A peek into the slum near my house
Now that the weather is entirely manageable - it only this week finally dipped into the high twenties - it is a joy to walk the 3km to work every morning. I would love to be able to say it's peaceful and calm at 8am but I would be spinning a yarn; it is chaos. Clunky clanky school buses that look like they were birthed in the 1950s trundle along full of chattering children, excited for the day ahead. I often get a sea of small hands reaching out to wave to me as I pass, which is entirely sweet and smile-inducing. Ancient sinewy men sing out to advertise their steel pots of hot sugary chai, to be gulped down in tiny measures for a couple of rupees. Teenagers in school uniforms linger at the roadside, gobbling down greasy snacks before the academic day begins, staring wide-eyed at me as I pass.
These days I take a quiet road through the side of one of the slums, where livestock and barefoot children rush about giddily, squeaking and squawking, shrieking and squealing.
The nearby slum
It is not unusual for a young child to stop in their tracks when they see me coming; they point in curiousity and horror at this pale-skinned monster with a mound of fiery hair bearing down upon them. Sometimes they can be charmed with a smile, other times they flee in genuine fear. This never ceases to be hilarious. Over the last couple of weeks, are a trillion small fires daily, burning leaves and rubbish, creating noxious fumes that make for a chokey smokey atmostphere reminiscent of a soft-focus 80s music video.
The quiet back road at the start of my journey to work
Despite this, I love being able to get out in the hustle and bustle of the morning and battle for my own space on the road, which is what I wanted to write about today. Oh, the battle.
The roads here are truly a battleground of hierarchies, with everyone and everything struggling for space and supremacy. Trucks, buses, vans, jeeps, cars, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, cyclists and pedestrians... that is the descending order of importance on the roads here. You will notice that it correlates directly with the size of the vehicles. For example, a truck will happily pull out in front of a tuk-tuk in the knowledge that if there is a crash the truck will be fine. Similarly, tuk-tuks will weave dangerously close to cyclists, and cyclists have near-crashes with pedestrians daily. The long road from my apartment to the turn-off at Mayfair is paved but has no path, so the pedestrians are right in there with the rest of the traffic. I am quickly learning the balance between being assertive in negotiating my own space and also knowing when to JUMP OUT OF THE WAY when a vehicle is hurtling directly towards me.
What is missing from the above-listed chain of command is, of course, the cows. The cows rule the roads here in Bhubaneswar. They slumber happily in the middle of a thronged three-lane road, waking only to flick away some flies or lazily shift their weight in their sleep. All the while, two-, three-, and four-wheelers rumble rapidly and noisily down the roads, swerving carefully to avoid the cows. It is taken for granted that cows lie on roads. Even the busiest, most congested roads will feature cows, who are effortlessly smug in the knowledge that they are safe from all harm. The important thing to remember as a pedestrian is that cows rule, humans do not. Although a tuk-tuk will attempt an impossible manoevre to avoid hitting a cow, it will not afford you the same luxury - so get the hell out of the way!
Ah yes, a perfect place to linger; in the middle of the road
I asked Ravi one day what would happen if a car hit a cow. "Oooh", he said, visibly grimacing at the thought. "First there would be a beating", he mused carefully. "Then, when the bugger is properly taken care of, the police would come and they would also give a beating". Bloody hell. Suddenly the immense care taken to avoid hitting the bovine road users makes perfect sense.
Sleepy road cow
On my walk this morning, a speedy wee tuk-tuk came belting straight for me as I walked at the edge of the road. It was beeping incessantly and the driver was waving like a madman. Once upon a time I would have thought this perhaps meant "get out of my way" or even "be careful, you might get hit". Ha, not at all. This is the technique employed by many tuk-tuk drivers to convince you to jump in the back of their vehicle for a lift. As a general rule I try to avoid getting into the tuk-tuks that try to run me over to get my attention; this rule has served me well so far.
I haven't had the misfortune of witnessing any road accidents yet, touch wood. My American colleague Laura has only been here a matter of weeks and has already seen a motorbike crash as well as a bull and a cow making babies in the middle of the road. I think I had a lucky escape on both counts.
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