b) years of drinking have granted me a profound enjoyment for the tragicomic, and Indian highways seemed to fit the bill perfectly, and c) I figured the pictures would be better.

The dangerous lengths I go to in order to please my audience.

Coming up… rules of the Indian road, and we find out why trains and planes are so popular.