Monday, August 30, 2010

Why do Motorist keep honking in Bombay

Recently I had the privilege of visiting India for a family reunion and I was excited going to India. Our flight landed in Bombay around 11p.m. It was a long walk from the exit of the airplane to the immigration chanel. We got all our bags and proceeded to the exit of the airport and were looking forward to our vacation in India.

Our first experience was ear shattering, car honking, noise pollution everywhere. At Bombay Airport they made a nice parking lot. My cousin's car was parked on the second floor. We took the elevator and went to the second floor. As soon as we got out of the elevator, we could hear nothing except car honking. Its an enclosed parking lot and imagine every car honking one after another and the sound resonating within the building and piercing our ears. Its like where did we come and the question to my cousin was why are they honking. The answer I got was this is Bombay and get used to it.

What I saw was all cars lined up one after another and honking at each other. I took the trouble of going forward closing my ears and seeing what was the reason for this people honking. There was a car which was broken down and the poor guy was trying to push his car with someone's help and the people at the back with no clue as to what's happening were just enjoying the sound or getting the pleasure of honking at the other person.

If Bombay RTO wants to make some money, they should start slapping huge fines on people for honking, I promise they will be the richest non profit organization in the world. The people in Bombay are so used to honking, I guess even if there is no one in front of them they will honk coz they just like to hear the sound of honking....