A brief, but interesting
cultural encounter…
I was riding in traffic today, starting and stopping,
as Mumbai traffic always does.
As we stopped at one intersection, I heard a brief,
and here a bit unusual, screech of a car tire,
immediately outside my window.
As is natural when you hear such a nearby screech,
I glanced immediately at the driver of the car. As I did so,
I noticed another driver, in a little auto-rickshaw just opposite me,
looking back at the same offending driver, with exactly same look I had…
…a look which translates literally, in this sudden, cross-cultural moment
as “hey asshole, slow down.”
Just as suddenly as we had glanced at the screeching driver,
I and the auto-rickshaw driver saw each other.
There, 2 meters between us, even though we were miles apart
culturally, economically, linguistically,
we each knew precisely what the other had in his mind,
and we instantly grinned quite big at one another.
A horn honked, the traffic moved, and the moment passed.
Passed for everyone else, but not for me, and maybe not for him.
Y’all drive careful out there !
-M
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Photo by Mark W. Laughlin
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This is not the driver from this morning.
This is another fellow, a couple of trips ago,
who saw me, again in traffic, shooting photos
in his general direction from the car.
Instead of giving me a look like "who are you?",
or "what are you looking at?", he smiled,
and motioned for me to take his photo,
which I quickly did.
People can be pretty friendly,
if you give them the chance.
-M
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