Delhi: A city where a horn could mean a polite “F.O” to a little rude “gun shot”

Driving on the roads of Delhi you realize one thing that India is not happy. We, as a nation, might be running on the road to prosperity but spend 5 minutes in Delhi traffic and you will wonder either that road to prosperity is media hyped or the road is a lot more bumpy. What’s worse is it injects in the people some sort of venom that comes out in full flow when they are out on the roads trying to fight their way to hell or wherever.

It seems like people while leaving home decide on the traffic rules. In case Mr. X is getting late he is entitled to jump red lights, cut people across lanes and most importantly has the license to curse anyone and everyone who tries to come in between him and his final destination. In case you are from Delhi or any other big metro city for that matter have you ever crossed a happy face in the traffic?

You know the funniest thing is that its not that people don’t want to smile. I tried this experiment while stuck in the peak office hours a few days back. I smiled at everyone who crossed me and to my utter surprise I got around 80 per cent response. That is people smiled back. So why is it that people are normally so stressed out while driving?

I think we tend to associate smile with weakness especially when it comes to holding your space in traffic. Aggression is the key to save five minutes of your travel time. What people do not understand that if everyone had a little more patience and did not try to be the first one in everything, traffic would be much smoother. I wonder if we can all take an oath that for one day everyone will follow traffic rules, be patient, not try to cut others and WILL NOT HONK. I think we can solve at least 30 per cent of our traffic problems in just one day of smooth traffic.
I used to be among the impatient drivers but I have learnt a lot of things over the last one year. I hope we all can change. For India to reach the stature of a Super Power in every aspect we need to change our attitude most importantly attitude towards each other. May be roads are a good place to start the change?

Remember to pass a smile to someone you cross while driving. It might start a chain reaction.

India can be a happy nation too.