Driving in India! What an Experience in Krsna's Protection!

[krsna]

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The following item was extracted from the travel section of a UK daily newspaper:

 

Travelling in India is an almost hallucinatory potion of sound, spectacle and experience. It is frequently heart-rending, sometimes hilarious, mostly exhilarating, always unforgettable - and, when you are on the roads, extremely dangerous.

 

Most Indian road users observe a version of the Highway Code based on an ancient text. These 12 rules of the Indian road are published for the first time in English.

 

ARTICLE I The assumption of immortality is required of all road users.

 

ARTICLE II The following precedence must be accorded at all times. In descending order, give way to: cows, elephants, heavy trucks, buses, official cars, camels, light trucks, buffalo, Jeeps, ox-carts, private cars, motorcycles, scooters, auto-rickshaws, pigs, pedal rickshaws, goats, bicycles (goods- carrying), handcarts, bicycles (passenger-carrying), dogs, pedestrians.

 

ARTICLE III All wheeled vehicles shall be driven in accordance with the maxim: to slow is to falter, to brake is to fail, to stop is defeat. This is the Indian drivers’ mantra.

 

ARTICLE IV Use of horn (also known as the sonic fender or aural amulet): Cars

(IV,1,a-c): Short blasts (urgent) indicate supremacy, ie in clearing dogs, rickshaws and pedestrians from path. Long blasts (desperate) denote supplication, ie to oncoming truck, “I am going too fast to stop, so unless you slow down we shall both die”. In extreme cases this may be accompanied by flashing of headlights (frantic). Single blast (casual) means “I have seen someone out of India’s 870 million whom I recognize”, “There is a bird in the road (which at this speed could go through my windscreen)” or “I have not blown my horn for several minutes.” Trucks and buses (IV,2,a): All horn signals have the same meaning, viz, “I have an all-up weight of approximately 12.5 tons and have no intention of stopping, even if I could.” This signal may be emphasized by the use of headlamps (insouciant). Article IV remains subject to the provision of Order of Precedence in Article II above

ARTICLE V All manoeuvres, use of horn and evasive action shall be left until the last possible moment.

ARTICLE VI In the absence of seat belts (which there is), car occupants shall wear garlands of marigolds. These should be kept fastened at all times.

ARTICLE VII Rights of way: Traffic entering a road from the left has priority. So has traffic from the right, and also traffic in the middle. Lane discipline

(VII,1): All Indian traffic at all times and irrespective of direction of travel shall occupy the centre of the road.

ARTICLE VIII Roundabouts: India has no roundabouts. Apparent traffic islands in the middle of crossroads have no traffic management function. Any other impression should be ignored.

ARTICLE IX Overtaking is mandatory. Every moving vehicle is required to overtake every other moving vehicle, irrespective of whether it has just overtaken you. Overtaking should only be undertaken in suitable conditions, such as in the face of oncoming traffic, on blind bends, at junctions and in the middle of villages/city centres. No more than two inches should be allowed between your vehicle and the one you are passing - and one inch in the case of bicycles or pedestrians.

ARTICLE X Vaikuntha may be obtained through the head-on crash.

ARTICLE XI Reversing: no longer applicable since no vehicle in India has reverse gear.

ARTICLE XII The 10th incarnation of God was as an articulated tanker.

[Guest guest]

The author is trying too hard to be funny. And that's why it ceases to be funny.

[Ayodhya]

I thought it was good!

 

Doesn't Article I contradict Article X?

If we are immortal and can't die, how could we attain Vaikuntha through a head-on crash?

[theist]

I was always praying that I could be allowed to cross the street without being rammed by a car rickshaw or bull.

 

I have heard the saying that you can drive in Dehli you can drive anywhere. I believe it.

[mrs.moore]

driving in india is not funny.

[krsna]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/74321

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/74321

 

 

 

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[size=4][color=darkred]More than [b][i]100,000[/i][/b] people died in traffic accidents in India in 2006, as its roads became the world's deadliest.[/color][/size]

Chris Morris went on patrol with Indian police to see some of the effects of some of the country's erratic drivers - including, after nightfall, the BBC's own vehicle being hit (no-one hurt). <!-- E BO -->

[suchandra]

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/74321

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/74321

 

 

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/74321

 

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/74321

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[php]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/74321[/php]

 

 

[size=4][color=darkred]More than [b][i]100,000[/i][/b] people died in traffic accidents in India in 2006, as its roads became the world's deadliest.[/color][/size]

<!-- E BO --> Chris Morris went on patrol with Indian police to see some of the effects of some of the country's erratic drivers - including, after nightfall, the BBC's own vehicle being hit (no-one hurt).

 

The Indian railway is trying to solve that problem by offering a better service. The Indian Railways started its pilgrim packages to locations like Vaishno Devi, Puri, Rishikesh, Shirdi etc and runs a total of 76 tour packages to other locations like Jaipur, Jammu & Kashmir, Goa, Bangalore, Pune and Kanyakumari, among others.

 

<table class="TableClas" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td class="heading">[color=Olive][b][size=5]Pilgrims show up on Lalu's radar screen[/size][/b][/color]</td></tr><tr><td height="11">

</td></tr><tr><td class="author">Bijith R / New Delhi June 11, 2008, 5:38 IST

 

 

</td></tr><tr><td height="4">Minister Lalu Prasad

</td></tr><tr><td style="background-image: url(/images/common/gn_005.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x;">http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?autono=325759&leftnm=5&subLeft=0&chkFlg=

</td></tr></tbody></table>[b]TRAVEL:[/b] The tour packages started by IRCTC include rail and road travel, hotel accommodation, meals and sightseeing. For a better part of his political career, Lalu Prasad was known best as a street smart politician and nothing else. He could play the political game well and had endeared himself to the masses, though he failed to make a mark as an administrator.

Things took a turn for the better once he took over as the railway minister in the Manmohan Singh government four years back. Since then, he has improved the performance of the Indian Railways beyond recognition, shored up its finances, given low-cost airlines a run for their money and taken the challenge from truck and bus owners head on.

Next, Indian Railways has decided to cash in on the boom in pilgrimage tourism. Tour operators need to watch out for this latest salvo from Prasad's armoury.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), an arm of the Indian Railways, started its pilgrim packages to locations like Vaishno Devi, Puri, Rishikesh, Shirdi etc and runs a total of 76 tour packages to other locations like Jaipur, Jammu & Kashmir, Goa, Bangalore, Pune and Kanyakumari, among others.

Customers who take this package need not worry about rail travel, road transport, hotel accommodation, meals and sightseeing. All of it is taken care of by the IRCTC at a price, of course.

Pilgrims account for almost 40 per cent of domestic Indian tourists. It only made sense to ratchet this business into something big. "Our tour packages to religious locations like Vaishno Devi, Tirupati, Puri and Shirdi have generated huge interest among domestic tourists and we have decided to scale up our services in these areas," said IRCTC Managing Director Nalin Shinghal.

It tasted big time success only in January 2007 when it launched the Vaishno Devi package to Jammu from New Delhi, which was an immediate sellout. For this, IRCTC has tied up with a hotel at the shrine, where customers can stay. They are given food on board as well as off board. The hotel also provides local transport for additional sightseeing etc. All these services just cost Rs 3,950 per person for three nights and four days.

The service, IRCTC officials claim, has been 90 per cent sold out. The company now plans to convert this package into a daily package from Delhi, Jaipur and Mumbai. It has also decided to make available this tour package from more cities like Ahmedabad, Indore, Lucknow, Secunderabad and Kolkata from next month.

Similarly, the Tirupati tour package, which was launched in January 2008, has generated good response from pilgrims, and now IRCTC plans to make available this service from Delhi and Kolkata, apart from the daily service that is currently available from Chennai, Secunderabad, Mumbai, Bangalore and Vijayawada.

Also on the cards is a high-decibel publicity campaign to make these packages more popular among customers. A campaign involving danglers and posters at IRCTC stalls and food plazas as well as scrolls on religious TV channels, spots on FM Radio, newspapers, displays at metro stations etc is being launched.

"Our main target is the mid-segment customers and these services will provide great convenience to them at affordable cost", added Shinghal.

So how are other tour operators managing their service and attracting customers when IRCTC tour packages are becoming more popular?

Mudit Khosla, founding general manager, Yatra.Com, a travel portal, said, "Since the target customers of IRCTC is the mid-segment customers and that of travel portals are high end customers, we don't see any possible business threat from them. On the other hand, IRCTC has really helped in creating a category of customers who are now going for a whole package comprising of end to end service, which in the long run will help other tour operators also."