I received a call from Vinayak Kumar Verma, who is a resident of Hari Nagar and has just returned from Boston where he is studying music. He met with an accident and is peeved with the way Delhiites drive and the Traffic cops behave.

He says, “I was standing at South Ex Part II when a scooterist hit me at full speed and I was badly injured. I took the scooterist to the traffic cops and was stunned to see the way they reacted. They very casually told me that ‘it is a normal thing in Delhi and they can’t help me.’ They just asked the name of the company where the scooterist was working and let him go away. The traffic police here needs to be friendly with citizen. When we talk to them they look away. They don’t look at your face when you talk to them. They aren’t attentive and don’t want to help you. The way Delhiites drive and the way traffic is managed, it’s simply madness!”

Generally when I meet people who are coming to India after a long gap, they only whine about the traffic problem in Delhi and most of them are shit scared about driving on Delhi roads. The same roads where they once learnt driving. However, after a stint abroad, they become wiser and their road behaviour becomes excellent. They are so refined drivers that they don’t venture out on the streets of Delhi without a driver.

Most of the foreigners I interview, the first think they remark about Delhi is the traffic scenario and the way Delhi drivers drive. In fact I met Dave Parry once, who is the guy behind the light and sound system and the Buttkicker Bodysonic Dance floor of Elevate at Noida. He is from UK and out of the two hours I spent with him, half an hour conversation was on the traffic scene and Delhi’s errant drivers. He was staying in Moti Bagh and for him driving everyday to Noida was a complete adventure full of stories.

I remember another classmate of mine Lokesh. He stays in Karol Bagh and was born and brought up there only. He was a typical Delhi driver ten years back and was an expert in zig-zag driving. I met him this February once and there’s a sea change in him. He was a guy who never had a habit of walking. Even to go from Khalsa College till SRCC, he used to always take his car. I met him in Karol Bagh market and he was on his way to a bank in Old Rajinder Nagar. I thought as usual he’d take out his car. But I was taken aback when he started a long discourse on the way Delhiites drive and how difficult it is for him now to drive on these roads again. He didn’t forget to remind me of how mad he was the way he used to drive earlier. He preferred walking the entire one-and-a-half kilometre stretch. How I just wish all Delhiites were like Lokesh.