Indian Roads - Life's Classroom

There are two days in a week I really look forward to Sat & Sun......may be you think its the same for most of mankind as it is a weekend. It could be, but for me the reasons are special. Sat morning I have my guitar classes which I love going to and Sunday of course is the Sabbath on to my Lord......I just love to go and worship my King as his church with fellow saints.

Today being a Saturday, I had my guitar classes and the fun part is that we go to the class as a goup of 5, 2 learning drums and 3 (one of them is a recent addition) of us guitar. So, come Sat morning we get into our Indica Xeta with guitar and drumsticks (that sounds quite veggie) drive down to the house of Keba (one of the most gifted guitarists in town).
Usual routine is to finish classes, go to Murugan Idli Shop or Lakshmi Sagar and break our night long fast.
But today we digressed from our usual routine and was driving back home. Now about driving on Chennai roads I intend to write another blog.....it is an adventure by itself.

On the way we stopped at a junction for the signal to turn green and suddenly I hear a thud and felt a slight jerk in the car....no prizes for guessing, a box auto (not sure if thats what the vehicle is called) comes and bumps into the car from the back. I looked back and the driver looked apologetic and said sorry......Being the middle of the road i did not stop the vehicle and inspect the damage but just kept driving. Now my friends said I should have parked my car got out and shouted or abused or done something to that affect at the driver. They thought it was foolish of me to have just driven off.

Here I want to pause and look at the choices one can make to react in such a situation; There are generally two ways one could handle this;

The Broad Way:
The moment the auto bumped into the car, get out of the car, go straight to the driver and blurt out the usual dialogues - oh! yes....every one in this situation in Chennai uses these two sentences invariably...'Kannu theriyatha' , 'enge pathu vandi ottre'......and then it could either flare up to an argument other wise if the party who is guilty accepts mistake then you can vent out your emotions and depending on the damage done demand compensation. In most cases these drivers will not be able to afford a compensation. (Now the scenario would be different if it is a major damage where you will give an insurance claim etc, here it is about small petty bumper to bumper kisses, with a few scratches or negligible dent which is common when you drive bumper to bumper). The fall out of this would be increased levels of blood pressure, unnecessary use of unpleasant vocabulary, blocking traffic on the road leading to ripple effect of high levels of anger and frustration in other co-travellers who are affected by this petty argument.
What is the result? Absolutly nothing apart from chaotic frustration and in some rare cases may be you can extract a few hundreds from the party who is guilty of the offense.

Narrow Way:
Look back and see what happened and if the driver of the vehicle apologises, just drive off. It will if not anything help you keep your peace and may be leave the other party ponder a bit about such a benevolent gesture.
Now if the driver of the vehicle is not apologetic, you may want to handle the situation some other way. But nothing can stop us from handling any situation with grace. Tomorrow I could make the same mistake at a vehicle in front of me. How would I like the driver of that vehicle to react in such a situation? I dont think I will ever want that person to shout and abuse me for the mistake and I am sure no one will want that.

Then, perhaps we should all learn to 'do unto others what you would like to be done unto you' and I am still learning that.......i have a long way to go.........:)
I have realized over a period of time that Indian roads is a great class room. We can train ourselves in many ways to learn some of lifes good lessons (specially in the areas of patience, anger management & time management)
What do you say??
Obed
29Oct08