Indian Music on Wheels

For people who frequent India, or are Indians, this may sound familiar. But for the first timers, who think they need to visit here, I'm damn sure they would be annoyed. And why not? Afterall, it is those people who know the fact that India is a multi-cultural country. They have different types of cultures and heritage. From Tansen to Rahman, India has had some really great music composers. We have also had aspirants like Anu Malik, who succeed at first but fail when they're caught. But it is not limited to just composers. Even the type of music and dance is varied. From Carnatic to Hindustani classical, to devotional and soft music, each language has its own explicit collection which can really add to your collection.

From the Bangalore front though, the most recent addition have been a huge number of instrumental artistes. Yes, the people who use their automobiles. Honking is the in thing and people have their own skills which are all worth it in different occasions. Like the soft songs of Pt. Bhimsen Joshi or Carnatic of Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna. But again, everyone has their own speciality.

While driving on the roads here, people have the tendency to express their emotions at times, while at many others, the vehicle itself tries to express the emotions. Lets say, for example, a college boy was gifted his first bike ride on his father's bike. He expresses the joy of convincing his dad for a ride, by honking at all empty stretches and any other wrong places. Or, a mechanic is trying out the new 1000W home-theater effect he just managed to setup and equalize on a customer's car. So, the mechanic will always be looking for a favor. Hence, he would blare out the horn and ensure that the customer is deaf for atleast the rest of his life.

Now, when a vehicle gets emotional, this is what would happen::

Scenario 1: The vehicle has idled for 172 seconds on a traffic signal which would be of a 180 second duration. In Bangalore, the timer LED starts blinking when there is 8 or less seconds remaining for "Lift Off". This is not for people to start their engines, because they dont know how to shut it off. But it is for the vehicles from the second row and further behind to actuate their horn. Yeah! This is a real booster for the first row guys to jump the signal with just 1 seconds. And many would also be proud when the cops hand them the trophy just after the signal jump.

Scenario 2: The vehicle has again idled for over 400 seconds at a railway level crossing, which would be closed for atleast 15-20 minutes, which is stretchable by another 10-15 minutes if the railway motorman and the guy at the gates are from the same home-town. The vehicle is already concerned that it cannot churn out the mileage, which the humans have already delegated to the ECU. Next, the carbon foot-print is also too high. So, even as the train passes by and the gates are halfway up, the war is on at the first layer of automobiles on either side. While this is so, the troops behind motivate the ones at the frontier by incessantly honking. This is again, a vehicle emotion and I wouldn't blame the humans.

I just see a few remedial steps for this:

1. Driving schools should have an All-time horn like All-time 4WD. This would help a few things. One, people would know that the car has a big red "L". Second, the student would get so irritated of horns, that he/she wont use the horns. And also, since they dont learn how to honk, they wont know where the switch of the horn is in their cars. Finally, there wont be damage to any kind of civilization, as all of them would make way to incessant honking.

2. Every time the driver honks, the brake pedal should actuate. That way, by banging the head against the steering almost thrice a second, people would realize it is safer for all to brake than honk.

Well, if my suggestions were to be considered, why would I be blogging this? I would be riding back seat on a car with a red beacon light and asking my driver to honk his way to the fore.