"So, what car do you drive?"

People often say that if you learn to drive in India, you can drive anywhere in the world. You have to do it yourself to know how true that statement is. Navigating through the city of Bangalore is an experience in itself. All road signs are in Kannada, the local language. And the local people give directions in the local language too! It’s like Micah (a Chinese colleague) on his first day in the USA, or like Josh (an American colleague) on his first day in China. Except that this is like stepping into a foreign country when I drive from New Jersey to Pennsylvania! But I digress; let me get back to the point.

Driving here is like a game of chess. The rickshaws are the black (and yellow) knights, moving in random directions and creating havoc. Bikes and scooters, sometimes even bicycles, are the bishops, since they always move diagonally in traffic. The buses are like maverick queens, running amok in the playground without turn signals or horns. Traffic cops are the rooks, simply standing there in their castle-like booths, watching the game unfold before them. And we are the poor little pawns in this dangerous sport, waiting for impending doom. They are all out to kill us, and there’s nowhere to run. Throw in some interesting diversions like fruit and vegetable carts on the streets, trucks standing in the middle of the highway, red signals and "Do Not Enter" signs that don’t mean anything to anybody between 8:00 PM and 8:00 AM, and you’ve got yourself a near-death experience every time you venture outside the comfort of your home.

So I decided to buy the cheapest, smallest used car until I get used to the chaos, or end up wrecking it really bad, and then venture a little more boldly into buying a new one. My initial thoughts of buying a bike vanished as soon as I took a whiff of the fresh morning air, full of acrid exhaust smoke and dust kicked up by the bus in front of me. Nothing but a 1999 Maruti-800 (a Geo Metro, only smaller and without power steering, is the closest resemblance) will do for me, and I will drive it to its limit of 60 km/h.

Looking at the sprawling city that is Bangalore and realizing that it is impossible to navigate through it without some guidelines; I went and bought a city map. So if you see a lost guy in the middle of a busy traffic intersection fumbling with a map trying to figure out which direction is north, think of me and have some pity on him. I feel like a lost bee in the middle of a beehive, looking at a gazillion honeycombs at once and trying to find his home in the maze. One good thing here is that you can make a U-turn pretty much anywhere you wish, so getting back on track is easy. Travel times are horrendous because of the traffic. It’s like a perpetual rush hour in the city. It takes me 45 minutes to travel 15 kilometers to work everyday.