Friday, March 16, 2007

Driving in Tamil Nadu

This post should have published 2/21/07 but it didn't. :(

Family matters, especially in India. Despite my obvious culpability in losing our passports, my father-in-law and an "uncle" dutifully drove me to the US Consolate in Madras the very next morning.

One thing I immediately liked about Tamil Nadu was that all the street signs were in English as well as the local language, Tamil. In Karnataka, most of the signs are in Kannada which makes it difficult to navigate for us Kannada illiterates.

The "uncle" warned me that he might have to make a lot of sudden stops to avoid near misses with pedestrians and other drivers. This uncle is Tamilian. He told me, "The cattle in my state are rather well-behaved than in Karnataka, so you won't find them in the middle of the road. But, sad to say, the people are not, they do everything in the road -- dry their grains for cooking, go potty, brush their teeth, shampoo their hair, and sleep."

And as we drove all the way from Hosur to Madras, I saw people doing just that on the side of the road and counted 10 vehicular homicides that this Tamilian uncle prevented just in time.

1 comment:

Anil P said...

It can be quite a hellraiser the average Indian road through town :)