Wackiness behind the wheel in Delhi

In India, we play bumper cars -- amusement parks are irrelevant. These sepia-tone photos weren't taken decades ago. Here, dying clunkers still share the roads with rickshaws. (Photos by Mudra Mukesh)

Excuse me, sir, but there is no HOV lane.

Does GPS even work here?

At left, your rock. At right, your hard place.

Puneet Sandhu is a student of public relations at Boston University. She was raised in New Delhi, and after a recent visit home, found that she could manage to laugh at Delhi’s chaotic traffic situation -- now that she doesn’t have to endure it every day.

By Puneet Sandhu

I checked the car clock. 11:37 a.m. I looked up and saw the elusive traffic light in the distance, whose commands we all awaited on the busy road in south Delhi. I glanced around at neighboring passengers on cars, trucks, bikes, auto-rickshaws -- and I pondered our collective dilemma that didn’t feel like one, thanks to its sheer banality. I’d give about 13 more minutes for the traffic to move enough to put me at the head of this long, serpentine queue of vehicles. Another three minutes or so to wait till the light turned green again. “It should be relatively smooth from there on,” I said to my American cousin, pulling at the handbrake and allowing myself to relax.

It was only when I got no response did I look to the passenger side. Terror had taken over his tall, lanky frame. With an expression I reserve for slasher flicks, he was staring at the vehicle next to ours. Which happened to be a huge, daunting truck. Which happened to be not more than 2 inches from my sideview mirror. Which happened to shock, fascinate, and terrify my cousin all at the same time. Which was a far cry from his experience with his country’s wide roads and orderly traffic.

Which I found atrociously hilarious.

I went on to explain to him that there was no reason to be alarmed, that this was not an aberration, that we weren’t going to die, that we would make it back home without any scars or dents to show for our journey. He looked at me incredulously, sort of stared right through me. I imagined him having an out-of-body experience, his whole life flashing in front of his eyes as he prepared to die on an unknown continent, away from everything he had ever known.

And just then, the serpent jerked back to life. I lowered the hand brake, yanked at the gear stick, and danced with the clutch and accelerator. I was back in action. I could feel my muscles tense and my face frown in anticipation of what was to follow -- apocalypse to the foreign eye, absolutely normal chaos to a Delhiite.

Like everyone else on that road, I had my own idea about which lane would move fastest. Obviously, I wanted to be in that lane. As did every other driver, regardless of which direction they finally had to turn to. (Unspoken traffic rule in Delhi: You can be in whatever lane you want. Your final direction is irrelevant.) The next minute was spent flashing my indicator, positioning my car between the slower and faster lane, dodging fast cars in the latter, trying to wriggle into the little space they’d leave among themselves. With every inch that the car lurched forward, I imagine my cousin’s heart skipped a beat.

We finally made it to the desired lane and I raced forward, hoping that I would make it out of that street before the lights turned red again. After about a kilometer, when I was much closer to the intersection, I saw a stagnant sea of vehicles. Suddenly, the traffic lights, which were responsible for the minuscule amount of order in that scenario, became superfluous. If the intersection itself was jammed with traffic, then the lights might as well be nonexistent. This was a situation in which only some aggressive cutting through lanes, rolling down of windows, putting your hand out to signal your direction, giving scathing looks, and hurling the choicest of abuses could solve. Road rage works on any land mass.

I, on the other hand, decided to change my route. I looked up at the sign that said “free left turn’’ (where those wanting to turn left can do so regardless of what the traffic light says) and then back at the traffic that was clogging the left lane and snickered. How typical. But with the indefatigable spirit of a Delhi driver, I joined that line. I was six cars away from the turn and I was not going to wait till some traffic-rule-breaking drivers thought it was OK for me to pass.

That was my left turn and I wanted to turn left now. The look of determination on my face did not do wonders for my cousin’s heart -- he could see me getting into war mode. “Can’t you, like, just relax?” he said. One nasty look (from my pool reserved for other Delhi drivers) and the boy was quiet.

And then I honked. And honked. And honked some more. I honked through dirty glances in rearview and sideview mirrors, through high trucks and small cars, through sentences hurled at me that were angry and exasperated at the same time. One by one, the cars in front of me moved to let me go. As I passed them, I looked at their drivers with all the self-righteousness I could muster.

When I finally took my turn left, my cousin let out the loudest sigh of relief I have ever heard and giggled nervously. Somehow I had managed to add six cars to the crowded chaos that the intersection was. The lights still kept changing, oblivious to the mess around them. And just as fist fights and profanity were threatening to take over the street, I zoomed away from something I can always laugh at. Delhi moving at its best. And worst.

To blog for Passport, e-mail Lydia Rebac at lrebac@globe.com