A walk in the honks


So I have taken a few days off and will get back to work only in the new year. After running a few simple chores, some grocery shopping, paying some LIC premium for my investment proof, etc, I stayed at home pretty much the whole afternoon watching "The Asassination of Richard Nixon". This is the first movie I have seen of Sean Penn. Great performance. Although the movie was quite dark, Sean's performance made it totally worth it!!

On the downside, this was pretty much in line with "The Inheritance of Loss" .... very dark and hopeless, so I needed a dose of endorphins.

To turn the tide all by myself, I walked out after an early dinner, boldly into the streets hoping to walk away from all the darkness and get some yogic-breaths into my existence. I walked for well over an hour and despite my best attempts, could not ignore observations of our great penchant for honking on the streets. Noticed some evolution in the activity. Earlier, it was the pre-emptive honk when a motorist approached an intersection or when he spotted someone walking on a narrow road. Now it is just all out honking for no reason at all and all the time. A couple of taxis honked in the pattern of a repeating siren for the length of the road and then increased it to a cresendo when they approached a turn It's almost like the driver is saying "I'm in a vehicle . ... look Ma, I have no brains...... and everyone please get out of the way".


Can't help but notice that the % of autorickshaws with tampered silencers is now approaching 100%. I once asked an auto driver why he added noise to his vehicle by actually spending money on boring holes in a new silencer in a new autorickshaw - he replied without blinking that he would like to be "heard" when he is on the street, implying some kind of a need for differentiation. He said there was no real fuel efficiency that the bore provided despite my asking. I wonder what the next tactic is going to be. Maybe they should just allow autos to paint themselves any colour that they want, if they give up tampering.

So now, onto solutions:
1. The Tax lever: The Govt of Karnataka provides a tax break to all call-centre and software industry hired vehicles who are prepared to disconnect the horns of all their cabs - owned directly or indirectly. This will definitely lead to some succor since these are the worst offenders. The drivers are young and uneducated and new and are completely oblivious to any road sense or honk-sense... to them honking is as natural and as necessary as stepping on the gas.

2. The road hump: Strategically place road humps at places to reduce speed. Most honking is a warning mechanism to speed up or overtake.

3. Separation: Place barricades on roads in residential areas disallowing vehicles from honking their assess off at 3AM. Trust me .... even if there is absolutely no person, vehicle or ghost on the road, the simple sight of an intersection is sufficient for the Bangalore motorist to sound a siren with no regard for any child, man, woman or elder who may be awakened.

4. Plea: For anyone who reads this and operates a vehicle ... please please stop the honking and educate others. Honking is contagious..... and not honking can be contagious too. Lastly, if you must honk, please do it in the daytime and avoid honking in residential areas at night at all costs.


Few people realise that honking is as useless as the autorickshaw driver's attempt at differentiaton by boring holes into his silencer. There's too much honking for you to be heard.

Sarvajanasukhinabhavantu - may the world be happy.