ROAD MOST TRAVELLED It must be in India

and I grip the side firmly. Looking through the back window, I watch the driver wind a rope around some part of the motor and then pull it smartly towards himself with a flourish. On the fourth go, the motor leaps into life and he rushes round and jumps nimbly into the driver’s seat; the other two climb in hastily and drape an arm around him and each other as they balance precariously on the seat designed for two. In India there is always room.

We see whole families riding on one motorbike — father in front, child balanced on the handlebars, mother sitting side-saddle at the back with the baby. But first prize must go to the minibus taxi, inside of which we count 22 people; outside, six more balance on the back bumper and cling on.

Although white lines demarcate lanes on the road, there might as well be none. Cars, buses, tuktuks, motorbikes, bicycles, trucks and rickshaws crowd into every available space, amid a cacophony of hooting. Drivers hoot to make way, to signal they are passing, or just sommer! Vans carry the words “Blow horn!” on the back, and everybody, it seems, obliges.

In addition to the listed road users, there are pedestrians, horses, camels, cows, stray dogs and the occasional elephant. Cows in particular take full advantage of their sacred status in mainly Hindu Rajasthan and think nothing of standing in the middle of a double-lane highway, nonchalantly watching the traffic swerve around them.

At one point we stop at a level crossing. As the train passes, the traffic spreads across both lanes. The train disappears and leaves us facing traffic solidly across two lanes in the opposite direction. I close my eyes and pray. Miraculously we find ourselves over the crossing and back in the left-hand lane.

The people in India are unfailingly obliging and helpful. We learn that a tuk-tuk driver will never admit that he doesn’t know the way.

“Why do you keep stopping to talk to people? Don’t you know the way?”

“I must be sure to be delivering you safely. I am your son…”

Now, before I complain about South African traffic, I think of India… — © Jill Jacques

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