The next time you’re driving watch out for the road crossers

I used to ride a bicycle to work during COVID, but the electric buses creep up on you with such deafening silence, I’ve nearly been killed a couple of times. So now, I just drive everywhere. And when I drive with my daughters and their cousins, there is always banter about the choice of music that should be played. I try to introduce the classics to them, while they want me to listen to Blackpink, Taylor Swift and Harry Styles. “Have you ever heard of the Beatles?” I asked them, putting on ‘Hey Jude’. One of the six children in the backseat perked up. “Oh yes – it’s what old people listen to!” she retorted, while the rest of them yelled “Roasted!” in unison. In retaliation, I made them listen to Jagjit Singh’s ghazals on the way back. They may have roasted me, but I let them simmer on a slow burning flame.

Driving in Mumbai not only allows you to experience the entire spectrum of emotions the human heart is capable of fathoming but also unleashes distinct categories of ‘road crossers’ that one has the pleasure or pain of encountering. They are their own traffic signal. They have no regard for anyone around. I’m sure you’ve met all seven of them but let me give you a formal introduction.

The Hand Raiser

These are people whose brain sends them a random signal to cross the road irrespective of where they are standing. It’s often in the midst of moving traffic and nowhere close to a traffic light. The brain also simultaneously alerts the hand to be raised, as if to hail Hitler, and it remains upright until its owner has successfully completed their journey to the other side of the road. Note that there won’t be any eye contact involved. These individuals don’t care about the speed of the oncoming traffic or how many people swerve or screech to protect their life; their hand is their personalised stop sign.

The Cell Phone User

They cross the road with their head buried in their phone or while speaking on it. They belong to an alternate universe oblivious of anything known as vehicles around them. They walk around the city as if they are in a matrix playing Packman on a galactic scale. They seamlessly bump into fellow cell phone users and two or four wheelers and carry on as if nothing ever happened. They might be transiently alerted by a loud horn, but after looking up briefly and realising they are still alive, they plunge themselves back into their phone. I sometimes wish the bonnet of my car would automatically open and gobble them up to make this Packman seem a little more real.

The Tobacco Mixer

You need to keenly look out for this type. These guys must have such a busy schedule that they decided to pour out the 3-4 ingredients that go into mixing tobacco into their palms, grinding their thumb against it and placing it into a pocket of their mouth, all while crossing the road, often at a traffic light. In those who have completed this process, you are sometimes fortunate to witness the release of contents in the form of a volcanic eruption from their mouths right in front of your car. Jai Maharashtra.

The Sprinter

This is an unusual kind of road crosser. You can spot them from a distance and can register that they are waiting to cross the road. But they are extremely still. Their decision-making skills seemed to have been hacked by the Hand Raiser. You drive on with the understanding that they won’t attempt to cross until you pass, but they suddenly decide to do so when your car is one foot away from their body. They sprint across the road like a gazelle being chased by a lion in the savannah and you are forced to screech to a halt, at the mercy of being rear-ended by whoever is behind. Whether you suffer a whiplash is immaterial; the gazelle has disappeared into the bushes.

The Baby Dragger

These are parents accompanied by children who inevitably refuse to cross the road when the pedestrian light turns green. These children are either too heavy to be carried or too light to cross on their own. When it’s time to cross the road, the first few seconds are spent in cajoling and requesting the child, the next few are spent threatening it, and when only ten seconds remain and it’s do or die, the parent loses all patience and the poor baby is dragged with an outstretched arm – like airport luggage that you can’t carry or push and there is no trolley around. To know if you were dragged as a child, stretch out both arms in front of you and check if one of them is slightly longer. You really fell for it, didn’t you?

The Undecided

These are perpetually confused about whether they should cross or not. They take two steps forward and four steps back. They are uncertain of their ability to dodge ongoing traffic. They stop and move in random patterns, causing all the cars around them to do the same. And after all that chaos, they most often end up on the same side of the road. They most probably simply want to add some spice to the lives of those who are sitting stuck and bored in traffic. For their own sake, they should hold hands with the Sprinter.

The Vendor

The real intention of these people is never to cross the road at all but sell you stuff like singh-chana at a signal or in the midst of briskly moving traffic on the Western Express Highway. The skill with which they do it, without disrupting traffic and allowing for buying, selling, and bargaining at 25 kmph is only possible in this part of the world. They are prolific road crossers who can not only traverse four lanes of a moving expressway but make a business out it.

All of us need to get somewhere every day, and we each have our own way of doing so, whether it’s by driving or walking. We are fortunate to live in a maximum city where we can derive joy from the most minimum of pleasures, like watching how one chooses to cross a road and not having run over anyone yet. For that, I am grateful.

Also, thank God for Jagjit Singh.