The driving adventure from last post triggered a thought
about how organized the way of living for the people in US is. As I said
earlier, driving or rather most aspects of US lifestyle, from what I observed
in my time here, are organised. People don’t honk while driving! Even the dogs
don’t bark much!! Take it from hiking to food habits to exercise, people think
a lot over things and then try to make it as risk averse as possible. Human
life is much more valued and cared for than most other places can afford to. If
you go on a hike, you would find that there are properly maintained trails. If
you are in the wild, you are allowed to go on the trails and camp at specific
campsites, but not otherwise. So living in developing countries can be much unorganized when compared to this.
India I believe is equivalent to beautiful chaos for many
western travelers. It might be much enriched, diverse, beautiful but day to
day lives are chaos at the end of the day! And it needs a lot of skills to be
adjusted to that. If we take this context of driving, a driver in India never
knows where the next pothole will come from, neither the dogs nor bikes nor buffaloes. And that needs a lot of skills to be aware and be equipped and be able
to respond to that. I believe, I have been good at it. I was never organised in
my things, thoughts or activities but always thrived on that belief in myself
to be able to respond to things effectively. I enjoy riding a bike than
travelling in a train or a bus or even driving a car cause that keeps me busy,
on my toes and needs me always to be aware of my surroundings! It becomes so “not
boring”. Same goes with life. I remember, I was riding through south India,
alone for more than 3500 kilometers and was staying in Pondicherry for a while.
My friend was using my bike for a short duration and it broke down 20 km away
from town. I never saw him panic that much. I understand there were some other
stakes involved there, but I’m sure I would have handled the situation in
calmer manner. After a couple of days in the journey my rear tyre punctured and
the guy mending that removed my brake oil tube. Already exhausted from 17 days
ride, I rode last 230 kilometers without rear brake as I was 2 days late to
join office.
I was at Kashid a few months back enjoying the beach. I
don’t know how to swim, but I was still treading the waters as the depths are
much more gradual than most beaches there. The waves are quite rhythmic, speeds
predictable. If you observe them closely, you could gauge the height the water
would rise to as the wave approaches. If you stay still and stubborn, the water
will pass over your head. But if you face the seashore, rise along with the
water as the wave hits you by an upward thrust to your body, you can easily
float for that moment enjoying the ride and then move towards the shore keeping
the body perfectly upright, cycling forward with your feet, landing softly on
the land. Afraid of the depths, this was my first time in such sea waters where
the depths were more 5 feet. It was a wonderful experience and a confidence
booster for me. But, it also taught me an important lesson, that learning to
ride the waves was a wonderful thing which enabled me for that experience but
riding could take me only that much. I could see my friends swimming in deeper
waters as it was calm anyway and floating along nicely. Riding the situations can
never make you a driver of things. Driving the things takes much more.
Sometimes, this ability of riding the chaos or situations
comes with a cost. It gives you reasons to remain unorganized. It gives you
reasons to delay decision making. It gives you reasons to not drive things to
completion... if that is what your inherent nature is... and the things get
worse for you in a scenario when everyone else is organised, everyone else is
following rules, everyone else is completing things. Take this scenario of
driving. The blessing here is that there would not be dogs, buffaloes or bikes
blocking you out of nowhere, but the problem also lies in the structure that it
forces you to follow the rules very strictly that you cannot stop abruptly if
you have taken a wrong turn, you cannot slow down beyond a limit on highways if
you are unsure of the next turn, you cannot afford to enter a wrong lane
because it has inherently enabled everyone else to go at a faster speeds.
Organized structure has lots and lots of advantages but it could be devastating
for us unorganized mortals! It’s high time I work on getting things together
and start be disciplined. Cause the art of the day is to
bring chaos to order!