driving and my pathetic lack of Hindi

oh i know, i'm becoming a blogaholic now.

So first, some musings and pontifications. not so much deep questions, just a few thoughts.

1. why is it that..... i have logged almost 9 months in this here country and the word i most frequently and proudly use is "shubratri", which means "goodnight", and with what I deem to be flawless pronounciation, i might add. i am so proud of this, even though it is only one of 7 words i know in Hindi. I must do something about this and soon, learn more Hindi i mean.

the second random thought is:

Indians must navigate the streets, both while driving and while walking, in a similar way that a skier or snowboarder must navigate a densely populated tree run.... by focussing HARD on the spaces between the trees and not on the trees themselves, because as any tree boarder or tree skier knows, (and god help them, the tree skiers that is, they risk much more than a boarder does, being on two planks instead of one, leaving room for the ever-dreaded tree "straddle") if you focus on the tree, (or the obstacle you need to avoid) then THAT is the direction you become headed. If you focus on the tree, then your body goes towards the tree, however if you focus (optimistically) on the space between, then your body follows into that space. "Energy flows where attention goes" - a Huna principle.

The comparison came to me today as I, myself, navigated, as a person on foot, between a 3 personed moped and a semi-truck. Learning who has the right of way and what to do and which way to leap (successfully AND gracefully) at any given moment is KEY to survival in the art of Indian street navigation. There IS a hierarchy, and I am learning, a strange rank of priorities amongst the varied users of the road. There is the pedestrian, the dog, the monkey, the cow, the bicycle, the bicycle rickshaw, the bicycle propelled cart, the animal propelled cart (be it oxen, water buffalo, yak or mule), then there are the packs of construction mules, usually or 4 or 5, loaded with sand or river rocks and guided by their switch-carrying herder. Then of course, also using the road are the rickshaws, the cars, trucks, mopeds and motorcycles carrying anywhere from 1 to 4 passengers and occasionally a ladder or two.... hmmm, what else? busses, bigger trucks...

Anyhow, there is this whole hierarchy... and this list here is neither exhaustive nor in any order of priority. But somehow, I am intuitively learning where I fall in this hierarchy. The rules are not fast and hard, which is why I cannot articulate them here, but it IS interesting how I am intuitively learning when i need to stop and give way, when to lean in to someone (to make way), or when to step up to the curb or to higher ground, or right off the roadway altogether, and when I can just continue to walk in the middle of the road, even though I hear a honking vehicle approaching. I can't explain it, but somehow the system works.

And this morning...
I saw a mother, teaching her young teenage daughter to drive a moped. She had the daughter sitting right in front of her, but the mother was doing all the driving (and the requisite honking). The daughter was concentrating intently on the whole process and absorbing every cue, every nuance of the lesson.

I have noticed before, the level of concentration the drivers (most of them) give to the process of driving. It is like a game, except a deadly game, if they don't concentrate, many things can and will go wrong. I once saw a friend drive by on his motorbike as I passed the other way in a rickshaw. Neither of us was travelling very fast but even though I yelled his name so loud right at his face as we passed within inches of eachother, he never once turned or took his eyes off the road to look back. To do so could have been fatal to him or another. Total and utter concentration. Reminds me of a teenager playing an intense video game (or even some adults i know - and you KNOW who you are!), they can't take their eyes off the screen for a second and if you happen to walk between them and the t.v., they duck and dive their head around so as not to miss a thing.

well, that's it.
Tales, tails, tells


kisses and kisses and more kisses to all of you!