Rules and Customs for road users in India

1. Vehicles on a roundabout do not have priority.
2. Sound your horn as often as you like. Nobody will take offence.
3. Slow vehicles should not keep to the left. Anywhere in the road will do.
4. If there is a white line in the middle of the road, it should be used for guidance.
5. Pedestrians should walk in the road as it has a better surface than the pavement – assuming there is one.
6. Pedestrians should walk in the direction of traffic and should not walk in single file.
7. Pedestrians waiting at a zebra or other crossing should wait for a gap in the traffic – no vehicle will stop.
8. Pedestrians can cross the road anywhere they find convenient especially if slow or pulling a hand-cart.
9. If a motorist strikes a pedestrian it is bad luck for the pedestrian, but if he hits and animal it probably means a heavy fine or jail.
10. It’s ok to join a stream of traffic, or to cross it, at any time as long as oncoming traffic can stop in time. This also applies to: - making U-turns, stopping to set-down or pick-up passengers (which need not be done in the left-had lane), changing lanes, etc.
11. Do not get angry at other road users – you’ll not last 10 minutes.
12. It’s ok to carry as many people as you can crowd into or on your vehicle.
13. As per 10, it’s ok to go in the opposite direction for a short way.
14. If a policeman signals you to stop, do so, get out and find out how much he’ll take to let you go on. He needs to make a living too.

Kummily to Kumarakom

January 6th (Kumilly to Kumarokan)

Before breakfast two pairs of birds stayed long enough in a near by tree to enable us to have a good look. First was the red-crested cuckoo with red stripes to its wings and a mustard yellow back. Then the blackbird which had a surprisingly clear and resonant song, and was distinguished by a tail appendage of two long stalks with a small feather at the end, 10 or 12 inches from the end of the tail proper.

The roads were full on a Sunday morning with buses and pedestrians including many long distance pilgrims, singly and in groups, with their belongings in a bundle on their heads, trekking to some religious destination. Looking out for the variety of Christian churches I espied a Bethany Bible Institute, which Douglas Fairman would have known about, I surmised.

The descent to the coastal plain from around 4000 or 5000 feet was predictably vertiginous, and the occasional group of bus passengers whose stomachs were not up to the challenge were seen by the roadside – another reason why the more basic Indian buses have no glass in the side – windows – I had thought it was just for ‘air-conditioning’. Musing on the journey, I started a list of rules for driving in India.