The Unofficial Soundtrack of Indian Roads

Horn OK Please

                                                                                                      - Anupama S Mani

I stopped driving several years ago and, shamelessly embraced permanent passenger status. A passenger does not have to focus solely on the road. I am free to look— at activities in other vehicles, two-wheelers trying to snake through impossible gaps, autorickshaws sticking their snouts into tiny spaces, lethargic traffic policemen, and billboards still announcing last year's grand inauguration of a jewellery shop.

Quite unexpectedly, I acquired a new hobby—listening to India's largest free musical performance where scooters play the flute, cars attempt the trumpet, autorickshaws believe they are percussionists and trucks behave like overenthusiastic brass bands.

I listen to the symphony —pip-pip-pip-pip of scooters, beep-beep-beeeep of motorcycles, paupon-paupon-paupon-paupon of autorickshaws, pain-pain-pain-paaaaaaain of cars, with occasional ghoooooong of a state roadways bus, accompanying the orchestra. I have yet to recognize correctly the sirens of police or VIP vehicles and ambulances, before qualifying for a diploma in identifying car brands from the sounds of their horns.

State and national highways offer a bigger variety of tuned music. Just as a truck appears in the rearview mirror, it starts blaring pun-pun-pin-pinaaaaaa like a long alaap (opening of a raga in North Indian classical music). And as it zips past our vehicle, I shrink into my seat as if that would save me in case the iron box I am ensconced in, folds under the impact.

The ‘main Jat yamla pagla deewana’ tuned loud musical horn of a truck that often passes through the road a little farther from our residential complex, has been my morning alarm for some years now. 

We Indians consider exercising others’ aural nerves as a community test. Loud phone conversations, blaring loud speakers in weddings and pujas, screeching music in houses and cars, high volume in noise is our unacknowledged behavioral symbol. Horns in vehicles are no exception.

In the cacophonic, chaotic crowd of road traffic, horns are no longer warning devices. They are emotional support systems for drivers.

They enable the drivers—to celebrate an empty stretch of road, mourn a red light, object to a cyclist’s existence, express philosophical disagreement with pedestrians or simply because the heel of the palm happened to be resting on the horn.

Besides, honks do not merely navigate vehicles: they startle old people, warn pedestrians or carts of the coming splash, wake up dozing dogs, encourage reluctant cows to reconsider their life choices and occasionally test whether the horn itself is still working.

Horn-honking is our non-verbal form of communication.

In the sleepy afternoon or in the dead of the night, how do you tell someone you have arrived under their building? Going upstairs is a tiresome exercise. Ringing the doorbell is far too private. A prolonged blast from the horn announces your arrival to three apartment blocks, six stray dogs and the snoozing night guard.

The ideal scenario, at least according to some young drivers— the road is empty at night-no traffic, no cops, and you are flying your dad’s one crore mechanical beast, you jack up not just the volume of the music, but for the benefit of sleeping ordinary folks, drum your fingers on the horn with glee and sing along.

The red light is perhaps the greatest concert venue of all. The signal has been red for exactly half a second when someone close to the end of this congestion, suddenly discovers that his horn has magical properties. He honks, others reply perhaps because decency demands saying hello back. He honks again, longer to make his point clear. The cars, two-wheelers, autorickshaws and an occasional bus could not possibly have vanished into thin air, but optimism is a national virtue.

Busy roads, empty roads, gullies in neighbourhoods, no honking zones, schools, hospitals, religious places, we are impartial, we can honk anywhere. It is just the relation between our free hands and the small disc right in the middle of the steering wheel. The hope is—the louder the horn, the easier it is to move on the road.

If the law allows you to install it, it expects you to use it too, no?

I have been so happy in this horn music that I did not even know there is any legality involved to cut the noise.

I read the National Green Tribunal had stipulated that honking of horns between 10.00 p.m. to 6.00 a.m. is a punishable offence. Who even knows that?

It is not only the traffic cops or the RTO, in case of accidents, the insurance company can also reject a claim if the vehicle has illegal modifications. I thought the insurance companies worked on dents and squashed chassis!

Foreigners cannot understand it. They go outdoors to enjoy the chirping birds in a forest, dolphin clicks in zoo ponds, cats purring on rooftops, or bats’ echolocation in caves. Their roads are monotonous, traffic indicated in linear lanes, the silence punctuated only by the purring of the cars, the whirring dragging noise of the 16-wheelers. They believe a horn is reserved for genuine emergencies. Honk a horn, and everyone assumes danger.

On the contrary, we Indians are champions at this sophisticated, poetic, or even downright desperate acoustic road language. One sharp toot merely means, “I exist.” Three long blasts mean, “I still exist”.

Rains are the time for national horn choir. When the traffic resembles a haphazard annual migration of mechanical animals and the tar stretch ahead has turned into a tributary of the muddy Ganga, it is morally right to blare your horn.

Honk your horn and motivate two-wheeler riders packed like stuffed plastic bags hunched on tyres to prevent from getting wet, or other machines creeping gingerly on the roads. “Look life is all about making the effort. I am sailing blindly, if your exhaust pipe chokes on municipal failures, put your hand on the steering wheel, tune into the rhythm of the city, and add your own unique beep to the national monsoon choir.”

The national anthem may have 52 seconds, but the unofficial soundtrack of India has no fixed duration. It begins with the morning truck on the main artery road and ends only when the last driver finally discovers that the horn is not connected to the accelerator.

P.S. — If this made you smile, please feel free to pass it on to someone who might smile too.