Traffic, Health and Death in Bangalore

clip from the Times of India

So, this article in the Times of India goes to some length to describe why Bangalores drivers are the worst. But the real problem is the way that life interacts with traffic in Bangalore. The narrow streets, the unfinished roads, the volume of traffic, especially motorcycles and mopeds is just stunning. There is almost no perceivable traffic order and priority everyone just heads in every direction at once and cuts in and out honking all the time.

There are a number of things that make it worse, much worse. You need to understand that cows are sacred and deemed to be a good luck charm. Even in the city they are easily found wandering freely, helping eat the trash and what ever else they can find that can be swallowed, not I didn’t say digestible, cause I don’t want to look. I did see a cow one day eating, chewing what looked like the remnents of a brown paper bag.

Wednesday though there was a massive traffic jam on the way to the hotel, eventually we pulled alongside a man pulling a cow in the road by a piece of rope, tethered to the cow by what looed like a steel bridal through his nose. The guy was far enough from the kerb to cause the traffic jam. Just before we got to him, I could see a massive stream of urine and the cow defacting as the man struggled to move the cow. The guy wasn’t looking at the cow, he was too busy talking on his cellphone. Surreal, when worlds collide.

It wasn’t surpising when this small van passed us the next day, on the side of the van it said Coffin Box, Funeral Box, Embalming or some such. My first reaction was wow, given it was something like 37c/98f I hope the body is properly embalmed, but on closer inspection, there seem to be wheels on the bottom, maybe it isn’t a coffin afterall. Yep, Bangalore traffic is pretty unusual.

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