It seems at times that some Indians have a remarkably low tolerance for reality if it impedes their desires. We all do it at times, but they simply do it better.  There is no better place to witness this rule than on Indian roads, where every year over 160,000 thousand people will die in traffic accidents. 160,000. That number staggers.

A few of the bigger roads have sturdy medians running down the center to keep the two sides of traffic apart. Logically this should reduce traffic accidents, eliminating head on collisions all together. It doesn’t. It causes them. Here’s why. An Indian driver that comes out of a lane and wants to cut across traffic and go the other way cannot. Instead he should do what happens in the rest of the world. He should join the traffic flow on his side, drive some distance down-road until a break in the median—which likely is there only because other local drivers have removed that part themselves—and then turn around and get into the flow going the other way. Reasonable safe and done. But that would all be terribly inconvenient and is contrary to what the Indian driver really wants to do, which is go the other way immediately, so he does, right into oncoming traffic, honking wildly because in his world, everyone else is now going the wrong way. While driving we’ve nearly hit motorcycles, buses, and auto-rickshaws all coming the wrong way because it was more convenient for drives to ignore reality. If you understand this basic rule, you understand India, or at least why you just got hit head-on by a bus. I pity the Indian urban planner who tries out one-way streets.

Honking is a problem here. Horns are used at every approach, every turn, every instance where one Indian driver is about to put their vehicle into the spot where another already is. The horn absolves the driver of guilt. I honked, why were you still in my spot? Remove the horn, and the drivers would need to be more cautious, a similar theory to remove the protective gear from football, and fewer players would get hurt. The problem is once again Indian drivers don’t allow reality to impede desire. Remove the horn and they will simply do what they do today in queues. When presented with a queue for service, an Indian will simply walk past the queue to the service desk and start explaining the service they need. When confronted about the queue they’ve just jumped, they will ask What queue? Nothing you say will convince them that a queue exists, and in fact at no point will their gaze fall onto the actual queue. It’s the see no evil theory of life. Reality will not impede desire. The rule has been applied.

I read in this morning’s Deccan Times that politicians are considering raising the fine for jumping a red light from the equivalent of 50 cents, to 5 dollars. I don’t think it will have any affect for a number of reasons beyond the application of the rule mentioned above. First, there are no police to enforce it. And second, jumping a red light requires that there are in fact working red lights to jump. The few traffic lights that do exist here seem to be strung together like a cheap set of Chinese Christmas lights. Somewhere there’s a burnt bulb, but until you find it the whole system is down.

This week I had my third driver. It’s unclear to me why they keep changing, but I’ve noticed a progressive decline in both their English and height. This one also has a second thumb, fully formed, but smaller, like a brother, or perhaps twin. It’s on his right hand. I’m finding it hard not to stare as he drives.

Although my trip to Hampi went well, booking the ticket ran into India’s legendary bureaucracy. This is a rough transcript of the conversation I had with India Railways Online site for tourists booking their train tickets.

Where do you live?

I live in Canada.

Good, you live in Canada. You’ve come to the right place. This is the site for foreign tourists booking trains while in India. What’s your phone number?

555-5555-5555

That’s not a valid phone number.

It is in Canada.

I need your Indian phone number.

I don’t have one. I live in Canada.

Yes, but what’s your Indian Phone number?

I think you’re missing something here, I live in Canada.

Fine, let’s ignore your phone number for a moment. Your postal code is wrong.

It’s Canadian.

It’s wrong.

No it’s not. It’s my Canadian Postal code.

It’s not a proper Indian one.

But I live in Canada. I’ve told you that.  You said this was the site for foreigners.

Yes, you’re right, but you still need a proper Indian postal code.  What Indian city do you live in?

After some time I managed to work through all the various issues and entered my credit card information, only to have the system respond…

    You can’t use that. It’s not an Indian credit card.

I ended up having one of my co-workers book the train for me.

When I last came to Hyderabad there was a sign on the roadside that said Work In Progress. It was still there on my way in from the airport last week, stuck in the ground next to a perennially half-finished highway overpass. All around sprawled makeshift tents built from various scraps found along the road. Inside live families surviving on less than a dollar a day. One man carved stone bowls while cars drove pass only a foot away from what served as his front door. Looking at the squalor it was difficult to spot the progress to which the sign referred, but then you weren’t meant to look too closely. Like the queue, if you chose not to look at what was actually there, then the sign was real. Driving to the airport this evening the Work In progress sign had been removed. They say recognizing the problem is the first step in recovery. Perhaps removing the sign is that very indication of progress after all. That or someone stole it to use as a roof.

Well enough of my preaching. I’ve got 24 hours of flying to do.