An Indian driver’s debut on Singapore roads is thrilling for him and amusing for the observer. I speak from experience.
I was the driver 25 years ago when I first came to Singapore and, when my nephew Krishnan recently visited us on his first holiday outside Indian, I was the observer.
As I drove him from Changi airport, he gushed about the size and smoothness of the road, and the quality (high) and quantity (low) of cars on it.
I smiled and said: “My father used to say, with remarkable authority for a man who had never set foot outside India, ‘If you can drive in India, you can drive anywhere in the world’.”
“I have brought my driving licence with me,” said Krishnan immediately.
I can take a hint as well as the next man. “Do you want to drive?” I asked.
He nodded vigorously and unbuckled his seat belt. I asked him to buckle up again and explained that we could not change places in the middle of the ECP.
He gave me a look in which disappointment and disapproval were so neatly conveyed that I could read his thoughts: If you didn’t want me to drive your car, why did you ask the question?
I understood his scepticism because things are more flexible in India.
Forty years ago, in the Ambassador’s single sofa-like front seat, I remember us effecting such changes without even stopping the car.
Passenger clambers over driver; driver releases foot from accelerator; driver quickly slides into the passenger seat; and Bob’s your uncle. I assured him he’d get to sit at the wheel.
As he did that later in the day, a beatific smile adorned Krishnan’s face. Then he frowned.
“So many lines – so confusing!” he said. “These yellow ones on the side – some single, some double, some going straight, some going zigzag down the road, like my friend Subbu after three drinks.”
I said: “I too was initially confused by the yellow fellows. Let me explain: A single yellow line signals it’s the edge of the road..”
Krishnan butted in: “But I can see it’s the edge of the road: the footpath starts there.”
He was right of course. But in Singapore we like things spelt out super-clearly. That may look like the edge of the road but a yellow line “double confirms” it.
I continued: “A double yellow line means you can drop someone off but cannot park; a zigzag line means you cannot even drop someone; a double zigzag…”
“Let me guess,” he said. “You cannot even contemplate the idea of thinking about perhaps stopping.”
With his curiosity about the yellow lines sated, he asked about the white ones in the middle of the road – why so many and of such variety: dashed, continuous, single, double, and his confusion deepening, half-dashed, half-continuous.
I explained the concept of driving within lanes unless overtaking.
His face took on the look of a forward deprived of the football by a vigilant defender with the goal only 20 metres away. I could empathise.
In India we drive on whichever part of the road we fancy, or more accurately, where there’s space, and if an opportunity for overtaking presents itself (as it sometimes does between 1am and 5am), doing it in any direction – right, left, up or down.
When I told him that on a lane bordered by a continuous white line, he may not change lanes under any circumstances, he asked: “What if I suddenly see a pothole in front of me?” His triumphant tone suggested he had just bowled a vicious delivery to knock off all three of my stumps.
Instead, I hit the ball for a six. “There are no potholes on Singapore roads.”
The man was aghast and, for a few minutes, speechless.
We were moving slowly as Krishnan absorbed all this education. But at this point we came behind a car going even slower. He immediately sounded the horn a few times.
“What are you doing?” I screamed.
“Sounding the horn,” he explained, and honked a few more times for good measure.
I caught his hand and told him that you don’t honk to tell someone you’re behind them, that they use their side mirror to deduce this on their own. Once again, he looked shocked; both man and horn became silent.
Later, when I asked him how he’d enjoyed driving in Singapore, he responded enthusiastically.
But travelling with him had made me reminiscence nostalgically about driving in India, where you compete aggressively for space with pedestrians, cycles, scooters, auto-rickshaws, cars, buses and jumbo trailer trucks on madly busy roads; buy a snack or a novel from a vendor at an intersection; eat and read afore-mentioned snack and book at the next intersection; skirt potholes; miss skirting potholes and experience a theme-park-like exhilaration; and of course, honk.
At signals, the car at the front of the line is sometimes slow on the uptake. In Singapore those behind wait, impatient but silent.
In India, the definition of a split second is the time between the signal turning green and the first horn blasting. That front car is galvanised into motion.
